Limburg Tramway Beyer-Garratt Locomotives in Netherlands

Class 51 (Locobase 681)

Data originally from Gavin Hamilton's excellent compilation of Garratt data posted at []

(6 September 2005), supplemented by H Brunner, "The first Garratt locomotive in the Netherlands", De Ingeneur, No 35 (1932) (translated 2015 by Rene F Vink), archived at [], 31 July 2020; and "LTM 51, Holland's only Garratt" on the De Nederlands Museummaterieel Database website at [], last accessed 4 August 2020. Hanomag's work number for this tramway Garratt was 10758.

Completed by Henschel as work number 22063. Unique among Garratts because of its inside-cylinder layout, this single locomotive entered service on the 26 km (16 mile) Maastricht-Vaals section of the Limburgsche Tramweg Maatschappij. This stretch included one 1.5 km grade that pitched up as much as 20%. The power demands needed to be combined with a low axle loading as well.

Brunner's detailed report first reviewed the attractions of a Garratt layout. With the boiler and firebox carried on thick pivots ahead and behind, the two engine units could muster more adhesion axles than most rigid-frame designs and still negotiate tight curves. Moreover, the boiler could grow as large as possible within loading constraints and use relatively short tubes.

One essentially unique additional advantage was the Limburg's ability to use the chassis of 0-4-0 (020) locomotives then in use, each of which weighed 28.5 tons. Very few components needed to be specially made and the Garratt could be served from the same parts depots as the 0-4-0s. Another unique choice was to site the two coal bunkers on the engine frame and the water tanks below and at the boiler or bunker end of the center segment. Thus the characteristic water tanks seen on most Garratts are missing.

Needing six rather than four driving axles meant adding a coupled axle. Unlike virtually all other Garratts, which usually had equal spacing between all coupled axles, the additional axles were placed further forward and further aft, leaving noticeable gaps. Placing the cylinders inside made it easier to protect them from the roadside water and debris that could be kicked up by a passing train. Plating in the sides masked half the drivers' diameter, which further rendered the LTM 51's appearance unique.

Brunner concluded his painstaking description of this unusual engine with his "verdict": The Garratt locomotive "fulfills all requirements ...runs particularly quiet ...operation is easy ...the view of the driver is completely sufficient even where the track runs alongside the public road." And, the design had proved "a very good steamer" with coal consumption rates almost 40% lower than the 0-4-0s it replaced.

Alas, ingenuity in design could not compete with economic shortcomings. The tramway failed to prosper and the LTM 51 operated for only a few years. De Nederlands Museummaterieel account admits that " there is an unclear haze around the LTM 51, which is mainly based on not fully substantiated facts and rumors." The locomotive was sold with a dozen others in 1938 to metals recycling dealer Dotremont in Maastricht, who resold it in 1940 to the Technisch Bureau Groen in The Hague. He sold the machine to Germany in 1941. Almost nothing is known about the LTM 51's later history except that it was scrapped near Koln in 1950.