Heljan Beyer garratt

[JSpencer]

As it happens, I was in Olivia's and the conversation came round to these locos, I was informed that they have returned all their stock to Hattons on account of the numerous irreconcilable problems that they were experiencing with these locos. I think you will be space watching for an indeterminate period of time. Reading this thread, I'm forming a poor impression of Heljan, particularly taking into consideration the Class 17 fiasco. Perhaps this thread and that of the Class 17 ought to be merged. It's a shame, because the DPU is fine. Consistency is lacking in these products.......perhaps Hattons were asked to pay more for various improvements, but in this the budget was over-extended, so we have got what we have. This doesn't let Heljan off the hook where the Class 17s are concerned.

Heljan admitted and took action with the class 17 which I consider fair enough even if it did not do anyone any good.

I don, t think there has been any admission of a problem with the Garret's, indeed looking at posts here, return rates have been stated as being normal for such a complex model.

Of course, the number of people talking about problems on a model here is higher than normal, which may be down to the specialised market it is aimed at (I.e established railway modelers and enthusiasts) and that the whole range of them being released at once.

 

Mine is ok, touch wood, even if a somewhat cumbersome and clumsy model to operate due to its size and complexity. Meaning she is not a regular runner either.

[Francis deWeck]

I've had my loco back from Hattons after I asked them to check the loco re derailing. It was returned and went through points that it had had problems with prior to its despatch to Hattons. However, it is back there now, as I observed that the valve gear on the front chassis had fallen away. The reason for that was a missing valve spindle. Also the rear chassis had a loose part, the adhesive having failed. I had a small discussion as to who should be responsible for the postage, so they provided me with a label for its collection. Very good of them.

 

They also stated that if the loco has an issue within the 6 months of the warranty period, it should be returned to them, after that it goes to Heljan. I didn't go into who was responsible for this.

[brian777999]

Do you feel that this BG fiasco has damaged Heljan's reputation ? I did have my eye on their London Transport Metropolitan BoBo but it is not cheap and I do not want to risk the money after reading about all their problems with the Garratt motors.

[Jamiel]

Heljan's diesels are usually great runners (Class 17 original batch expected). I wouldn't worry about the London Transport Metropolitan BoBo at all, their single motor locos are very trustworthy.

I have 7 Helajn diesels and all are among the best runners I have.

After praising them, I don't hold great hopes for my Garratt, it stalls a lot and I suspect that if I didn't watch it like a hawk, it would burn out. I am sure the two motors run at slightly different speeds, and when it goes through a 'S' curve (with no points) it often stalls which I can only imagine is engine speeds and valve gear starting to fight each other between the two power sources.

Jamie

Edited November 2, 2015 by Jamiel

[Corbs]

To be fair, it's an incredibly difficult prototype to be made in model form.

[Colin_McLeod]

There are may twin engined steam locomotives of USA prototypes that have been manufactured RTR for decades and AFAIK the vast majority all run perfectly.

[Grovenor]

There are may twin engined steam locomotives of USA prototypes that have been manufactured RTR for decades and AFAIK the vast majority all run perfectly.

And the vast majority of these only have one motor driving both engines.

 

That apart the Hattons Garratt is no different to any pair of locos double heading which is usually perfectly successful. If the motors are not up to the job the problem is with the motors, not with it being a Beyer Garratt.

Regards

[Colin_McLeod]

Would the Heljan Garrett be powerful enough to run with just one motor?

[Horsetan]

Would the Heljan Garrett be powerful enough to run with just one motor?

 

I suppose that if, for argument's sake, it had been possible to hide a single 5-pole can motor with twin-shafts driving both "engines", in much the same way that today's RTR diesels and electrics are engineered, then things might have turned out differently. It didn't happen that way, obviously, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless.....

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Do you feel that this BG fiasco has damaged Heljan's reputation ? ...

After the experience of several of their bogie diesel models, all truly excellent runners; and the most recent the Baby Deltic one of best models available in my view, not a bit. The BG is deeply realistic, crummy in reality... The O2 2-8-0 will be the proof of the pudding, one way or the other, and I am not in the least averse to a purchase of this model whatever the BG problems may have been.

 

Would the Heljan Garrett be powerful enough to run with just one motor?

 Wet finger estimate, you'll have between a third and a quarter of the traction of it running in two motor form. See below for explanation.

