Super Garratt

At least the second of this trio, 6006, survives today in the Nairobi Railway Museum

Peter

 

A virtually identical (postwar) design to South Australian class 400, which were 3'-6" gauge, designed to be convertible to std.gauge (which only just never happened*!). Nos.402 and 409 survive in preservation.


*the swansong of the 400s came when several South Australian NG diesels were withdrawn for conversion to SG.

 

I never knew that the SAR 400 Class Garratts were intended to be gauge convertable. However I dug out Leon Oberg's "Locomotives of Australia" and sure enough he states that they were designed to be easily convertible (from 1067mm/3'6" gauge) to either standard or 1600mm(5'3" gauge) Alas he does not give any details of how this could be achieved.

The post war EAR Garratts (class 59 and 60) were designed to be converted from metre gauge to 1067mm/3'6" gauge by the simple expedient of repositioning the tyres on their broad rimmed wheels. I do not think it would be quite as easy to convert the 400 class.

Peter

 

I've always suspected that 'easily' is a distinctly relative term! Regarding the 400s, Durrant's seminal tome doesn't go into any detail beyond stating they were designed thus. Purely subjectively on my part, I find the contoured tanks make EAR 60 & SAusR 400s the best looking of the entire Garratt lineage .... even if the flat black livery of the 400s was less than inspired!

 

Or even a Franco-Crosti boiler

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.... or go the whole hog and design one with a water tube boiler .....

 

Talking about gauge changing albeit slightly different and off topic. In Australia, I seem to recall that coaching stock on the Sydney to Melbourne trains were lifted and bogies changed, to accommodate the change of gauge between NSW and Victoria.
The line was later converted to standard gauge I think.
Travelling from Barcelona to France the gauge change was done on the move. A YouTube video shows how it is done.


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Go the who hog and throw on a Gas Producer boiler

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Sorry. Gas Producer firebox - obviously.

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Not at all sure that'd be incompatible with a water tube design. Possibly a significant 'plus'. In fact, with @meeee's comments about 'pastiche heritage locos' firmly in mind, I'm imagining a distinctly non-pastiche water tube boilered NGG18* whilst typing this. Am I joking**?

*NGG17 wasn't actually used, but there's been a piece on a possible new build based on the NGG16A rebuilds, which mentioned the classification, hence I'm treating it in a 'Napoleon II' fashion.
** Could be, could be not.

 

And Oil fired, correct?

 

Correct.

Peter

 

Now that I think about it WHS did some cheap videos in the early 90s, one featuring EAR steam (filmed by an American enthusiast) and showed a close up of the oil fired grate. Produced a strange popping noise. Will have to dig it out as it was a good video considering the cheap cost!

 

The Benguela Railway ran wood fired Garretts. The railway planted its own Eucalyptus plantations to harvest the wood for their locos.
Wonder if they sooted up quickly?

 

And very obviously wood fired they were too! I've several photos in my battered old copy of 'Steam in Africa'. Must've had a unique aroma. If crews in Angola did a fry-up like crews here, a passing Aussie visitor might conclude the locos were fueled by chucking koalas in the firebox!

 

If we are talking about WIBN stuff, I once put all my favourite ideas together in one locomotive.
It would have been a compound Garratt with the HP stage being a conventional reciprocating engine driving the front unit, the LP stage being a turbine generator located on the front unit, powering traction motors on the rear unit. The long steam pipes are eliminated, turbines are good at handling large volumes of exhaust steam, and the electric transmission would have no difficulty in dealing with the unidirectional turbine.
Power output would be controlled by the HP cut off, and you could even arrange for the turbine to run at the optimum speed for the power output.

If I remember correctly, in "Red Devil", Dave Wardale said that in hindsight it would have made more sense to apply his modifications to one of the SAR Garratts.

 

That late in the day, I'm guessing he had a GMA/M in mind. Quite what could have been accomplished with one of the magnificent SAR GL Class rather boggles the mind!

As successful later designs, modifying either an EAR Class 59 or ZR 20th or 20A Classes might have proved interesting. Looking at what's been said elsewhere on our forum recently, the Zimbabwean locos might yet benefit from modification. Pity, for any number of reasons, it seems vanishingly unlikely to happen.

 

Tis not the smell I was wondering about but with a high oil content, if the draughting is wrong, I suspect that the boiler tubes might have a propensity to soot up more quickly.
Having had experience of burning Eucalyptus wood on a grate in my parents house the chimney required more sweeping, but of course a locomotive draws more air so the problem might not occur.
Ps. Adding a young Eucalyptus leaf, or two, to a boiling billy can of tea imparts a lovely flavour!
Learnt from living in Australia and roughing it in the bush