The Story of the British Railways Garratts

while big steam locomotives such as garrett and malay class engines have historically been a significant feature of the railways in america africa and australia the uk rail network also once sported its own variations of the type with among the largest steam locomotives ever used on the british railway system being the lms garrett and the lner u1 an extinct series of articulated locomotives that could deliver the power where necessary but presented their own series of performance problems ones that ultimately damage their ability to work to their full potential the garrett configuration of steam locomotive is an articulated design that is used primarily to provide a larger engine with high performance that can negotiate tight curves that would otherwise be too sharp for multi-axle engines the main goal of both the garrett and the similar malay configurations being to present motive power that avoided the need for smaller classes of locomotive to be used in multiple requiring additional engine crews the garrett comprising separate axles and pony trucks while a single frame connected the two essentially forming two locomotives in one while the malay configuration was the pride of american railroads featured on such classics as the union pacific big boy and the norfolk and westerns 2156 the garrett design which placed the driving wheels ahead and behind the boiler atop which was mounted the coal bunker cabin water tank was far more widespread being introduced on the colonial railways of africa south america southeast asia australia and new zealand the advantages of the garrets clearly illustrated as these engines successfully managed trains on the winding steeply inclined valley routes between mombasa and nairobi in kenya durban to cato ridge on the natal main line of south africa and up the cowan bank and around broadmeadow in new south wales for the lms the requirement for a larger engine came about upon its formation under the grouping act of 1923 whereby the previous midland railway had designed locomotives under a small engine policy meaning that heavy freight trains often had to be hauled by multiple locomotives operated by several engine crews a highly uneconomic method of operation especially on the primary coal routes of the east midlands around towton near nottingham as well as on trains to london for the domestic coal supply the demand for an alternative leading to lms designers considering the development of several large garrett-type steam engines that could perform the work of multiple midland railway classes in one as for the lner the desire to use a garrett design was solely for the purpose of banking on the woodhead route their main corridor across the northern peak district from sheffield to manchester the line which stretched for 41 miles being an arterial route for cold traffic from the mines and pits of south yorkshire to the manufacturers and power stations of lancashire but was severely constrained by wurzburg incline a seven mile ascent between wath and peniston that climbed at a rate of one in forty as steam locomotives routinely struggled to ascend the bank and with poor adhesion making it difficult to restart if a train ran out of power the preceding great central railway had considered the creation of a dedicated banking locomotive as early as 1910 originally proposing a four-cylinder garrett engine based on the robinson class 8a0 freight locomotive of 1902 but this was gradually evolved into a machine based on the underpinnings of the robinson class 8k of 1911 a 280 configuration with approval for the l e r garrett designated class u1 being given by the company management in 1924 with design of the locomotive handed over to chief mechanical engineer sir nigel gresley in both cases the lner u1 and lms garretts were built by bayer peacock and company at their works in manchester the company having originally developed the carrot loco configuration with mechanical engineer herbert william garrett in 1908 thus creating the bayer garrett series of machines that were the power behind the overseas railways of the british empire construction of lnr's u1 came first with the locomotive being assembled in just 20 days between june 1st and june 21st 1925 before it was released from the factory in time for the stockton and darlington's centenary celebrations 10 days later while the lms garretts were laid down in april 1927 with three initial units built although rather than allowing bayer peacock a clean slate on which to design a locomotive using their tried and tested methods the lms drawing office at derby were insistent that the garretts incorporate the driving axle bearings and short lap valve gear from the fowler class 4f 060 freight engine of 1924 which itself was based on the midland railway 3835 class of 1911. the 4f and the preceding 3835 class were both flawed designs primarily due to their short axle box bearings which were prone to overheating causing classes of this design to be limited to speeds no greater than 30 miles an hour in an attempt to mitigate the problem the lms garrett's thereby sharing this floor as significant issues of overheating at speeds in excess of 30 miles an hour meant that their potential ability to provide the power of several engines in one unit was largely lost this issue of overheating also meant they required frequent maintenance which due to their unique design meant parts had to be custom-made and therefore expensive to source while their sheer length meant that dedicated stabling facilities