CZK - Adamov-Garrett

licenční parní automobil
The tradition of engineering production in Adamov dates back to the 1940s of the nineteenth century. Various engines, pumps, steam machines, compressors, textile machines and cranes were produced in the Adamov machine shops.
At the beginning of February 1910, the existing company merged with the Prague Joint Stock Company, which focused on the production and construction of railway and road bridges, mining towers and various types of cranes. In the following year, another Prague company joined the plant. The newly established company was called Spojené strojírny formerly Ruston, Bromovský-Ringhoffer. In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the company Škodovy závody in Plzeň was added. In the meantime, the Prague United Machine Works had been reoriented towards war production. At the very end of the war, on 1 October 1918, the existing machine works in Adamov were purchased by the Daimler Motors Joint Stock Company in Vienna. However, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire led to the loss of the existing markets, which caused considerable difficulties in marketing such a wide range of manufactured goods.
According to the nostrification law of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, the newly formed Akciová společnost pro stavbu strojů a mostů (Joint Stock Company for Construction of Machines and Bridges) in Prague took over the Adama plant on 1 January 1921. The sales difficulties of the Adamov machine works continued to persist. The debt of the plant was constantly increasing and by the middle of 1923 the bank debt rose up to 20 million CZK. The company management secured several small orders for locomotive repairs for 1924-1925 and even started production of new locomotives. Production also returned to the construction of bridges, boilers, cranes and hangars, and in 1924 the engineering plant fulfilled a small order for the MNO, but these were only emergency solutions. For a production programme that would offer a longer-term perspective, it was necessary to look for a field that was not represented in Czechoslovakia at the time. This was the only way to exclude possible competition and to have a chance of success.
The company looked for a way out in the application of foreign licences and patents. In 1923, it concluded a licence agreement with the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works in Winterthur to secure the production of electric locomotives and a similar agreement with the English Metropolitan Electrical Vickers Co.Ltd. in London. A contract was also concluded with the Zipper company for the manufacture of car wheels and in October 1925 a contract was also signed with the German firm Knorr-Bremse of Berlin for the manufacture of brakes for freight trains. In addition to these, locomotives, diesel engines, various types of road machinery, bridges, railway cranes, hangars and cannon wheels for the MNO were produced here at that time.
During April 1925, the Adamov Engineering Works, represented personally by its chief director Bedřich Guth, concluded a licence agreement with the English firm Richard Garrett & Sons, Ltd. in Leiston, concerning the production of steam trucks, which was also to provide sales of finished products to the Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, Romania, the Kingdom of Serbia, Bulgaria and the European part of Russia. This was certainly a bold decision, as at that time the Akciová společnost had previously offered and sold its steam trucks to Škoda Plzeň, although so far only from the original English licence deliveries.
This was the six-ton car "Garrett" (pictured), a sample of which was shipped from the English plant by wagon to Adamov on 20 July 1925 in the three-sided tipper version, v.no.: 34695, at a cost of £1,000.00, including sets of components and parts worth a total of £3,000.00.The sample car was painted in light grey at the English factory (the shade was identical to the cars produced for the "Hovis" company) and stamped with the inscription "ADAMOV-GARRETT".
The car was equipped with a water-tube boiler with a steam preheater with a total heating surface of 7.8m2 with an operating pressure of 17.5 Atm, fed by a suction injector and a pump with a valve for fine regulation of the steam supply. The boiler was fitted with an easily removable and sufficiently large lid so that cleaning or any repairs could be carried out without the need to lower the boiler into the cleaning pit, as with the Sentinel type cars. The engine consisted of a steam engine with two high-pressure lay-flat cylinders in a single block, with a piston distributor of the "Joy" system, with a cylinder diameter of 114 mm, a stroke of 190 mm and a capacity of 39 litres for each. It was mounted under the car frame in heavily dimensioned and reinforced pressed steel sections. The power output of the machine was 70 HP at 500-800 rpm and allowed the car to reach a full load speed of 25-30 km/h. The power transmission was routed through a gearbox with two gears mounted on the frame of the car, a differential housed in a crankcase with an oil fill and chain transmissions to both rear wheels. The wheels were full-hoop steel wheels with dimensions of 850x160 mm for the front and 1050x140 for the rear twin wheels. The wheelbase of both front and rear wheels was 1600 mm and the wheelbase on the longitudinal lip 3100 mm. The car could be braked in three ways: either with foot brakes (internal calipers on the rear wheels), conventional hand brakes and, if necessary, with a modified accelerator pedal, which, by releasing it completely, could be used to close off the access of steam to the cylinders and, by their immediate compression, practically stop the car on the spot.
The maximum length of the car was 6310 mm, width 2200 mm and height 2750 mm. The height of the frame above the ground was 1050 mm and the lowest point of the car from the ground was 300 mm. The loading area was 9.5 m2 and the total weight of the car was 6000 kg. The water tank had a capacity of 800 litres and the coal bin in the cab with two seats for the driver and heater could hold 200 kg of coal or coke as the recommended fuel.
Unfortunately, apart from the attached photograph, there is no information in the company archives about this imported carriage or the possible production of others. Considering that at the turn of 1927-1928 the plant became the property of the Pilsen Škoda factory and was part of it until 1952 (when it was renamed "ADAMOVSKÉ STROJÍRNY" and today's generations know it more as a manufacturer of machines and equipment for the printing industry under the brand name "ADAST"), it can be assumed that Dr. Loevenstein, CEO of the Joint Stock Company formerly Skoda Plants, issued an order not only to dampen the promotion of these cars, but also to stop any further activities around the eventual production in order to promote the sale of Skoda-Sentinel's own cars, which were themselves having a very unpleasant time of their lives due to pressure from many lobby groups.
While chatting with the memoirists about all sorts of things that smell of steam and machine oil, I discussed with them, among other things, the described car "Adamov-Garrett". Some of them clearly remembered that somewhere near Brno, in some brickyard, two Garretts were definitely running, which would mean that at least one more car was built in Adamov from purchased parts...
But the research work never ends, and in its endless chain one can still discover new, long forgotten, data and documents, dusty albums full of beautiful photographs of our grandfathers, proudly standing in front of the lenses of cinema cameras at their blowing and machine-oil smelling steam engines, and it is surely only a matter of time before they come to the light of the world and events, so that they can reach contemporary readers who want to discover, or just remember for a while, with the magic of time... This paragraph is both a wish and a message to all those who could and would like to help me in my research and enrich such precious moments of "steam" history, which could be capitalized in the future not only in similar articles, but perhaps also in the form of an interesting book ...
CZK - Adamov-Garrett - parní automobil ADAMOV-GARRETT

parní automobil ADAMOV-GARRETT
URL : https://www.valka.cz/CZK-Adamov-Garrett-t28936#102025 Version : 0
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