 

...That apart the Hattons Garratt is no different to any pair of locos double heading which is usually perfectly successful. If the motors are not up to the job the problem is with the motors, not with it being a Beyer Garratt.

 It's significantly different I would suggest, in two ways: the linkage is near rigid, and it is all the time. I 'doubled up' several diesel models back in the bad old 'power bogie' days for outdoor operation without traction tyres, and made two discoveries both of which were a surprise.

 

Compared to the loco with single power bogie running on metal tyres and leading, adding a second power bogie was worth near four times the traction from the resulting loco.

 

The horrible ringpiece motors did better doubled up than the otherwise superior worm drive bogies, which chewed up their axle gears quite regualrly despite careful lubrication attention. My conclusion was that the push along capability of the spur gears of ringpiece motors made them more tolerant of inevitable small speed mismatches between the motors, than the non-reversibility of the worm gear drive power bogies.

 

I feel that the error Hattons/Heljan made in the BG design was not going for a centre motor shaft drive to both bogies arrangement, well proven in US type steam articulated models, and a great many diesel and electric traction models.

[stewartingram]

And the vast majority of these only have one motor driving both engines.

 

That apart the Hattons Garratt is no different to any pair of locos double heading which is usually perfectly successful. If the motors are not up to the job the problem is with the motors, not with it being a Beyer Garratt.

Regards

Way back in the beginning of the BG thread, I reported that I had stripped mine down to enable painting. Now it wasn't the easiest thing to re-assemble, but perfectly feasible. An account of this is on the thread. It should be noted that whenever I do this, as a pure DC modeller I remove the surplus DCC bits (and usually the lights as well) to keep life simple I also prefer good soldered connections to any of the plugs,crimps etc that are often used. And I do like to have good pickups on as many wheels as possible. So my pickups were adjusted to work, and most important, wired together so that both chassis are always powered. This ensures that (due to poor pickup) one cannot stall. In addition it was noted that the assembly is quite a work of art, one has to be very careful to make sure the valvegear is correctly and securely assembled. Also the magnetic pivots have rubbing plates that really are necessary. Just do all of this and it will be ok. Good engineering practises all round is the name of the game. I have NO qualms about Heljan products, just a satisfied customer with 18 purchases behind me.

 

Stewart

[Jamiel]

Way back in the beginning of the BG thread, I reported that I had stripped mine down to enable painting. Now it wasn't the easiest thing to re-assemble, but perfectly feasible. An account of this is on the thread. It should be noted that whenever I do this, as a pure DC modeller I remove the surplus DCC bits (and usually the lights as well) to keep life simple I also prefer good soldered connections to any of the plugs,crimps etc that are often used. And I do like to have good pickups on as many wheels as possible. So my pickups were adjusted to work, and most important, wired together so that both chassis are always powered. This ensures that (due to poor pickup) one cannot stall. In addition it was noted that the assembly is quite a work of art, one has to be very careful to make sure the valvegear is correctly and securely assembled. Also the magnetic pivots have rubbing plates that really are necessary. Just do all of this and it will be ok. Good engineering practises all round is the name of the game. I have NO qualms about Heljan products, just a satisfied customer with 18 purchases behind me.

 

Stewart

 I presume that for those using DCC, that since it is all routed through one chip, that all the pickups are connected together anyway?

 

Jamie

[bennyboy]

The horrible ringpiece motors did better doubled up than the otherwise superior worm drive bogies,

As used by those suffering from constipation?

[Grovenor]

 I presume that for those using DCC, that since it is all routed through one chip, that all the pickups are connected together anyway?

 

Jamie

Yes, the wiring as delivered has all the pickups commoned, since Stewart stripped the wiring out he had to reinstate it. Mine is currently in bits waiting fitting new wheels and I did note that the wiring is rather thin and delicate, a disconnection is the first thing I would suspect in case of any problem, as well as intermittent contact of the pickups due to poor asembly.

Regards

[Golden Fleece 30]

In the last two days I have read with interest all these comments, hopefully not missing any but I may have done, and today decided to try mine out for the first time since I bought it 18/20 months ago.  I pre-ordered it like everyone else and it was delivered as soon as it was in stock - my variation is BR - block numbers (poor choice I should have gone for Gills Sans) - rotary bunker - light weathering. 

