42-inch gauge steam on Montagu Pass

Greg Scholl's great picture of a GMAM garrat exiting one of several tunnels on the ocean side of Montagu Pass brought back memories of really hard working narrow gauge steam. On my first visit in 1974 trains still ran over the pass with GEA garrats. The GEAs were fairly similar to the GMAMs, one primary difference being the larger front water tank that avoided the necessity of having a water tank car attached to the engine. Below is a GEA with the Capetown - Port Elisabeth passenger train about to enter one of the lower elevation tunnels.



Within a couple of years the GEAs were replaced by GMAMs for service over Montagu Pass



I am attaching the next photo to show that the garrats didn't always operate with a vast amount of black coal smoke



When diesels took over the Montagu Pass line, the Vryburg - Mafeking line became one of the last strongholds for GMAM garrats. My brother Juergen spent about a year and a half firing GMAMs and 19 Dollies (19D 4-8-2s) on that line. Here the GMAMs ran backwards most of the time, even though there are no tunnels. I suggested to him to make a posting about the pro and cons of the engines running forward versus backward. The below photo shows my brother (seated) and me on GMAM 4121 on August 22, 1983. There are many amazing stories that could be told one day.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/02/2019 10:03PM by Olaf Rasmussen.