Operational Assessment
Despite the high expectations attached to the Leader, it was not the motive power revolution that Bulleid intended it to be. No part of the Leader design was perpetuated on the British Railways Standard class locomotives by Robert Riddles, nor did it find favour internationally, with the Garratt articulated locomotives providing a similar function for less maintenance. The whole concept was quietly dropped in 1951 after Bulleid left British Railways to become Chief Mechanical Engineer of Córas Iompair Éireann (where he produced CIÉ No. CC1, a peat-burning locomotive to a similar design) and all five were scrapped. The culmination of the project was a £178,865 5s 0d (£4,567,458 as of 2013) bill for the taxpayer though, when the press reported the story as late as 1953, it was claimed that £500,000 (£12,767,873 as of 2013) was wasted on the project. R. G. Jarvis, who was placed in charge of the project after Bulleid's departure, insisted that the locomotive required an entire re-design to solve the problems of the original concept.
No members of the Leader class survived the 1950s and only the numberplates of No. 36001 and No. 36002 are known to exist. The numberplate for No. 36001 is located in the National Railway Museum, although a locomotive builder's plate intended for the locomotive, but never fitted in service, was sold at auction in 2008. The Leader was a bold attempt at pushing back the boundaries of contemporary steam locomotive design and, if successful, would have prolonged the life of steam on Britain's Railways.
Read more about this topic: SR Leader Class
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