 

The reason it has taken so long to run is I am all 3-rail and I did not want to start it until my layout was well on the way as I do not use Dublo track.  For some of your previous comments on here most of my locos are Hornby Dublo, many repainted in the Dublo style.  Nearly all my coaches are Exley with Dublo and Bachmann goods wagons.  I do have some Tri-ang and Bachmann locos all 3-railed.

 

The Garratt was actually very easy to convert, the hardest part as mentioned on here being separating the little plugs.  There is some description on the You Tube clip about 3-railing it.

 

Issues I have come across and found the same as most posts on here are

The pony trucks will derail anywhere where the track is not dead flat or on a few points.  Looking at the pony wheels these were

1) too fine a flange - look at the photo to see how it compares with a modern Hornby finescale wheel, and

2) as you all mention the NEM pocket is too high, Heljan actually filed/ground a chamfer on the front edge to fit under the buffer beam but as the beam actually rests on the NEM pocket there is no vertical movement.  The pony trucks are ridged.

 

What I did was to try a pair of Bachmann 12mm wagon wheels in situ and trimmed the bottom of the buffer beam level with the chassis, only about 1mm but it helps.  This also lowered the NEM pocket so the Kadee's are nearly at the correct height and as you can see on the video it stays coupled.  After a lot of running forwards and backwards it has not derailed once with the smaller wheels in so it looks like I need to find some proper finescale, dark 12mm ones or file the axle ends off.

 

One comment made was about bending the slidebars out a little, this may need doing but I noticed on mine one of them had popped out of the fine plastic hanger, this is too fine and flimsy really to hold it so I may put a touch of glue on to see if it will hold.

 

The valve gear as you all say is very loose, even Tri-ang and Dublo in the 50's had better fitting parts, it is also very thin and easily bent. Again how is it Tri-ang and Dublo made nice hard parts for theirs?  In this day and age it would be easy to make the parts from slightly thicker material or even nickel plated brass as in the old days.  Fingers crossed it holds up.

 

When I converted both units obviously I used a black wire from one and red from the other for the centre pick-up. It was a 50/50 chance it went back to run the correct way to all Dublo locos, but, no it did not it was in reverse.  What I did see was that both lamps glowed very brightly in the forward directions but then my easy answer to polarity was to swap front to back units etc which cured the polarity but only the front lamp would light!!!!  It is of no issue as when the body is on you cannot see it anyway.

 

I wanted the lightly weathered version and was very disappointed with what was on the valve gear, it was neat black painted on here and there, BUT, as soon as you touched it the paint would flake off so I used a fibre glass pencil to lightly rub as much as I could off.  I think it took about 1 minute for all 4 sets of valve gear.

 

So there we are a Heljan Garratt 3-railed.  What ever happens it can never go back and I will have to work on it as best I can as

1) It would be too long out of Guarantee, and,

2) as I have modified it considerably it would be invalid anyway.

 

That happens with any new Hornby or Bachmann loco I get as they are all 3-railed soon after getting home.

 

I just hope the driving wheels are not as easily moved on their axles as the pony wheels were.

 

https://youtu.be/nVRg3h0GO2Q

 

[Grovenor]

I see you have also added a lot of washers behind the pony truck wheels, I think the sideplay in the original wheelsets contributes a lot to the pony derailing.

part of my conversion will involve complete new pony trucks.

Regards

[Golden Fleece 30]

Hi, those washers were fitted on the original wheel sets before I found out the height issue.  The smaller wheel sets at the moment do not have any washers used as the truck swings freely.  To me it was because the truck was "jammed" against the buffer beam the wheels sets with very fine flanges tried to compensate by moving sideways and just lifted of the track.  As mentioned there are no issues now with that freedom.

 

Cheers

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

... my variation is BR - block numbers (poor choice I should have gone for Gills Sans) ... 

 Oh, I don't know, I rather feel the numbering makes it look like it could have come from Binns Road.

 

Whatever, a very useful and interesting post altogether. The treatment of your scenic three rail track is really successful, very rare to see this done so well.

[rockershovel]

Why 3-rail, if I might ask?

[Golden Fleece 30]

Thanks for the comment there is still a lot more to be done 34theletterbetweenB&D

 

Why 3-rail? Simply because I grew up with Hornby Dublo 3-rail, my first ever train set.  Even though I went into 2-rail I still kept a lot of 3-rail and a few years ago took the decision only one layout was required so 3-rail it was to be.  I had planned on converting my large 2-rail layout to 3-rail in the 80's but never got around to it.

