A MONSTER RETURNING TO THE RAILS

This is awesome, I love those locomotives.  I just wish someone would make an O gauge version.  Maybe the next Lionel Legacy Vision Line after the BB?

Nice example of a Garratt Locomotive. 

I don't believe that this type of design was operated in North America. 

What the heck were they drinking when they came up with that thing. It's awesome

Light axle loads for meter gauge railroads. The South Africa Railway had lots of them, and I think New Zealand also.

Thanks for the info!  Hopefully I will get there someday!

For those who are interested, here is a spec sheet for the AD60 class. 

http://www.steamlocomotive.com/australia/audata.php?wheel=Beyer-Garratt&page=nswgr

The Garratt locomotives where invented by Herbert Garratt, so it should be what was HE thinking rather than what were THEY thinking  :-) . This design was extremely popular around the world and was used practically everywhere but North America.  

Maybe Mike will make one for the 3 rail crowd.

Jerry

Australian 'O' Gauge Beyer-Garratt

It IS a Monster!

Dan

Thomas, I told you to stay off the 'droids!

The ultimate in tank engines!

Surprised they were not used by special railroads like mines and lumber companies.

Because they can't turn on a dime, and they need better laid rail then lumber roads used.  My understanding of these are they are like their version of the Big Boy.  They could haul great tonnage, but by splitting up the weight of the locomotive like that it could run on lighter rail than a BB could ever hope too without loosing tractive effort.  I had discovered a book about these beasts in South Africa in my local library when I was a young lad.  I'd check it out and just pour over the photos and soak it in.  I have long thought about doing all the hard design work for these in O, and then selling it to MTH or Lionel to make...

Dr. Allen,

As a certified (certifiable?) visitor to Aussieland, can you hook me up with this loco?

Will it be operating anywhere near where Ginny and I will be . . . . near your house maybe so I can be the engineer? 

OMG . . . .  I just looked it up on Google maps !

It's near you !

We're going !

Scrapiron

I would seriously (!!!!!) consider ordering one of those if it became reality..

South African Rys had a class of Garratt (GMAM) that, if it had been upscaled from 3Ft 6in gauge to standard, would have been bigger than the Big Boy!

Gentlepeople,

The next time you go on safari to Kenya, be sure and tour the Kenya Railway Museum in Nairobi.  There are several examples of Beyer Garrett locos.  Also the brake van used in some of the stakeouts for the man-eating Tsavo lions on display in Chicago's Field Museum.

ChipR

One would think that the tractive effort would decrease as the coal and water are used up.

Back when I was single and didn't know how money disappeared, i had a dream of building a 2-6-2 -2-6-2 Garrett Loco in 15" gauge.  Then life caught up with me - drat!

At one point in time there was a gentlemen selling dvd's of scanned mechanical drawings of almost all the various Garrett loco's used by the SAR.  As a mechanical engineer it was fascinating to study how the problems of flexible steam pipes and expansion issues were solved.  I still have the disk somewhere.

As pointed out, yes traction was something of a problem when fuel and water ran low, but no more than any other tank engine because the weight of the boiler and frame was split between the two power assemblies.  Its nothing like the Erie triplex that had a power unit strictly under the tender.  In the case of the Erie unit, traction on the rear power unit became nearly useless as tender ran low, in the Garrett engine it is not nearly as big a deal because of the boiler weight.

There are some semi-modern versions of these locos that were designed by Phil Girdlestone and Shaun McMahon.  These are truly awesome beasts.  Check out their work on the modern steam tab of Martyn Bane's website here

There are some O gauge tinplate models available from ETS.  Check out the number 185.

The AD60 class is 108 feet long.

This works out to be 27 inches in 1:48 1/4" to the foot American O gauge/scale.

Or, 28 5/8 inches in European 1:45, 17/64" to the foot O gauge/scale.

Not quite sure which would be preferable, but 17/64" scale would make the more accurate model.

Certainly can be done.

Here is a good write up of an HO model and the prototype.

http://www.modelrailforum.com/forums/index.php?autocom=custom&page=Eureka-AD60-Garratt

A couple Garrett loco pictures for everyone.

Ah, cmon, they built it to look like that cause this is in Australia.....it kind of looks like the cars in Mad Max *smile*.....

This is awesome, I love those locomotives.  I just wish someone would make an O gauge version.  Maybe the next Lionel Legacy Vision Line after the BB?

HOw about getting a bit smaller version now from ETS?

http://www.ets-trains.com/detailzbozi.php?IDZbozi=460

http://www.ets-trains.com/detailzbozi.php?IDZbozi=742

http://www.ets-trains.com/detailzbozi.php?IDZbozi=732

Looks like it another good project for some Lionel 0-8-0 starter set chassis

Contemporary narrow gauge Garratt operation on the Welsh Highland Railway in the UK:

I really need to get to the UK one of these years.

Bob

They are on my list already at some point, but after I get the American locomotives I want.

Heljan is offering a Garratt decorated in several LMS liveries in OO:

Bob

This loco is Australian and 4'8 1/2" standard gauge.

It operated on the New South Wales Railways, mainly pulling big coal trains. Australia's eastern side, like the USA is rich in coal deposits.

It would be fantastic if MTH or Lionel made this, it would be a big seller. BTW, in Australia, we model in true scale, ie, 7mm to the foot or 1:43.5. So the O gauge model would slightly longer than you estimated. This is also the scale modeled in the UK.

Dear Dr Scher, your rail engineers license is revoked in Australia, we drive on the other side of the road here, you'd create havoc.

I am assuming that the gauge is still 1.25 inches (31.75 mm) for "O gauge" so please correct me if I am wrong.

This means:

American 1:48, 1/4 inch scale the gauge works out to be 5 feet.

European 1:45, 17/64 inch scale the gauge works out to be 4 feet 8.45 inches.

1:43.5 (0.2759 inch to the foot) the gauge works out to be 4 feet 6.37 inches

Thus it would seem that 17/64 inch scale would potentially make the most accurate representation as all the steam chests, drive rods, fire boxes and such could be accurately spaced.

I looked it up. The 7 mm "true scale" uses a 33 mm gauge, which works out to be 1.2992 inches. Using this combination the gauge works out to be 4 feet 8.5 inches. However, such equipment would not operate on our 1.25 gauge track. So MTH or Lionel would have choices and trade offs to make.

To WBC,

I imagine that what MTH do when they build a true scale 7mm to 1 foot British models, the hi rail wheels are as per our standard US style track and the fine scale wheels are suitable for both, 7mm scale track and normal high rail track. The body and the rest of the loco as per 7mm spec. This is how we find it. My club layout has hand built 7mm scale track and MTH Scaletrax on seperate loops. Normal hi rail trains run OK on the 7mm track but have trouble on the switches, due to the back wheel and flange dimensions, they don't run happily through the check rails. A US style loco with finescale wheels runs fine on both. The 7mm scale locos don't run well on the MTH Scaletrax. So, I imagine anything MTH might produce of Australian locos, would be the same as what they have done for the British locos. Incidentally, these locos were from Beyer Peacock Of Great Britain.