Talk:Herbert William Garratt

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Garratt & Australia[edit]

We come upon the question of Garratt in Australia again. My understanding was that Garratt was a consultant for the NSWG Railways in the UK, inspecting locomotives being built by British builders prior to shipment, and in fact he was never in Australia. My source for that was, I think, "The Origins of the Garratt Locomotive". But when I went to check it last night, do you think I could find the book? Never mind, it will turn up soon.

However the references quoted with this rewrite are certainly impressive. And to top it off last night I found another book which stated Garratt spent time in Australia. The problem of course is that they could all be relying on one incorrect source, as indeed my original source could be. I think this is a question of some importance, and needs to be resolved.

The reference to the rail-mounted artillery is also of interest, and makes sense in that if he was already consulting to one arm of the NSW government, another would also use him on matters relating to railways. The only question here is that the NSW army, or indeed the suceeding Australian army, never had rail mounted artillery. I had previously read it as he observed some conventional gun carrages, but will have to go back to my source and re-read it in light of this infomation. --Michael Johnson 23:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Now I've had time to consider it a bit more,the Steamindex source sounds most unreliable, at least as far as Garratt's life goes. Cosider the following two sentences:

returning to Britain in 1906.

After inspecting rail-mounted artillery for the NSW Govt he visited Beyer, Peacock & Co, Manchester, to discuss a method of mounting heavy artillery on railway bogies.

While it is true that the NSW Govt had an army prior to 1901, it was absorbed into the Australian army at federation, 1st Jan 1901. Garratt would have had no business inspectiong gun carrages for the NSW government after 1906. --Michael Johnson 08:30, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]