Oliver Bulleid

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Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid (born September 19, 1882 in Invercargill , † April 25, 1970 in Malta ) was a British railway and mechanical engineer, who was chief mechanical engineer (CME) of the company Southern Railway from 1937 until shortly after Nationalization in 1948 as well as making a name for it with the development of numerous well-known locomotives.

Life

He was born on the southern tip of New Zealand to William Bulleid and his wife Marian Pugh, who were British immigrants. After his father's death in 1889, Bulleid and his mother returned to Llanfyllin in Wales , where the family had lived. After attending the local primary school, he attended Spa College in Bridge of Allan in Stirlingshire / Scotland from September 1893 . From 1896 he completed a technical training in Accrington , Lancashire , which he finished in 1901, at the age of 18, at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and immediately afterwards began as an apprentice to the Great Northern Railway (GNR). Henry Ivatt was the technical director at the time . After a four-year apprenticeship, he was taken on as an assistant and a year later he was plant manager.

Locomotive 21C1 35001 of the Merchant Navy Class from 1941

In 1908 he left the company to find a new challenge as a test engineer at Westinghouse Electric in Paris . Shortly afterwards, he became the manager's assistant and chief draftsman. In the same year he married Marjorie Ivatt, the youngest daughter of his former boss. He then worked for a short time for the Ministry of Commerce, followed in 1910 by organizing exhibitions in Brussels , Paris and Turin . During this time he traveled extensively in Europe, including a trip to Belgium with Gresley, Stanier and Hawksworth to see a meter-gauge bogie locomotive. In December 1912 he returned to GNR as the personal assistant to Nigel Gresley , the new chief engineer who was its chief for the next six years. During the First World War , Bulleid was drafted and assigned to the rail traffic department. He achieved the rank of major . After the war, Bulleid became head of wagon and carriage construction at GNR.

job

Q1 locomotive in Horsted Keynes . Designed by Oliver Bulleid for the Southern Railway during World War II

After the Railways Act 1921 came into force , Bulleid was again assistant to Gresley on the London and North Eastern Railway , who also worked as the new company's Chief Mechanical Engineer (CME). Over the next 15 years, the two developed a number of new locomotive types, including the successful Pacific LNER class A4 locomotives .

In 1937, Bulleid took over the post of CME on the Southern Railway (SR) with a salary of £ 3,000  after his predecessor Richard Edward Lloyd Maunsell retired. His first own contribution to the Southern Railway was the construction of three 350 hp three-axle diesel-electric shunting locomotives , which Maunsell had initiated the previous year. First, three of these were built at SR's own Ashford railway works , which proved to be suitable and should be supplemented by a later order of eight more. Because of the outbreak of the Second World War , the order was canceled again. In 1949 and 1952 another 26 of the modified version of these locomotives were built. It was later referred to as BR Class 12 .

The introduction of the Pacific locomotives of the Merchant Navy class , which were named after shipping companies , was of particular importance in British rail traffic . In addition to a modern, streamlined exterior fairing, these also had a number of interior improvements that should make them successful. From 1941 a total of 30 of these locomotives were built, followed by 110 examples of a lighter variant, the West Country or Battle of Britain class . Another important type of locomotive were the Q1 freight train locomotives with the 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, 40 of which were built from 1942 onwards and whose unusual design took account of the war-related shortage of materials and personnel ("austerity design").

The first electric locomotive type of the Southern Railway

In addition to his constructive work, Bulleid also played an important role in the electrification of the route of the SR, which had the largest electrified network in Great Britain before the Second World War. Between 1941 and 1945 he developed the design of two electric locomotives , the CC1 and CC2, with an output of 1100 kW and a top speed of 121 km / h, which were approved for 1000-t freight trains and 750-t passenger trains , later than BR class 70 designated. He also developed one of the few British biplane - railcars for the chronically congested commuter trains to London, the SR-Class 4DD , which was electrically powered through a side track. Because of the narrow tunnel profile , such a construction was practically impossible. Ultimately, the cars were not accepted by the passengers and were parked again after only two prototypes had been built and a few years of service. A British newspaper denigrated it as "Sardine Special".

Model of the SR Leader class .

Before the nationalization of the railway in 1949, Bulleid developed the last steam locomotive for the SR, the Leader class . The appearance was reminiscent of a diesel locomotive with the end cabs, which are unusual for a steam locomotive . The drive took place using two three-axle bogies, each with three cylinders. The axles of each bogie were linked by chains . After Bulleid left the company, the further development of this type was discontinued and only one of the five locomotives that had been started was completed.

At the age of 67, Bulleid moved to the Irish state railway company Córas Iompair Éireann . There he was also employed as a CME until his retirement and ensured a rapid changeover from steam to diesel technology. In the years that followed, over 100 machines were purchased. His attempt to introduce peat combustion in locomotives failed - the Turf Burner remained a one-off, but in many ways resembled the Leader class. At the age of seventy-four, he retired in 1958, and then held lectures as an honorary professor at the University of Bath until 1967 .

A fire destroyed his belongings in Exmouth on June 2, 1967 , which caused him to break the bridges and relocate his retirement home to Malta , where he, after a short stay in Gibraltar in 1968, at the age of 87 on April 25 1970 died.

Since 1966 the Bulleid Society Ltd. keep the memory of Oliver Bulleid alive. The organization was originally founded to rescue Bulleid locomotives threatened with scrapping. A large number of restorations have now been carried out.

Web links

Commons : Locomotive types by Oliver Bulleid  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Sean Day-Lewis: Bulleid, Last Giant of Steam. Published by George Allen & Unwin, London 1964.
  • Michael Rutherford: OVS Bulleid and his work - a bibliographic survey. In: Railway Reflections. No. 32, 1997, pp. 445-451.

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Kevin P. Jones: Oliver Vaughan Snell Bulleid . In: SteamIndex .
  2. ^ DL Bradley: Locomotives of the Southern Railway. Railway Correspondence and Travel Society, 1975, ISBN 0-901115-30-4 , pp. 51-53.
  3. bulleidsociety.org