Garratts - Why Not Cab Forward

Mombasa to Nairobi is open but much of the traffic has been transferred to a new Chinese built standard gauge line.
Beyond Nairobi the metre gauge line to Timboroa and Kampala is open but not in good condition. I've seen news reports that the Ugandan government is investing in the metre gauge line towards Kisumu on Lake Victoria and the Ugandan border at Malaba due to doubts over the Chinese standard gauge line extending much further than to Niavasha.
The standard gauge line was originally meant to extend through Uganda and on towards Rwanda.
http://tinyurl.com/y4rw57ux
Most of the recent history of Chinese economic expansion in East Africa is shown in the previous items at the bottom of the Article.

As for the Garratts on East African Railways, they were magnificent.

The height climbed diagram was from Garratt Locomotives of the World by A.E.Durrant.

Cheers, Neil

 

A really noddy question has occurred to me, having never looked in the cab of a Garratt: how are the controls laid out? Do you have separate reversers and regulators for each engine, or do the regulator and reverser do "double duty" as it were, controlling both ends?

Tom

 

Just the single set of controls Tom.

 

But wasn't the PLM Algeria Beyer-Garratt (2x Pacific) fitted with controls for bunker first running?
The by far best looking Garratt, by the way.
On Wikipedia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c8/CFA_231+132_BT_1.jpg

 

Don't forget DR loco 05 003, rebuilt to orthodox layout in early 1945 (!)

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=locomotive+05+003&qpvt=locomotive+05+003&FORM=IGRE

 

Thanks for confirming the source. I took a photo of it as it is such an interesting comparison, and forgot to save the image with a sensible name so I could remember where it was from....
You've saved me a lot of trawling through books to find it.

 

Most garratts did spend much time running ‘back-to-front’. In South Africa, the class GLs often ran cab-first so the chimney exhaust wouldn’t choke the crews in tunnels. Alternatively there were modified chimneys that didn’t last too long.


You can see a GL garratt pulling the cameraman’s train back-to-front around four minutes in.

 

Looking at some images of the LNER Garratt on Google, it appears to be chimney first when climbing Worsborough, but cab first when climbing Lickey.

 

Because of its length, the front end was a long way from the cab and buffering up to the train to be banked was difficult and easily misjudged. On Worsborough, it was banking goods trains, so only the guard to get bounced around if it came up a bit too fast, but at Lickey there were passenger trains too, the occupants of which took rather a dim view of such things. Turning it meant the short end was the one that buffered up.

 

Presumably they needed a triangle for turning.

 

At Cricklewood they turned on a teardrop.

 

Certainly not at Mombasa (EAR metre gauge) or Algiers (SNCFA std. gauge), both of which had very impressive turntables .... several Garratts photographed thereon!

 

I`m agree with you Dag Bonnedal. Definately the best looking (and impressive) Beyer-Garratt in my view.

 

Deleted.

 

Lovely looking machines, those! They've always reminded me of a stylised art-deco A4, looking at the front (or is it the rear?!)

Richard.

 

Here are some good pics:
https://www.cheminots.net/forum/top...angers-en-france/?tab=comments#comment-764399

and this:
https://www.autrefoislaphoto.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/alstom_locomotive_-5.jpg

Or Google for "CFA 231-132 BT locomotive". Short and concise classification, isn't it?

 

Toton to Cricklewood with unfitted wagons was probably never like this! The majesty of the Garratt locomotive in every day work from Australia is brought out in these wonderful videos ( the rest of the videos from the uploader concerned well work checking out as well).

 

That third video shows what must have been one of the finest steam shows ever - forget your Big Boys on Sherman Hill, this has to be more impressive. In the late '60s/early '70 two or three times a day a pair of massive NSWGR AD60 Garratts lifted a 1200 ton load of coal from a standing start out of Newstan Colliery onto the 1 in 40 grade of Fassifern Bank. As you see in that film both locos were flat out as they walked their way up the hill. What a sight! I fully agree with @Bluenosejohn's comments - these videos are well worth watching.

Peter

 

The N&W could be impressive. Y 2-8-8-2 + A 2-6-6-4 on the front and another Y on the back of a coal train over the Blue Ridge mountains. Was listening to O Winston Links sound recording of such a train just the other day. Awesome.

 

or on SAR which built triangles in the midst of nowhere to turn Garratts at changeover points.