I can remember a train ride above the clouds descending down Montagu pass early in the morning in the 1960’s. I will never forget this. It is a memory that I will take to my grave. `Oh you beautiful Garratts’ that made it possible.
Great bit of film,i just got back from S A and to see two of the last of these monsters in Bloemfontein yard together with what is suposed to the national collection just abandoned and rusting away brings tears to your eyes.S A just has no intrest in steam heitage apart from a few small groups doing their bit to preserve what they can.Tony
Amazing pictures,thanks for posting them.So sad to read that these locos are no longer working.I toured SA in 1976,80 and 85,in 76 I travelled over the Montague Pass behind a GMA.the only GEAs I saw were 26 at Paarden Eiland and about 5-6 at Voorbai all waiting for the scrapman so never saw one working. Plenty of happy memories,You Tube brings back these memories.Alan.
Yes, magnificent! I grew up with these engines at close hand as my Dad worked for what was back then called the S.A.R&H ... South African Railways and Harbours. I left SA in 1987 and think it is terribly sad that the current regime does not honor such rich history ... Thank you so very much ...
Beautiful. Just Beautiful. Garretts have always seemed special to me,and this is just about the best video I have seen on RU-vid so far about them. Such a special type of loco, they make the "Mallets" seem ordinary. Two power bogies, and a loco in between..... Lovely pink morning light and steam as well, thanks :). Magnicificent.
Used to go down to the works as a kid to see the Garrats leaving on a low loader going to the docks .My old dad was foreman boiler maker at Peacocks building the front end of the Garrats. Very little left of the works apart from the boundary walls, Gorton now run down used to be a major engineering area.There are more blacks here than in South Africa.
C'est le plus beau clip vu sur une double-traction GARRATTS sur train de voyageurs. de très belles images ! Félicitations au caméraman ! J'espère qu'il a été conservé quelques unes de ces machines en état pour tracter des trains spéciaux ?
Directly, yes, but mainly due to the state railway company Transnet deciding to no longer continue their heritage section. These locos are still in existence, but standing and rusting whilst the coaches have been weather damaged and some vandalised beyond repair. Sad.
A bit off the topic, but not entirely. I travelled as a kid many times on steam trains and I remember seeing every now and then a train inspector sitting next to the tracks with a hammer hitting the passing wheels. He was obviously listening to the sound from each strike. Was he listening for any cracks in the wheels?
Austrorus. They are water tanks for the locos. Locos only carry enough water in the front tank for use in the yards. The design was adopted to keep the weight down for use on lightly laid branch lines.
That's correct. softer rails are easier to make and lay. when most of the rails in southern Africa were laid they had a choice, soft rails, or stronger rails, softer rails would go further but they had a weight limits. so the decided to use the Garret because of its low surface area, and tractive effort so the train could pull the same weight as the stronger rails.
Grease Maggot That's what I thought. The Garret was a lighter narrow gauge answer for a twin engine compound engine without having the weight of those big articulated monster like the Challenger and Big boys.
you sound like a trump follower. educate yourself about what happens when you burn coal. remark was made tongue in cheek "When coal is burned, it reacts with the oxygen in the air. This chemical reaction converts the stored solar energy into thermal energy, which is released as heat. But it also produces carbon dioxide and methane."
@@ppjolla Not sure what Trump has to do with Garratt locomotives - he probably wouldn't even know what one is? Yes, my reply was also made tongue in cheek. I am kind of aware what happens when coal is burned, but thank you for the attempted education effort!
It looks likes a leading was either priming or just leaking badly.Garrat locomtives were powerful and I fail to understand as to why did they have to double head that train.A lone GEA garrat rated 14 coaches unassisted while GMA took up to 16 effortlessly.
Certainly had a lot of Steam Leaks ! Shows wat sort of maintenance these Beautiful Beasts received ? there is 1 Class 600 Beyer-Garrat at the Canberra rail Museum in Full Working order !!
It is easy to understand how the steam loco is only 7% efficient. Think of the sweat and toil the coal miners had in supplying fuel for one journey. Praise God for the endeavour of those who designed and made these magnificent beasts.
May I ask how you were able to say that a steam locomotive is only 7% efficient? Is that from a conversion of calorific value to effective tractive effort? Or simply that it takes more imputs compared to other forms of traction? Interestingly enough now in 2022 I would think steam could almost be competative as opposed to diesel hauled services.
@@adriannettlefold9084 , Adrian,I listened to a scientific programme about the relative benefits of various forms of power generating systems , including traction. I have good reason to believe it is true. The heat dissipated by a firebox on a locomotive is enormous. When the smoke is expelled, it blows out much heat with it. The system is not enclosed- meaning the great bulk of the heat is wasted. I worked as a thermal insulation engineer- a fancy name for a lagger- in power stations , factories, gas liquification plants in the UAE.
