Construct-class 2-8-0+0-8-2 steam locomotive, Slaibsgloth Coal Mine Railway No.14, ex-G&NE No.1303010₆, pulling a coal train out of the coal pits ca. 2324 AD.
These locomotives were built on planet Gymnome for the Glooiw & North Eastern Railroad in the year 2297 AD, late into the first steam era, and were very successful freight workhorses. After dieselization followed, they were sold to in large batches to various coal mine railroads, where they were popular enough to warrant additional batches.
They saw use through the oil crisis of the 2330s and 40s in mainline service as well as in the mines, and continued to work all the way into 2379 as the last remaining coal burning steam engines on Gymnome (Though by that time oil and biofuel burning advanced steam engines were still in use alongside diesel engines in regular service in a few less developed areas)
The Construct class, like so many Gymnomi Slime locomotives, is a Garratt-type articulated loco, with the boiler slung between two engine units, with a tender atop each engine unit.
This engine has been seen several times in my art:
As a model built by Eaurp Guz
As an even larger model built by Eaurp Guz (and mysteriously with the face of her childhood friend Slamtha) in this Artfight Attack
And in full scale in two varieties in this drawing of two trains passing eachother in a mountainous part of Gymnome.
After making my first model of the Advanced Steam Tank Engine for Train Misconductor, and working on a Thomas the Tank Engine model, the Garratt was my next modelling project.
Here is an early iteration of that.
I picked at the model over the next few months in between other projects, and I had plans to fully model the Southern valve gear too, but that hasn't happened yet, because I realized that the loco was just about the right size to fit into Train Misconductor as a Broad Gauge locomotive!
The model in the game was finished by taking a lot of shortcuts. The detail density didn't have to be nearly as high as planned, so the rest of the detailing and the pixel-art texturing went fairly smoothly.
The engine can be seen in-game here.
Also, check out the steam page for the game!
I wanted to do a nice drawing of the new model, to sort of retcon the inconsistencies of previous drawings and also to put some detail into the engine since that didn't make it into the model.
I made several renders from different angles, but settled on this one:
I traced the locomotive using the vanishing point snap feature in Firealpaca as well as the straight line and ellipse tools. This isn't that unlike how I would approach a normal train drawing, except the sketch layer is replaced with a 3D model.
Here's a look at the line art alone after it was finished. Several of the plumbing details come from the Chinese JS class locos, as they were the original inspiration for Guz's model in the first drawing. The valve gear is Southern valve gear, chosen because it's just a little unfamiliar and alien to people familiar with the more typical Walschearts. The light on the smokebox--which is normally unnecessary on a Garratt--is known on Earth as a "Mars Light." It's a swivelling light that moves in a figure eight shape so it looks like it's flashing, but also so that it can be aimed by the engineer by controlling the speed of the swivelling.
Several major elements had to be modelled from scratch. The pivot on the front engine, alongside its ball-jointed plumbing, the reverse lever, and the steam pipe which delivers exhaust steam from the high pressure cylinders at the back, through a gap in the firebox ashpans, and into to low pressure cylinders at the front.
Then the environment was drawn--using the Sandaoling Coal Mine Railroad as a reference. The environment is done fairly simply so as not to distract (me) from the foreground, but is detailed enough to get across the setting. This is one of the moodier pieces I've done, taking place on an overcast day in Slaibsgloth.
Then the loco was colored
And weathered, referencing the Sandaoling locos, previous drawings of the engine, and the game model's texture.
Then the loco was rendered, yielding the finished result above.
Back in 1929 you could just open up a mail-order catalog and order one of these things! (Although, distrustful of the Scotch as I am, I wonder if it's a "fair lie" that NBL Co. held the Patents to the Beyer-Peacock Garratt locomotive design... thoughts?)
While Great Britain has made hundreds of Garratts for export to Africa and many other countries around the world not many people know that at one time there were a fleet of standard gauge garratt locomotives working solely for the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) between 1927 through 1958.
After Grouping the LMS continued the Midland Railway's "small engine policy" of hauling trains using two or three locomotives of moderate power coupled together. This led to most of the Toton (Nottinghamshire)-Brent (London) coal trains being double-headed by 0-6-0 locomotives. It was realised that double heading was uneconomical so a Garratt locomotive was ordered from Beyer, Peacock and Company. Three locomotives were built in April 1927 and the remaining 30 were built in the period of August to November 1930. All were built with straight sided bunkers, but from 1931 all except the first two of the 1927 trio were fitted with revolving coal bunkers. These were conical in shape and were revolved and oscillated by means of a small 2-cylinder steam engine. The revolving bunkers prevented coal dust from entering the cab and the oscillation facility made them self-trimming. The 33 garratts were used as heavy freight locomotives and they produced nearly 46,000 pounds of traction effort, they were not ever given a power classification. However, though they were a strong class of locomotive, they didn't go without their problems; they would break away from their trains when going up hill, their brake blocks would melt and the Derby works insisted on fitting their standard axleboxes to the design. These axleboxes were barely adequate for the LMS Class 4F 0-6-0 locomotives, on which they frequently overheated, and were a major weakness on the LMS Garratts. They were also always heavy on coal and maintenance. They were passed into British Railways ownership and the class was withdrawn between June 1955 and April 1958. None survived into preservation.