at toton roundhouse had to be built to accommodate the engines but regardless of their faults the lms ordered another 30 examples from bayer peacock which were built between august and november 1930 and differed through the fitting of a revolving cold bunker trialled on one of the original three prototypes and used to prevent coal dust from entering the cab the lnr's class u1 meanwhile was the sole member of its design but even this had performance problems as being the most powerful steam locomotive design of any type the u1 was able to propel a train of over 60 wagons in length up the steepest part of the wurzburg incline but problems emerged when the engine entered the silk stone tunnels as due to the locomotive being positioned at the back of the train the crew would suffer the effects of smoke inhalation attempts to introduce respirators for the crew of the u1 being halted after a short series of trials when drivers and firemen refused to share the packs provided another problem was the engine being prone to corrosion as the water used inside the u1 was very soft and thus a protective layer of scale could not build up in the locomotive's tubes the result being that within a year the corrosion had become so bad that the locomotive had to be re-tubed in 1926 as well as causing the firebox to crack in both 1927 and 1928 requiring its replacement on both occasions performance wise the locomotive did well but consumed so much coal and steam during a single ascent that the fire was practically exhausted by the time it reached the summit and engine crews struggled to get the fire back to full force in the time taken to drift back down the bank where another heavy freight train was usually waiting to be assisted the issue of significant coal consumption being one endemic to both the lner and lms garretts which required a near constant supply by the firemen in order to maintain the steam pressure needed to drive the locomotive making both classes unpopular with engine crews in terms of operation the u-1 spent nearly its entire life operating on the wurzburg bank usually making up to 18 round trips per day while lms garretts were employed on heavy coal trains out of toten in nottinghamshire to brent in north london but although they did well in their respective roles their incredible strength and ability to haul heavy trains were impacted by the somewhat archaic design of contemporary wagons as aside from the fact that the power had to be applied with great sensitivity due to it being not uncommon for the strength of these mighty machines to either rip the couplings off or crush wooden framed wagons they were also restricted on the number of wagons they could haul because they mainly comprised unbreak stock brake control for the freight trains of this period being dictated either by the locomotive at the front or the brake fan at the rear the garrets and their ability to haul longer than normal trains meaning they suffered greatly from substantial brake wear especially when descending banks such as chinle wherein the brake blocks of one garrett were reported to have melted under the strain resulting in future consists being split following nationalization in 1948 garretts were largely displaced by new forms of traction due to their high inefficiency and somewhat unique designs the class u1 operating on the wood head route until 1949 when the newly formed british railways proposed to continue a previous lner incentive to electrify the main line between sheffield peniston and manchester with 1500 volt dc overhead wires after which it was transferred south to the licky incline on the main route between bristol and birmingham the steepest sustained mainline railway incline in britain where upon it worked alongside the unique midland railway anderson 0-100 nicknamed big bertha propelling various freight trains up the incline as they headed north into the west midlands in 1951 the locomotive briefly returned to its home ground at wurzburg bank and then converted to burn oil in 1952 so as to try and improve the engine's efficiency but all proposals to revise the design came to naught as the boiler faced the end of its useful life and after a brief return to the lickey between june and september 1955 the u1 was placed into storage at gorton works in manchester where opponent was officially withdrawn on december 23rd and scrapped at doncaster in 1956 having racked up 425 213 miles during its 30 years of operation lms garretts meanwhile remain primarily on their home territory while also taking on non-coal work around wellingborough and on the hope valley until they began to be replaced by brand new br standard 9f's from 1955. the last of the lms garretts number 47994 being withdrawn in april 1958 and by 1960 all members of the class had been scrapped bringing an end to the era of garrett-type locomotives on britain's railways you

Channel: Ruairidh MacVeigh

Views: 171,831

Keywords: emu, diesel, express, multiple unit, rail, train, electric locomotive, passenger, shunter, trains, dmu, branch, diesel locomotive, class, engine, mainline, railways, steam locomotive, locomotive, freight, railway, track, Garratt, Beyer Peacock, Manchester, Woodhead Route, LMS, LNER, London Midland and Scottish Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, Lickey Incline, 2-6-0 0-6-2, 2-8-0 0-8-2, South Africa, Kenya, Australia, Sheffield, Wath, Worsborough Incline, Worsborough, Woodhead, Lancashire, Yorkshire, GCR

Id: bG6r-YsMi4g

Length: 9min 40sec (580 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021