Why No Garratts in North America?

I don't really have much analysis of my own on this point - but it seems to me that the Garratt design's advantages might have been of some use in North America. If nothing else, considering the various experiments over the years in the US, that SOMEONE would have tried them here.

I've often thought that it might be a fun exercise to kitbash a PRR 4-6-2+2-6-4 from two sets of K4 running gear combined with an enlarged M1/I1, T1, or J1 boiler, but that's beyond the scope here...

I've wondered about that myself. One possibility is that it was a matterr of blind conservatism of railroad mechanical officials, prejudiced against anything unfamiliar. It would surprise me if this were the whole story, since it would mark a major change from the beginning of the 20th Century, when American railroads were willing to experiment with a variety of novel ideas (Mallet articulateds, numerous variants of compounding, several new wheel arrangements on conventional locomotives, superheating...): what sociological process would have replaced innovators with stick-in-the-muds throughout the industry in a generation?

A couple of non-U.S. railroads experimented and ran both Mallet-style and Garrat-style articulateds (South Africa, Soviet Union, I think: maybe more). At least in South Africa the outcome was to build many classes of Garrats and no new Mallets.

So it's a bit of a mystery to me. PERHAPS there is some good reason why the Mallet configuration for articulated steam locomotives is superior at the sizes of North American mainline steam but inferior at the smaller sizes typical of the railways that adopted the Garrat design. I don't know what it would be.

One problem with the Garrat configuration is that adhesion weight varies as fuel and water are used up during the run. This (since I think typical tender-loads had more water than fuel by weight) would not affect a Garrat with an auxiliary water tender, with water pumped from the water car to the locomotive's integral tanks continuously to maintain adhesion weight.

I think the primary advantage of the garrett was spreading the wieght over many axles , and been able to round tight curves . Niether were really necessary for american railroads , except perhaps some narrow gauge lines .

Yo David,

Correct. The surviving Garratts and those that didn't survive were narrow gauge engines.

Interesting - I had not realized that there were no standard gauge Garratts. Still, the design allows a large firebox, stout boiler, and large drivers, all while not getting too tall. I recognize that the American loading gauge was quite a bit bigger than in most countries, but there were plenty of railroads, particularly in the East, that had restricted loading gauges.

I find it particularly maddening, considering how enthralled the Pennsylvania became with the duplex-drive concept. I've never understood why they didn't just build the Ts and Qs as articulated locomotives - articulateds never seemed to suffer from the same wheelslip issues the duplexes did, and were far more flexible on winding old eastern lines. It seems that the Garratts would have been even another step further toward offering a high-power, high-tractive-effort locomotive that could work well in places with tight curves and tunnels. The Pennsylvania also seemed to have a history of taking interest in British railroad developments.

KillerB wrote:Interesting - I had not realized that there were no standard gauge Garratts.

Most were 3' 6" or meter gauge, but there were some standard gauge, 5' (Russian) gauge and 5' 6" (Indian) broad gauge locomotives built.

http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/

KillerB - both the LMS and LNER in UK had standard gauge Garratts, although I'm not sure how successful they were.

Garratts were tremendously successful on 3' 6" and 1 metre gauge lines in Africa, as others have noted. South African Garratts, at least in latter days, ran with an auxiliary feeder tank so the adhesion weight didn't vary too much, as Alien Hazen points out. About a year ago I fired GMAM no 4079 a few times, complete with auxiliary water tank.

In preservation, some of our fitters are not too keen on Garratts because there is almost twice as much servicing, maintenance and repair as for a normal loco.

mtuandrew - Gavin Hamilton's Garratt site that you refer to is really excellent - I'm a frequent visitor to it and recommend it to anyone who is interested in Garratts.

This is just educated speculation, but it sounds plausible....

One thing I've learned in my research on steam, is that aside from appliances, lcomotives were left unprotected... from a patent point of view. Yes, superheaters, power reverse, lubricators, etc were all protected, but a locomotive's general design was public domain. The modern parallel would be calling GE-Trans and ordering an SD-70-2 (course, if GE built it, it would be a far superior engine, but thats besides the point).

A perfect example is the C&O 2-6-6-6 alleghenies. Once designed, C&O ended up purchasing 60 units. When a C&O man went to the Virginian, he orderd an additional 8 units for service there. No royalties paid to C&O despite having been designed by C&O engineers.

I remember reading that American Locomotive Co had obtained the license to construct garretts in America, they just couldn't sell the idea.

Timken had the right idea... build a unit for yourself and send it out in pool service across the country. You can't tell me that ALCo couldn't find a way to kitbash parts they had laying around to build a demo unit? Two beat up old consolidation frames, reman'd cylindersand pistons, with a diesel or electric frame slung between the two units? Alco just didn't try to develop it, or, they went after the rights for the USA so no one else could do it.

Equipped with ALCO lateral motion devices on the frame of a berskshire 2-8-x wheel arangement, married to a large diameter berk or texas boiler would have produced the tractive effort and horsepower of twin units yet used the fuel of a single unit. And, like was said, because of the design, could carry a huge dimension boiler and cavernious ashpan.

Alot of the designs favored in foreign countries went by the way side IF they were developed over there. About the only thing we kept was the mallet articulation format... but even then we ran with simple articulateds instead of Anatole's compounding.

This discussion reminded me of the time Trains Magazine had an article on what they called the Super Big Boy Garratt. Yup they proposed a 4-8-8-4 +4-8-8-4 super Garratt. They even had a drawing of the engine negotiating a crossover from one mainline to the other. One wonders what Union Pacific would have thought of that engine.

maybe because we had shays, climaxes in competition, maybe worked better with a better price point.

pennsy, I just tried Googling Super Big Boy Garratt. I couldn't find it, but I came up with a proposed "Super Garratt" 2-6-6-2+2-6-6-2 for South African 3' 6" gauge.

See artist's impression and drawing

Try old issues of Trains Magazine. However, your monstrosity sounds interesting as well.

I think "monstrosity" is the right word!

Brazil also had Garrats on Leopoldina Railway, Mogiana, Great Western and VFRGS. Just one GW garrat survived and is preserved at Recife Railroad museum. All companies were meter gauge.
Enclose, pictures of a Leopoldina garrat, from the collection of Leonardo Bloomfield.
See more on the site http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r020.html.

There were a couple times Garratts were considered in North America.

I believe CP considered them to eliminate double-heading on some eastern branches with light rail and tight curves.

One of the Colorado tourist lines considered building one on the running gear of two 2-8-2s.

Not sure why the idea was rejected in either case.