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The history of this, the most infamous of British locomotives, is shrouded in secrecy. This probably to save official embarrassment... Oliver Vaughn Bulleid Snell was the last CME of the Southern Railway and trained under Sir Nigel Greasley and designed some very nice and functional rolling stock -but like Francis Webb everything else is forgotten under the evil shadow of the one glaring mistake. With Webb it was the compound locomotive, with "OVB" it was Leader.

The original authorisation to build a new class of tank locomotive was given by Sir Eustace Missendon who was then Head of Southern Railways prior to the Nationalisation. What he authorised -was the drawing below:

See Picture 1.

What came out of the workshops at Brighton was this:

See Picture 2.

The drawing shown in Picture 1 is fairly reasonable extension of a "Merchant Navy" type Southern Railways locomotive. Which would have had the unique Bulleid chain driven valve system with three internal cylinders acting on the central drive axle and power transferred to the other axles via con-rods, Boxpok wheels et al. In this it is a simple Kitson Meyer type of arrangement and quite frankly should be nothing out of the ordinary...

How Bulleid got from the drawing of a stretched Merchant Navy to the dieselesque locomotive in Picture 2 is a "known unknown". Gone are the con-rods we now have chains, the three internal cylinders remain as does the chain driven valve gear...

If I am to build this locomotive, then it would have to be as the original drawing as authorised by Missendon.

What amazes me is the fact that Riddles let Bulleid get so far off the beaten track with the sheer excesses that this locomotive entailed. Riddles also insisted that the locomotive be given exhaustive dynamometer trials and tests.