Beyer-Garratt Steam Locomotives in Thailand

Class 451 (Locobase 797)

Double Mikado Garratts (Works # 21618-21623).

Data from []

(6 September 2005).

An insight into Thai Garratt operations comes from the Thai Railway website's historical pages [], accessed 8 September 2005. Noting that the Hanomag 0-10-0s proved incapable of handling trains up the 2.6% ruling grade between Kaeng Khoi to Pak Chong (55 km/34 miles), the RSR reviewed the successful operation of Garratts in India and ordered six of its own (No. 451-456) from Henschel. The tonnage problem was solved, but the design's firebox proved undersized for steaming up the big hills as was water tankage and fuel bunkerage.

In 1937, the RSR added two more from Henschel; see Locobase 4398.

Class 457 (Locobase 4398)

Data from []

(6 September 2005).

Double Mikado Garratts (works #s 23109-23110) delivered as a supplement to the six supplied by Henschel in 1929. These last two had bigger boilers and grates.

According to the Thai Railway website's historical pages -- [], accessed 8 September 2005 -- "[T]he second batch ... were a much improved version .. due to increased firewood and water capacity and an enormous firebox."

Unfortunately for the crews, wood fuel cannot be automatically stoked, so their workload increased. As a result, the class was "... not a very popular class for Thai railway workers ... so no further orders for Garatte (sic). Instead the railway dropped the tonnage loadings for the trains on that section to a level that allowed the standard Japanese 2-8-2 (for once the appropriately named Mikados) that entered service on the RSR before, during, and after World War II. .

457 was preserved after its 1964 retirement in Bangsue. It was later moved to Kanchanaburi where conditions for exhibition and preservation were considerably more favorable.