The strange Steam Locomotive that was built like a Diesel - SR Leader Class

I used to think it was a steam turbine locomotive

This reminds me of an engine built by GE in the 1930's. Two steam turbine locomotives that look like diesels

Have you done a video on the GT3 gas turbine locomotive built by English Electric?

Thank you for an interesting look at one of Bulleid’s designs. At Tech school I re-drew many SR loco plans for Mr GJ Click, one of the SR engineers, who then worked at the Bexley Technical School. He had many interesting stories about strange locomotives, particularly the Irish turf burner. Apparently, the chain drives on the bogies of the Leader were very troublesome. Great looking engine despite the problems.

It's not clear to me, but hadn't it been better if this locomotive used an automatic feeding system as some articulated american locomotives also used? Ex the 3900 and 4000 articulated series of the UP, they were already running desings when this locomotive was on the sketch board. This to improve the conditions of the fireman so he could be in the same cabin as the engineer and just periodically go check the fire on the firebox.

If the Bulleid Leader Classes were successful, they would have been able to extend the life of steam traction on British Railways

This engine could have been quite a good diesel

It's main fault is that it was over-engineered.

Why does this look scary

Imagine if a replica was built with the design flaws fixed

Externally, that locomotive looks like deep-level tube stock on stilts.

RGJarvis said the Leader concept was sound. Given UK reliance on home mined coal, it says little for the rest of the CME's team that they did not possess the sense or talent to see it through to production or initiate a new proof of concept using lessons gleaned from the original design. Riddles and co went on to design and build an unexceptional bunch of engines that were backward in concept (riveted copper fireboxes, riveted boiler barrel, no turbocharger, etc) that it is embarrassing to think about it 😢

a shame; perhaps trying to test every possible innovation in one locomotive was a mistake but maybe ovb had no choice, and was only allowed one experimental vehicle.

without trying the double-ended concept, perhaps leader would have been much more pleasant for the fireman and unions would have been significantly more supportive of a new line of engineering which maintained the need for a fireman at all!

So, ToT covered a unique steam locomotive built like a diesel. Now let's see him go in the opposite direction and review the GT-3, a gas-turbine diesel locomotive built to look like a steam engine.

If there was an SR Leader Class character in "Thomas the Tank Engine," then it would also be ousted by the Diesels as well as Steamies

It’s kinda sad that now a days we wouldn’t even attempt to build something like this. Because computers can compute so much of what we would have to guess at, so many concepts are just left in the drawing phases of development.

From the front it looks like a 1938 Tube Stock driving car on big wheels.

Should stuck with steam turbine electric power like the Soviets did.

So - is this basically a Double Fiarlie in a box?

You sound identical to The Spiffing Brit. Right down to the intonations. Have you got a new side gig Spiff?

The Southern Pacific in the US had an oil burning cab first class of steam locomotives. Everything controlled by the engineer (driver) remotely from the cab. There is one in the Sacramento museum.

If BR/Southern Railway had gone for oil not coal (I understand UK coal vs oil in 1949) but it may had worked!

Crazy!

The Edsel of British locomotive design.

What are those white circles on the cab? They look like clocks! And diesels and steames and electric have those

It was introduced at a time when many steam locos were converted to run on Bunker C oil. Had it been converted to such a system then the fireman could have been in the cab with the driver using remote controls. It was built a few years too early. There was also talk a few years ago of using steam engines burning coal dust in a liquid sand firebox.
Further tests could have been carried out but BR was being run by ex-LMS executives leaving Robin Riddles and ES Cox in charge of future design. All BR steam classes were basically updated LMS designs.

I couldn't distract myself from the fact TRASH MACHINE was playing all along the explanation about this...machine...
What a good choice of a soundtrack, sir. Trash machine for trash machines xD

The Q1's could haven been easy to maintain... except the front!

How do you maintain the thing with a cover on it?? It's like a motor scooter, a total pita to work on.

Not only is this video entertaining, it's informative as well! Thank you for creating, uploading and sharing!!

That’s like the AMC Pacer of locomotives.
How the hell did that make it of the drawing board 😂

Not many people know this, but during testing of this loco Bulleid's assistant engineer - John Click - wanted to see how the bogie and components were performing at speed (no go-pro cameras back then) so he had a seat welded into the bogie and sat in and rode it at up to 60mph! Terrifying I would think!! Health & Safety wasn't an issue then! Sounds like an unbelievable story, but John Click was my engineering teacher at school in the 1970s and he personally told me this! I never knew what Mr Bulleid thought about this, and perhaps he was never told!!

Hideous 😳😳🤮🤮🤮🤮

Not mentioned: probably ALL steam locomotives were very INEFFICIENT.

Calling it a "Chinese Laundry" is genius, hillarious, and kinda offensive. I loved it

tolong sediakan teks bahasa Indonesia

It’s a /STEAM boiler/ not a /steam BOILER/. It’s a specific boiler that boils / produces steam.

Robot voice?

Thomas COULD have met this engine, due to the fact that it’s win Brighton lol

Very interesting.

By 1955 The Deltic Desiel engine was introduced,

Bulleid was trying to react to the move to diesel. At that time oil was an import while coal was local making Britain self sufficient. Then politics moved in with the Aden oil crisis.

I know it's a bit too late but iam going to say it anyway what is the miners silver ghost 41?

Why is it that I look at this, and I just can't help thinking it was meant to run on the London Underground?... 🚂🚇🙃

Fascinating. I wonder if it could have been rebuilt to run on oil. That might have eliminated quite a few of the flaws.

What is 50 degrees celsius in regular? I don't speak metric.
According to google: (50°C × 9/5) + 32 = 122°F.
That's complicated. Why can't you just give both?
Who's gonna pause the video to do that conversion math?

i get they were going for a modern, sleek design, but why would they bother covering the boiler... and for that matter, why offset it instead of having smaller walkways around both sides? seems this was a scifi design, not an engineering one.

The designer thought out-of-the-box. I tip my hat to him. I wonder if results would have been better it it used oil instead of coal.

I'm simply gobsmacked that they would try to build a coal fired locomotive with the economy of coal and the ease-of-use of diesel and NOT include an automatic stoker.

Nice bit of railway history. Thank you for sharing.