Re: South Africa Steam Trains: Garratt Loco page updated

["steamfreak" <steamfreak711@yahoo.com>]

John Savage <john.savage4@ntlworld.com> wrote in message
3A9218CE.6B500568@ntlworld.com">news:3A9218CE.6B500568@ntlworld.com...
>
>
> David Thornhill wrote:
>
> > <Alastair@elmarie.fsnet.co.uk> wrote in message
> > 96ruhq$bli$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk">news:96ruhq$bli$1@news8.svr.pol.co.uk...
> > > I suspect the largest concentration of Garratt locomotives in the
world
> > > today is on the Alfred County Railway at Port Shepstone, Natal.
Somewhere
> > > in the region of 20 odd locomotives, mostly NGG16, although only a
couple
> > > are runners.
> > >
> >
> > I think not. Unsure of exact figure, but Alfred County cannot have as
many
> > as 20 Garratts at Port Shepstone. I doubt it is more than 10. And none
are
> > in working order.
> >
> > Bulawayo must have greatest concentration of Garratts. Around eight
still
> > used each day on shunting duties around the city.
>
> I wouldn't count on it. According to the official Garratt Homepage the ACR
has
> 16 Garratts on site, of which 5 are runners. The others are mostly stored
at
> Paddock, a couple are stored at Port Shepstone.
>
> SANSRAM in Krugersdorp has 14 Garratts of which but 3 are
non-oprerational, and
> all of those are off site.
>
> So, the largest collection of Garratts would apear to be the ACR, but the
> largest collection of operational Garratts would be this SANSRAM place.
>
> For more details check out Gavin Hamilton's Garratt Page
>
> http://users.powernet.co.uk/hamilton/
>
> Cheers,
>
> John
Of the Garratts at the ACR, none are operational and have not been for some
time.  I don't believe SANRASM has any operational Garratts.  They have very
little operational *anything*...

The largest centre of Garratts (operational or not) in the world is
Bulawayo.  8 locos were rostered on duties last week with 1 in steam on
shed, plus another 4 or 5 in the P-15 shops getting repairs.  There are
around 25 other Garratts still at the shed, some dumped, some stripped, some
complete.  There are another 10 or so at the NRZ Museum..

By the way, one of the other pockets of operational Garratts, Selebi-Phikwe,
scrapped one of their Garratts (ex-NRZ 14A) last week, according to info I
got from the mine's MD today.  Not sure which one or why.

steamfreak