Hello all can anyone give me info on the leyland 900 series engine ? Where they any good and what were they fitted in ? Were they an Albion engine badged by leyland or were they leylands own design ? There was one on ebay this week and I have never seen one before
Thanks in advance Chris
I believe that the Leyland 900 engine was originally an Albion design, but never put into production by them. It was a tank engine and large industrial engine. Quite a rare thing.
It seems that a few Albions found their way into Buffalos, which were delivered to Spain, Israel and Australia. The story of it is a fascinating branch of motor industry history, well told by the Oz lorrymen:
hcvc.com.au/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1256484174/0
camionesclasicos.com/FORO/index.php
camionesclasicos.com/FORO/se … mit=Buscar
The Spanish vehicles look fabulous- the styling, to my eye, would grace any aristocrat’s motor car.
Just having done a speed-read of the Aussie forum I had an inkling that the Leyland 900 was also a railcar engine, and the Aussies confirm that. I think that Pat Kennet mantions this engine in his World Trucks Series volume about Leyland (I no longer have a copy). If I remember correctly Leyland inherited the design and development of this engine when they took over Albion in the early 1950s. It is highly likely that some export market engines were badged as Albions in countries where Albion was a popular marque. (As it was in Australia)
I think this engine was fitted into the Scammell Super Constructor as it was certainly an Albion engine in it and we used to have regular problems with the liners going porous, it is nearly 50 years ago now and I was never intelligent enough to know the finer details of engines as I just used steer them in a reasonable manner.
cheers Johnnie 
Yep Albion 900’s were fitted to boneted Leyland Buffalo’s there were a handfull here in NZ. The Spannish Buff’s look fantastic.
They were a big thumper at 17 liters,but only put out about 240 horse.
I have also been told they were fitted to rail cars,apparently there were fifty that came here and they had a 900 at each end,so 100 motors.
They look like a huge Leyland 680 with the same style aluminium rocker covers.
Just been reading a book by Mr RNH Hardy about his railway career and he mentions the Leyland /Albion 900 .It was fitted in railcars and gave trouble with the liners and headgaskets . Apparently the foreman fitter at Lincoln worked out a cure for the problems which Leyland used and made it a lot more reliable . It was then called the 903 in the railcars . Regards Geoff
Thanks for the information do far, a rare engine then
Chris
If I remember rightly during the late 60s Cicely Commercials of Blackburn bought an ex army Albion 6 wheel wrecker with a great lump under the bonnet ,what a pig to drive you had to stand up in the cab to steer it but what a low geared yoke it was.It didn’t stay long as with a top speed under 40mph and ridiculous fuel consumption it couldn’t earn its keep. 
Yes Jamie, had a bo-peep in the engine bay of one back in the 60’s and a 680 on steroids was my opinion too.
Biggest universals I’d ever come across and massive thickness to the chassis rails.
A very heavy tare truck which sat in the sales yard for years with the only potential customer a heavy wreck recovery company.
With such low highway speed it wasn’t really much use for that purpose, would have taken an age to reach a distant crash site.
Hey, very few were used here for heavy haulage, and never known one in a Leyland here 0.900 15 liter ■■?
A bit the same as Scania’s 8 in line.
Eric,
This is the Scammell Super Constructor 6x6 originally fitted with the big Albion engine. I have borrowed this photo from Oily’s thread ( pictures past and present )
cheers Johnnie
Hey Johnnie, wasn’t that a Leyland design, but Albion or was it so called because of the building at Albion ■■?
Eric,
tiptop495:
Hey Johnnie, wasn’t that a Leyland design, but Albion or was it so called because of the building at Albion ■■?
Eric,
It had Albion stamped on the engine and it was stripped down a few times it was there while I was there so that would be two and half to three years before being replaced by a junior contractor. Sunters and Siddle C. Cook also had them but I think they might have had a different engine in theirs
cheers Johnnie
Hi. In the book “Albion of Scotstoun” (that’s as near as you’ll get to an official history, backed up by Albion records), there’s a list of every engine type built. The only entry for the 900 series engine quotes “type EN901, 6cyl, horizontal, 200hp, 15.2litre. Used in Albion model HD175 (which was a heavy six wheeled bus chassis for South Africa.) Note: developed from Leyland 900 design.” Elsewhere in the book there’s a picture of a BR railcar captioned " British Railways was one of the first customers for the horizontal version of the EN900 engine. In this application it was designated EN901H6." and “The EN900 15.2 litre engine was based on an original Leyland design, Leyland built the prototype but Albion did most of the development work on the block, liners and head gaskets.” There’s another picture of a boat with a marine version of the 900, the engine was marketed by a marine engineers as the Ajax Argosy. Elsewhere in the book is says that the “large EN900 engine of 1956 was built primarily for non-automotive uses, it’s two main uses being for railcar and marine.” Somewhere else again there’s a picture of the aforementioned South African bus captioned “the EN900 engine was built at Scotstoun to a basic Leyland design but with input from both Albion and Leyland engineers. No other Albion chassis was fitted with the engine, although it was used in vertical form in the Scammell Super Constructor and Leyland Buffalo.”
Bernard