American Garratt

I like it. I'd love to do one in HOn30, but 2-4-0+0-4-2. Any ideas or works of art you can up with while waiting for the next train home?

Bernd

Very neat, the things we find

Very neat, the things we find time for at the AFHT

US Garratt

Two Bachmann On30 2-8-0's with a 'drain pipe' boiler.
 

cheers, Leo

What I like about it

The thing I like about the drawing (aside from its being my creation) is that it is very obviously a typical Garratt, but also very obviously American.  I have not seen many Garratts, in either model or drawing form, which looked like anything other than European or colonial locomotives.

Leo, I really like your Garratt, but I think the stack and the lack of stuff on the boiler are giving it a rather colonial appearance.  Then again, maybe it's the Garratt design itself - it might just naturally look like what it was - a colonial design.

Whether or not I build this thing will depend on a couple factors, not least of which is determining whether the mechanisms I have will fit inside the model properly.  I also have other more "important" projects, but this may be an entertaining diversion.

Spot on !

You're spot on Ken !

The castings on the boiler are O-scale standard gauge UK castings, makes all the difference.

Got a second boiler in the works with Bachmann On30 extra bits you get with their 4-6-0 loco's to get a more US look.

Having said that, a US railroad would probably have orderd a Garratt from the UK for starters...

I did have to turn around the motors in the 2-8-0 frame, bit scary cutting up two perfectly good loco's (!)

cheers, Leo

I wonder if a hypothetical Espee Garrett

would have double vandy tenders?

Espee garrett

Would also have double air horns> one on each end of said tenders!!!

...

I found this on Youtube...

Now what I like about this is how it shows the true nature of these locomotives... steam =/= slow!!!

He's cruising along at what, 50, 65?

Nice

But I wonder where they hid the whistle. You hear it but don't see no steam.

Bernd

Lootsberg pass

that's going UP a 1 in 40 / 2.5% gradient !

cheers, Leo

SP Garrat

You mean like this, from France?

Why were there no Garratts in the US ?

I wonder, maybe the ample loading US gauge ?

The big plus for restricted -both in loading gauge and axle load- lines was the large boiler size a Garratt had to offer, but big boilers were never a problem I guess ....

cheers, Leo

US...

I think our boilers were simply too big before garret ever caught on...look at the size of the boiler on a challenger, and now imagine that between the trucks, instead of having the tender as part of the engine.

It's be extremely long, for one.

A few reasons

I've heard that the main complaint about the Garratt design (besides good old fashioned "We don't do it that way here") was that, like any tank engine, it lost tractive effort as the fuel and water were consumed.  I don't think length had a lot to do with it, since a Challenger or Big Boy could be built in much the same overall length in either Garratt or Mallet design, and the Garratt had the advantage of better tracking around curves.  The weight on a Garrat swings inward in a curve, instead of outward as on a Mallet.  Visibility should be about the same in either one - not much!

I think that in the end, the biggest single complaint about Garrats in the US was simply that we don't do it that way.  Remember that steam locomotive design was driven primarily by (historically quite conservative) master mechanics.  If the master mechanic did not like a design, it was not built.  Also, Alco had exclusive Garratt building rights in North America, and it may be that the additional patent fees and single builder requirement might have turned some roads off.

Of course, as you mentioned, with the larger US loading gauge, other designs could be made equally successful, and they were already known and understood here.

It's possible

Just a quick note.  I printed out my drawing as close to HO scale as I could manage and compared it to the mechanisms I have on hand.  It looks like, by relocating the motor and doing a little other heavy rework, it would be possible to make this thing actually work.  Maybe I'll tackle it, maybe I won't.  I'd like to, but I also have a lot of other models I want to work on.  Rest assured, if I do build it, the MRH community will know.

Great minds.....

Dick Truesdale had the same idea...check this link:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/WMC-WESTSIDE-MODEL-BRASS-HOn3-H0n3-American-Garrat-build-by-NAKAMURA-Japan-/260811287103?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item3cb9906a3f

Guy

old times ...

Lovely loco, way out of reach with my retirement budget :-(

Did notice that the seller offers tons of radio valves, even the good old ECC 84, made my first MW receiver with that one, time flies ....

cheers, Leo

Garrett Twinned Steam Chassis' and now Twin Triodes!

Expect an "old guard" comment any time now.

USA Garratt connection

From The Garratt Locomotine by A. L. Durrant , 1969

Commonwealth Steel Company, an American steel company based in Granite City, Illinois supplied one-piece cast steel engine beds to various  Garratt manufactures during the 1950's. The locomotives were built for South Africa, Mozambique, and New South Wales.

ALCO had the USA manufacturing rights for the Garratt, but never built any.

For a Diesel guy

that proposed Garratt is really HAWT.  I hope you decide to build it - I"d love to se ethe thing actually operate.

SP Garratt

" I wonder if a hypothetical Espee Garrett would have double vandy tenders?"

-- It would certainly have to have the cab toward the nose.

Nice plan

I'm playing with the idea of American Garratts, too--but in HOn30.  For heavy hauling on narrow track, they are almost ideal.  I stumbled on an American Garratt here:  http://www.crayvalleyrailroad.com/index.html

There's also a lot of other neat narrow gauge stuff.

Thanks for sharing this!

Why were there no Garratts in the US

I figure 3 reasons
 

1. boilersize was not a problem

2. grades

3. curves

For countries with cape gauge (1067 mim or 3'6")railways in arid territory with steep grades and curvy lines, the Garratt was the most flexible engine. Basically you have to drives under the weight of either water or coal, so maximum tractive effort. Or what you can not do in width, you can achieve in length.

US roads have used Mallets and other large engine designs for the same problems, but had the advantage of more width (1435 mm)

Railvis

N-Scale Garratts

Examples of N-Scale Garratts, both built by Ruud Bergsvoort (deceased) form the Netherlands. I think both are based of Fleischmann drives and have a Mabuchi motor in the boiler. Both sets of drivers are driven, you can see the driveshaft between the boilerfront and the watertender. 

 

Below is "La Fuerza" 

Below you see the way these mechanisms are driven. The brass block was designed by Hans Starmans.

The wormwheel turns freely, and is held by a screw in the brass block. The wormwheel drives the original tender mechanism gear. At the end of the wormwheel is a slot to fit the motorshaft. The front screw in the brass block fixes it to the drive.

There is a full description pdf available on the construction of a generic 0-6-0+0-6-0 Garratt based on 2 Roco N-scale BR80 mechanisms. The BR80 is still on the market, but you do not need new ones, you just need the drives of them. You can find the description by Googling or go to the N_Tutorial list on Yahoo and the Files section.

Maarten Vis

NL