The `Leader’ class of steam locomotive, designed by Oliver Bullied, was one of the most controversial projects of the steam era. To this day it remains a great source of debate. Would it have taken the steam locomotive to new levels of sophistication and efficiency, or was it simply a white elephant that should never have been countenanced or financed?
Seventy years after the last examples of these ill-fated locomotives were scrapped, Kevin Robertson has produced an expanded and updated edition of his definitive work on the subject. Kevin has continued his research into the ‘Leader’ class and unearthed a great deal of new material from a variety of sources which he presents here for the first time.
New light is shed on the demise of the class and new sources have been used that add greatly to our understanding of how the project was managed. The Leader Locomotive: Bullied’s Great Experiment contains extensive information and many archive photographs. Hardback. 304 pages.