Large Scale Central

Garratt locos

Model Photography
#1

I know that Garratt type locos were not used in north America, but here in Australia they were popular. So I assume that H.W. Garratt licensed his patent to my Sandstone and Termite Railway before he concluded his arrangement with Beyer, Peacock & Co. The CME of the S&TR has designed two different types and naturally enough named them after himself -the Hunter-Garratts.
The S&TR now has two of these brilliant machines to cover the bulk of its freight workings.

My smaller (red) Garratt is based on two Bachmann 2-4-2 tank locos. The 2 motors are wired in series to give slow running with the 12V LiPo battery. It has twin sound systems.

My big blue Garratt is made from 2 Bachmann Big Haulers, cut down to 2-6-0 types. The front motor block is the original Big Hauler I bought in 1994. It has 6000mAh of LiPo batteries and twin sound systems.

Recently I decided that an ‘all Garratt’ day would be an interesting change to our normal running day. So 2 mates bought their Garratts around too. All 4 locos are scratchbuilt, with battery and 2.4 GHz radio control.

Here’s the link to the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMB6Vu2PpDU

There first part of the video is done using MS Photostory3 for panning around stills.

#2

Those look really nice!..What kind of track are they running on?. Did you do a build log?. It would be interesting to see how you built them
Travis

#3

Just watched the video…Really Nice layout!! and Those locos look great in motion…

#4

Great looking locomotives. Building a Garratt is on my long list of projects

#5

Love your rock-work!

#6

Love those Garretts. Thanks for sharing.

#7

Travis Dague said:

Those look really nice!..What kind of track are they running on?. Did you do a build log?. It would be interesting to see how you built them
Travis

Virtually all my track is hand made. The earlier stuff is aluminium bar in slotted wooded sleepers, and the rest is ‘normal’ brass rail nailed to timber sleepers. I use treated pine as used for lattice work for my sleepers. Oops, should be saying ties shouldn’t I?

This link gives more details.

http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/satr/track.htm

Unfortunately there’s no build log for the Garratts. I have a few construction photos I could upload, but no written description - it’s 10 years since I built them.

#8

Nice looking railroad. So Greg why were Garratts so popular in Australia?

#9

I think a better question Chuck would be “why didn’t Garretts catch on in America” Awhile back I did a bit of research on the Beyer Garrett type locos and found that they were widely used in Africa as well as Australia and in parts of Europe and Asia. They could pull more weight using less fuel over lighter track than a comparable typical loco setup with the drive wheels directly under the boiler.
So why didn’t that make sense for American RR’s ?

Todd

#10

Todd Haskins said:

I think a better question Chuck would be “why didn’t Garretts catch on in America” Awhile back I did a bit of research on the Beyer Garrett type locos and found that they were widely used in Africa as well as Australia and in parts of Europe and Asia. They could pull more weight using less fuel over lighter track than a comparable typical loco setup with the drive wheels directly under the boiler.
So why didn’t that make sense for American RR’s ?

Todd

We were wondering that to.
It was a neat hard pulling loco.

Lot of R.R. here in America did a lot of rebuilding there Loco’s when in for repair and did a lot of changes and ideas. Wonder why they didn’t use that configuration for shaper curves and grades as maybe helpers.

Look what the Erie R.R. did in Making a 2-8-8-8-2. Now that was completely difference loco.

(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/noelw/Smilies/36_1_38.gif)

#11

Because in North America we refined and refined the simple expansion and compound articulated locomotives til they fit our wants and needs better. They ended up being less complicated mechanically and maintenance wise in the long run. The Erie and the Virginia Triplexes were generally reguarded as failures because a single boiler couldn’t produce sufficient steam. In the VGN 's case teh Triplex was broken up and rebuilt into a 2-8-2 and a 2-8-8-0 intially, then subsequently the 2-8-8-0 became a 2-8-8-2…

#12

Greg - totally fantastic! I’m VERY impressed with the track, too.

Wonderful layout overall.

tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Lincoln City Outlet Boys

#13

I’m certainly no expert, but I’d surmise one reason the Garratts were popular here was the very light construction of most Aussie tracks. The Garratts were mainly in the 3’-6" gauge systems where even the so-called main lines were pretty light rails.

Maybe it was to do with the Patent too. US railroads may not have wanted to use a British Patent !

#14

Bart S. Ya ,I guess by getting away form the three part articulated versa a two part movement was a lot easer to maintain. More headaches on piping maintained to.

Greg H. British Patent, Ya could be, but one would think they could of have been built heavier and to our standard gage tho. Larger fuel and water tanks would make it a lot heavier.
Look like the wheel base spread out would give the Garret idea a better tractive force on grades.
Still like there Garret idea. Neat Loco and yours sure look great. Nice photo.

#15

Travis Dague said:

Those look really nice!..What kind of track are they running on?. Did you do a build log?. It would be interesting to see how you built them
Travis

I did do a bit of a description of building the blue Garratt, but I’d forgotten it. Here’s the link

http://www.trainweb.org/SaTR/G2pics.htm

#16

To see a really beautiful video of double headed real Garratts, see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1EWpCQP7eE

The oozing steam at about 2mins 40sec is the embodiment of why I love steam locos.

(sorry, I suppose this should be under “videos” but it fits here too.)

#17

Greg nice stuff. I always admired your handmade track work. Your layout is proof that anyone can run a garden railroad at a low cost.

#18

The Australian Standard Garrett …

[youtube]http://youtu.be/ww53e_AZJ3U[/youtube]

#19

What about the AD60 Garratts? THEY seemed to have been successful, as were all the Garratts built for EAR, SAR/ZAR, Algeria and Morocco - by the French, Belgians and Germans.
And the many that ran here in UK on the LMS coal tains…

For a failure they don’t seem to have done THAT badly.

tac

#20

The Garretts were successful…the Triplexes were not…