East African Railways Beyer-Garratt 'Mount Gelai' struts her stuff - with train!!

tac foley

tac foley

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This very day, builder Andrew Giffen, new owner Ron Mitchell and I ran the first train on trial over at the Fenland Light Railway in rural Cambridgeshire - with grateful thanks to the management, of course.

Although Andrew has been tweaking the 1/24th scale loco for a few weeks now, thanks to the enormous help from David Mees [Abbeybach Engineering] and Graham Langer [Accucraft UK] we were able to finally get a run plus a few of the beautiful wagons scratch built by Riekus van der Westhuizen and Carel Janse van Rensburg down there in the RSA.

I hope you like seeing this magnificent model - gas-fired and radio-controlled - operating at scale speeds on our track at Ramsey Mereside.

Here are Andrew's own words -

'EAR Beyer-Garratt Mt Gelai out in the heavy summer sunshine, a good hour's run and of course.....
...for the first time at the head of her own consist built by Riekus and Carel. The videos just can't do justice to the sheer majesty of this train, but I did my best.
Performance-wise, what really stands out by miles is the exceptional regulator control for scale speeds - no ridiculous scale 200mph runs here!!
This is made much easier down to my custom built regulator in tandem with keeping cylinder bores smaller than scale. Axle pump doesn't quite keep up but gives a few laps before needing a manual top up.
Huge thanks to Graham Langer and David Mees for help with burners and design.
To be seen out and about this summer where tracks have a little more loading gauge clearance than scale.

https://youtu.be/m_ETO_PdIIw

https://youtu.be/_QHNTdZAAD0

https://youtu.be/HzydoqawnqU

https://youtu.be/dkmF6dpeLfk

https://youtu.be/rDi3tkrBL9A

https://youtu.be/mQifYWwqd9w

https://youtu.be/ldNdtoinmSc
 
Last edited:
tac foley said:
This very day, builder Andrew Giffen, new owner Ron Mitchell and I ran the first train on trial over at the Fenland Light Railway in rural Cambridgeshire - with grateful thanks to the management, of course.

Although Andrew has been tweaking the 1/24th scale loco for a few weeks now, thanks to the enormous help from David Mees [Abbeybach Engineering] and Graham Langer [Accucraft UK] we were able to finally get a run plus a few of the beautiful wagons scratch built by Riekus van der Westhuizen and Carel Janse van Rensburg down there in the RSA.

I hope you like seeing this magnificent model - gas-fired and radio-controlled - operating at scale speeds on our track at Ramsey Mereside.

Here are Andrew's own words -

'EAR Beyer-Garratt Mt Gelai out in the heavy summer sunshine, a good hour's run and of course.....
...for the first time at the head of her own consist built by Riekus and Carel. The videos just can't do justice to the sheer majesty of this train, but I did my best.
Performance-wise, what really stands out by miles is the exceptional regulator control for scale speeds - no ridiculous scale 200mph runs here!!
This is made much easier down to my custom built regulator in tandem with keeping cylinder bores smaller than scale. Axle pump doesn't quite keep up but gives a few laps before needing a manual top up.
Huge thanks to Graham Langer and David Mees for help with burners and design.
To be seen out and about this summer where tracks have a little more loading gauge clearance than scale.

https://youtu.be/m_ETO_PdIIw

https://youtu.be/_QHNTdZAAD0

https://youtu.be/HzydoqawnqU

https://youtu.be/dkmF6dpeLfk

https://youtu.be/rDi3tkrBL9A

https://youtu.be/mQifYWwqd9w

https://youtu.be/ldNdtoinmSc
Click to expand...
A big engine
 
tac foley said:
Indeed.

There ARE larger though - the Australians have a 4-8-4+4-8-4.......the AD60 Class, one of which is preserved and runs.
Click to expand...
I ant see something that big on our East Coast Line, it would fall of the end of Scotland before it got properly going
 
Paul M said:
I ant see something that big on our East Coast Line, it would fall of the end of Scotland before it got properly going
Click to expand...
Gresley did build some big 2-8-2’s for the East Coast Coal trains, but there prodigious ability to haul very long trains caused difficulties with length of loops and thus return to Rod,s Austerities and eventually 9f’s to take the strain. It is often forgotten today that coal traffic filled the railways between the fast passenger trains often jumping from loop to loop between those fast trains.
 
When you can build nearly 300 miles of railway, in a straight line, and when you say bulk-carrier, you mean it..

These large engines make some sense, though I wonder about what it took to fire some of them, mechanical stoker's aside?

The UK is tiny, if densely populated, compared to the US, South Africa, and Australia..

PhilP
 
tac foley said:
Indeed.

There ARE larger though - the Australians have a 4-8-4+4-8-4.......the AD60 Class, one of which is preserved and runs.
Click to expand...
Although the Australian engines are heavier, and standard gauge, A.E.Durrant ("Garratt Locomotives of the World") points out that there were at least six more powerful Garratt types in the Southern Hemisphere of which the EAR class 59 is one. He also remarks that, although of modern design, the relatively poor power-to-weight ratio of the AD60s hampered their performance somewhat.
 
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