Herbert William Garratt

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Herbert William Garratt (June 8, 1864 – September 25, 1913) was a mechanical engineer and the inventor of the Garratt system of articulated locomotives.

Garratt served an apprenticeship from 1879-1882 under J. C. Park at the Bow Works of the North London Railway followed by experience at Doxford's marine engineering works in Sunderland. Following work as an inspector for Sir Charles Fox and Sir Alexander Rendel, Garratt went in 1889 to the Argentine Central Railway where he became Locomotive Superintendent in 1892. Between 1900 and 1906 he worked for railways in Cuba , Lagos and Lima (Peru) and for the New South Wales Government Railways. Garratt was elected to membership of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 1902.

He returned to Britain in 1906 in order to inspect rail-mounted artillery on behalf of the New South Wales Government and this led him to Beyer-Peacock to discuss methods of mounting heavy artillery on railway bogies. From this, his inventiveness led to his design for an articulated locomotive, which was rejected by Kitson & Co. but taken up by Beyer-Peacock. Garratt patented his design on July 26, 1907 and this key patent was subsequently extended to January 26, 1928.

Garratt's basic invention was developed into a usable locomotive design by the drawing office staff at Beyer-Peacock's Gorton Works, which Garratt visited at that time for just a few hours each week. Bayer-Peacock's sales office secured an order for the first two Garratt engines from the Tasmanian Government Railways and these were delivered in 1909 (see TGR K Class). These were at the customer's insistance to a variant design in two respects, and this was not repeated in subsequent orders. The third locomotive, like the first two also an 0-4-0 + 0-4-0, was built for the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway and conformed more closely to the basic Garratt design. The next six built in 1911 were 2-6-0 + 0-6-2 Garratts for the West Australian railways and these were the first to result in repeat orders.

Herbert Garratt died in 1913, when the potential of his design was still in the process of being recognised, and he therefore failed to see the great popularity that it achieved during the inter-war years.