@@Randolph1233 thank you for the reply and explanation. I am a locomotive driver and qualified on Steam with our Heritage Division in Queensland Rail, Australia. When you mentioned the figure of 7% it had me interested as to how or why you came to that conclusion, and yes I agree that it does loose most heat. But would also like to add, that it is a very effective design in imparting that heat energy into generating steam given the variables in stop start , up and down gradient, and change in load being hauled at any given time. Internal firebox brick arches lengthen the gas path for better and complete combustion. Superheater elements impart much of the remaining calorific value of the hot gases passing through to exhaust as is possible as well as feedwater heaters and in some SAR locos condencors. Again thanks for the reply. Cheers
@@adriannettlefold9084 The thermodynamic efficiency of the external combustion steam locomotive is low, but modern design of flow and skilled operators can raise the efficiency significantly. I wonder how total cost of ownership over the engines' lifetimes compare with soulless electronic diesel boxes.
+Gregory Lauder-Frost Garratts hauled all manner of trains in South Africa, on the many mountains routes. The old PE passenger train that plied this route was Garratt hauled on this section. And yes it was a slow trip!
Terrain in South Africa dictated that Garratts were used extensively for all train types, for some time they were the dominant loco in Natal, in particular on branch lines that climbed in land.
+SirDeanosity they are articulated Garratt locomotives, so they have a water tank at the front. The tank car is a feeder tank for the GMAM Garratt, these were permanently attached to the GMAM Garratts f or additional water capacity.
SirDeanosity, Beyer Garratt locomotives were designed this way with a water tank over the front power unit and a full tender over the back power unit so the boiler could be slung between the frames. This means you could fit a very wide radius boiler with short length tubing (which is exactly what you want for a powerful boiler) and fit within the relatively tight loading gauges of the states and colonies that used them. The Beyer Garratt format also kept axle loading quite reasonable and so they were the solution for many Asian and African countries where more powerful locomotives were required but putting on stronger infrastructure was economically infeasible. The tank car was mostly a South African practice and was the primary place for water consumption. The reason is that if considerable amounts of water were taken from the front tank, adhesion decreases considerably for the front unit.
I've heard that after the end of apartheid, things that were created by the regime were discarded willy-nilly, regardless how important to the country's prosperity or their historical significance. The SAR was decimated, after which overloaded over the road trucking destroyed the roads. All to rid the country of an historic icon. People such as that would cut off their noses to spite their faces. Is that far off the mark? If not, then many tragic losses.
The decline was started when De Klerk was still around. It was the Saffa version of the Beecham report. Rian Mulam did a PBS special on his return to SA and talked of line closings and loss of some passenger service.
@@steamfreak Thank you for the reply. There is an evil corruption at work in the world. South Africa is certainly a mess. Every country is corrupted to some extent. Your videos in South Africa are a favorite of mine. The Red Devil and its upgrades prompted my looking into Porta et al. I can't identify one diesel box from another; its the steam locomotive with its soul that I love. Of course I love the Welsh Highland Rwy and its story. I love the 2' gauge, a size that would make a great fit in cities. Best wishes and thanks for the videos.
+James Braithwaite those locos are still around but not working. The GMAM has recently been acquired for use on the Knysna line and will hopefully run again soon.
I'm also glad they doubleheaded. But while Garrets are powerful, they have a design flaw in that all the weight on the drivers are under the tenders, and as the loco consumes fuel, it gets lighter, thus loosing tractive effort. Montagu Pass has a hard grade of 1 to 36, pr 2.78%. Though for any railway. So doubleheading would be necessary.
I made a mistake. These Garrats were not as powerful as I thought. The GEA & GMAM "only" had tractive effort of 60,700 lb (75%). The UP Challegers generated up to 97,350 lb, and some 4-8-2 Mountains (specifically the Frisco's) generated more than that ( 66,400lbs)..
But with a Garratt you do not have a tender sat on a series of undriven axles. This was a problem with American articulated designs, some 170 tons and more sat on unpowered axles under the tender - and don't mention the Allegheny which had some 117 long tons of locomotive sat on undriven axles. The Y6b had only a little over 28 long tons on the undriven axles under the locomotives. the difference in weight between the two types is a little over 71 long tons. Yes the N & W design is smaller but the amount of weight on the Lima design which is the reverse of beneficial when it comes to delivering power to the railhead is little short of embarrassing. The Y6b actually has the greater adhesive weight. the design also made far more money for the company that built it than was the case for "Lima's finest".
Hahaha! You're quite the comedian! Their numbers have been dwindling since the 1940's. Only a handful survived into this century. You're clearly no climate scientist...
