Oils leaks and breakages. This is how the Bulleid chain gear tends to be summarised, a dead end that should never have been entered, wayward genius, etc., etc.. Yet there was a lot more to it than that. When O.V.S. Bulleid came to devise the gear he drew on chastening experiences from the 1930s, when drivers spent'an inordinate time in pits (and in the bowels of locomotives) oiling inside gear in conditions that were invariably appalling. However it might have looked from the post-war standpoint of the 1950s, he (very reasonably) saw the desirability of enclosed, and therefore self-oiling, inside motion. Who wouldn't, after all? There would be the added advantage of protecting working parts from dirt and reducing the need for attention between works visits. This, by any measure, made sense, though Bulleid was far from blind to the access problems that would have to be faced when failure did occur. Such failures did of course take place, and were often expensive and awkward to cure but their extent and seriousness has possibly come to be overstated; it mustn't be forgotten of course, that all manner of conventional valve gear, in use on all sorts of lines, still failed, often with spectacularly expensive results. Time for a sober assessment BRILL is delighted that its 'Save That Negative' campaign has proved so successful. It has brought to light a number of collections of railway and other transport photographic negatives that were gathering dust as their owners were unsure what best to do for them. Worse, collections that were slowly deteriorating perhaps were lost forever. However, it is one thing saving collections from obscurity but quite another caring for them properly and allowing our nation of transport enthusiasts to share the delights they contain. To do this requires commitment and complete dedication to the task. Archivist, Barry Hoper (trading as the B. R Hoper Collection) undoubtedly has both commitment and dedication but the one other essential ingredient he lacked was Time'! As a full-time serving officer in the Royal Air Force (and the father of an active 3 year-old!) his time was in huge demand from all quarters and there was not enough to dedicate to the archive. As an indication of his immense devotion and enthusiasm to the task, Barry has resigned his commission with the Royal Air Force in order to set up a business that will truly afford our precious railway and other transport photographic heritage a safe place in history. In future, the archive will be known as The Transport Treasury' which already contains jewels from the cameras of John Robertson, Willie Hermiston, A. G. Ellis, Jimmy Paterson, J. T. Rutherford, J. A. Whaley, J. G. Walmsley, Alee Swain, Derek Potton, Michael Bland, Bryan Wilson, D. M. Alexander. Jack Kirke and Canon Alec George. Further collections are coming in and eventually all of them will be available to our readers. The new service will provide: photographs to order from lists; postcard approval service; photographic printing service from customers' own negatives; and 'wants lists'. Most importantly, The Transport Treasury will provide a safe haven for those negatives that you would like to see in print. Negatives can be gifted, loaned or sold to The Transport Treasury. The first collection will be on offer in November and will be that of Alee Swain. More information will be published in BRILL in due course.