Abandoned Tender

So it would seem - especially in NSW! The owner is the guy who also owns the 30 odd rusting heaps of scrap at Dorrigo ( including two ROD 2-8-02) and you have no chance of getting anything away from him. It is possibly the largest collection of locos in the Southern Hemisphere and they are all just rusting away.

Peter

 

thank you Peter..are there any photos? several decades ago i visited Steamtown Vermont(before it moved to Scranton) and there.half the size of the enormous tender in front of it. was the M7 tank in LSWR line out. There too were line of rusting locos and poetically,nothing was moving;not even a mouse!!. Lucky for the M7 it was called home to Swanage. Also there was an Irish(NG??) tank engine which i believe also went back across the Atlantic

 

Bruce 'Cobber' Woodham?

 

This prompts a tangential question- why no Beyer Garratts in North America?

 

No need for that level of articulation, maybe, plus are Garratts perhaps too small? Imagine if the boiler off a Big Boy had to be mounted on the cradle of a Garratt!

 

There was however an American input with the cast steel frames for some South African classes (GMA/M and GO) produces by Commonwealth Steel.
Some ideas did float around of Mallet - Garratts but I suspect they were more wishful thinking ( by Dusty Durrant) than anything else.

Cheers, Neil

PS Perhaps there was an element of "not invented here" and having to admit that European manufacturers could produce something better........

 

There are photos and details of the set up at Dorrigo on the net. Look up Dorrigo Steam Railway and Museum - and weep at the shear waste you will see there. The owner has more chance of operating his train set on the moon than he has of meeting the operating licence requirements of NSW. He seems to be a pure fantasist.

Peter

 

he certainly has some collection it seems so sad to let it just waste away

 

Patents? Was it more expensive to build a Garratt than a Mallet? The wikipedia entry on the NSW Garratts says that they assembled a loco out of spare parts but called it a rebuild to avoid paying royalties.

North America maybe had a move developed indigenous loco industry? Why import when you can have something built locally? Did anyone other than Beyer Peacock build Garratts?

 

Statfold Barn perhaps, they did a wonderful job with the K1, wonder which part of the multi-gauge track it would fit on?