 

To me it goes back to the good old days and runs better in my view.  Maybe that is because usually all wheels are live.  Most of the Tri-ang ones have had their insulated wheels replaced with non insulated ones.  Locos always run forward when the controller is turned to forward no matter which way they face on the track, no isolating rails or extra wiring/switches etc for reverse loops.

 

Dublo locos are my favourite but just not enough variation hence all the mods in the various videos on You Tube - Just look under Garry Hall to see them.

 

Here is one of my favourites which I hope to do with the Garratt in the next week or so,

 

I have always wanted a Garratt, even had the Kitmaster one with 2 Tri-ang chassis underneath but minus valve gear, pretty poor compared this model (at the moment).

[Colin_McLeod]

Would the Heljan Garrett be powerful enough to run with just one motor?

 

 

I suppose that if, for argument's sake, it had been possible to hide a single 5-pole can motor with twin-shafts driving both "engines", in much the same way that today's RTR diesels and electrics are engineered, then things might have turned out differently. It didn't happen that way, obviously, but it's an interesting thought nonetheless.....

Horsetan that's not quite what I meant.

Given the problems with the Heljan Garrett I was wondering if I removed one of the motors would the other have sufficient power to haul a decent train on its own.

[Horsetan]

....I was wondering if I removed one of the motors would the other have sufficient power to haul a decent train on its own.

 

Nothing stopping you from trying it. I have a feeling it would be like one of those railcar sets that Liliput-Bachmann produces - single powered bogie, which has to haul not just the weight of the car it's in, but also the weight of the unpowered trailer.

 

Might be alright on its own, pulling or pushing the "unpowered" engine (and associated "drag" with all the motion joints/pivots) but add your decent train, and you'd be putting that single motor under quite some strain. In football manager / corporate buzzword language, "it's a big ask".

 

EDIT: having thought about it some more, I suppose you could still go ahead and find out how many vehicles the single motor would haul before it goes "pop". Then you could replace it with the second motor that you removed earlier, and stay under the limit.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Horsetan

[amdaley]

As a matter of interest did anyone ever succeed in finding out the reason for so many failures in this model.

I know models have a certain failure rate but not on the level of the Garrett.

Was it poor motors or a combination of things ?

Surely someone knows ?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

There's no available objective data to tell us whether this particular model was better or worse than the running average of defects among current productions. Don't even know the size of the production run. Maybe they sold it in tens of thousands, in which case the defects reported - galling as they may be to the owner - were few and far between. It's all in the possession of Hattons, even Heljan may not have the full picture.

[Golden Fleece 30]

As I have only just decided to start running my Garratt and reading all the posts on here about the issues I looked at mine and have had one idea which others may say it is possible or it is not the problem'

 

Looking at my photos (and the chassis's themselves)  there is a lot of side play in the axles and I don't know how wide or size of the gears are and wondered if they could move so far sideways that it locked up with the drive cog. Modern Hornby and Bachmann have cogs about 2mm wide only. With reference to front and rear units, on our layouts usually the front one is pushing into the gears whereas the rear is being pulled so might not have the same lateral forces acting upon it.  I know it is clutching at straws but if this was the case then it would account for the front end units having the problems.

 

Another issue is that the outer driving axle is in what looks like a casting and on one of mine, the top one in the photo, this is not at 90 degrees to the frames, when I moved it gently across to straighten it as per the bottom one it did move back. This loco (as a lot of modern ones) is not really the easiest to dismantle especially when 1) the axles are held in the frames by the springs GLUED across, 2) to get all the wheel sets out even the pick-up strips need to be pulled off their locating pips making it difficult to secure back, 3) the flimsiness and looseness of the valve gear, 4) Plastic centered wheels which to me are not as secure as metal ones are.

 

I may look at trying to insert some limiting strips on the chassis as I cannot get washers on the axles without removing the wheels. Just thoughts.

 

Someone recently said to me the difference between Hornby Dublo and Tri-ang is they were built to last, modern items are in the "throw away era" ie hard to repair IF you can get any spares.  How many modern trains will be running in 60+ years time as well as they did when new, if at all?