More Tasmanian Garratts
In 1912 the Tasmanian Government Railways went back to Beyer Peacock for some more Garratt type locomotives. This time they weren’t looking for anything like the original L Class they had bought three years earlier – this time they were looking for some 3′ 6″ gauge mainline grunt for both goods and passenger locomotives.
Once again Tasmania led the world for the M class passenger locos Beyer Peacock supplied were the first Garratt mainline express locomotives ever built.
This photo is used with the permission of the National Archives
Two of these handsome 4-4-2+2-4-4 locomotives were built and placed in service on the mainline express and mail trains between Launceston and Hobart. M1 remained in service until 1925 and M2 lasted until 1931.
Beyer Peacock also supplied two mainline goods locomotives – these were the L class and even though they were narrow gauge locomotives they certainly rated some serious tractive effort of 134.3kN (30,171 lb).
Compare those figures to the most up-to-date NSWGR locomotive of the time – the 53 class with a tractive effort of 128.1kN (28,777 lb) and you’ll see that the L class had some serious grunt.
This photo is used with the permission of the National Archives
These 2-6-2+2-6-2 locomotives also worked the mainline from Launceston to Hobart. They lasted in regular service until 1936 but made a brief come-back in the last years of the war.
If you compare both the builders photos of the M and the L class you will see that the centre unit was basically the same for both classes and both classes shared the same boiler pressure.
None of these locomotives were preserved and all wer cut up around 1950/51