ein Text zum Thema, den ich mal irgendwo kopiert habe:
I've always suspected the inspiration for this model was a contest that Bob
Brown ran in the Gazette, circa. 1980, when MDC first brought out their HOn3
models. Object of the contest was to see what you could do with the new kits,
and two of the three winners kitbashed theirs into "Garratts". WestSide's
"American Garratt" was essentially the same sort of project in brass: a pair
of K-27 chassies cut off behind the rear driver, a K-27 boiler and tender,
flatcar sills for the main frame, and a whale back tender for the front tank.
Essentially everything was leftovers or reruns of previous production, with a
few new parts to hold it together. I am reasonably certain that there was no
particular prototype in mind. The proportions are well off those of most
Garratts, though there were a few similarily long boilerd German built Garrats
in Thialand and South Africa.
Can you give any specifics on the Rio Grande Garratt proposal? I knew they
had considered a couple Mallet designs, and that Alco made a Mallet proposal
to the RGS, but this is the first I've heard of a Garratt.
John Stutz
John
I have no hard evidence that the Rio Grande had plans for one. It was just
what I had herd in the rumor mill.
Dorman may know. He seems to have a lot of information about the Rio Grande
and Rio Grande Southern
John V
For anyone who has a WSM Garrett, or is hunting for one....
The model can look much better if the boiler and it's frame are shortened by
one boiler course. Of course that's an opinion.
A fact is that the Garrett has an electrical pickup problem. Each engine of
the model is a separate entity and will run by itself. Each of these has the
normal ground system where all four uninsulated drivers provide contact to
the frame, superstructure and motor. Each engine is grounded on the same
side. But the hot lead (or other polarity) comes from a small spring loaded
pin which straddles and rides against the back of two insulated driver tires.
In actuality the pin only contacts one tire at a time! So while the model
runs great and has good pulling power much of the time, one engine or the
other has a tendency to stop quite often, leaving the second engine spinning
and the train stalled.
The solution is to insulate one or both boiler-to-engine frame joints with
plastic parts, reverse all the drivers in one frame (making each engine
opposite polarity but with multipal rail contact), and connecting each motor
with a hot lead from the other frame. Sounds complicated but it's not - make
sure both motors run the same way.