Assam Bengal Beyer-Garratt Locomotives in India

Class T (Locobase 685)

Data from Wiener (1930) and from "Assam Bengal Railway-Design 1127", Beyer-Garrrat Patent Articulated Locomotives (Manchester, England: Beyer-Peacock & Company Limited, 1931), archived on flickr's Historical Railway Images at [], et seq, p. 28. Works numbers were 6385-6389 in 1931.

Prairie Garratts bought to work mixed-traffic trains over The Hill over ruling gradients of 1 in 60 (1.67%) and an 11-mile (17.7-km) section between Harangaja and Jatinga up 1 in 37 (2.7%). Described by BP as "a conspicuous example of perseverance and engineering skill overcoming almost insuperable difficulties, the 115 1/4 (185.6 km) miles required 37 tunnels and "numerous bridges" and curves as tight as 382 ft.

Acknowledging that such obstacles required all trains, including those headed by a Garratt, to use "banking" engines, BP was nonetheless able to claim that the average Garratt trainload measured 300 tons or 30% more than "the most powerful EIGHT-coupled locomotives." Moreover, the Garratt's lower axle load and greater flexibility, they claimed, had "added materially to the safe working of this section."