I just ordered an Atlas N-scale roundhouse. I have a question to help me get a space ready for it. Is the 10 3/8" length listed from the back wall to the front doors, or to the edge of the turntable. In the picture I have, it looks like the base comes right up flush with the turntable.
I have the HO scale Atlas roundhouse. The base does indeed come right up to the edge of the turntable. In HO, the building starts about 3 or 4 inches back. The apron out front provides perfect alignment, both horizontally and vertically, with the Atlas turntable. Here’s an HO pic from my layout:
The interior does not come with detailing, by the way. I downloaded a picture of cinderblocks and copied it to cardstock, which I cut to shape and glued to the interior walls. The floors are made from coffee stirrers. If you plan to light the interior, you should probably paint the inside walls flat black before you assemble it. The walls are fairly thin plastic, and the building will likely “glow” if you just put a light bulb in it.
Rear wall to front edge is 10 3/8,rear wall length is 11 3/16,front edge where it meets the TT is 3 1/4.Now the TT is 8 1/2 in. dia.total with the rotating disc being 7 1/2.The tracks inside the RH and around the TT are spaced every 15 degrees.Center of TT to rear wall is 14 1/2 in while total length from front edge of TT to rear wall is 19 in.
This is a very nice set that operates well.However,if you wi***o add interior lighting,I suggest that you paint both inside and outside of the walls as the plastic is highly translucent and the RH will glow like a Halloween pumpkin when you turn the lights on.Hope this helps.
Thanks. That is exactly what I needed. I can place the turntable, and [2] roundhouses with 1/4" to spare between the rear wall of the roundhouse and the start of the grade running behind it.
The HO scale roundhouse kit is designed to allow expansion stalls. Of course, they only sell complete kits, but if you’re buying two, then it’s very easy to put them together. The kit even includes the extra parts needed when you replace the exterior “common” walls with interior structure. Of course, I’m assuming the N-scale kit is like the HO kit.
Are these roundhouse kits constructed so that I could add one or two stalls, instead of all three? I cut out a cardboard template, and it’s going to be a tight squeeze to get a six-stall roundhouse in place. I wouldn’t have any trouble fitting a five-stall building.
Speaking for the HO-scale Atlas, yes, that’s the general design. The only thing that definitely wouldn’t work right out of the box is the base. It is actually two pieces, not 3, for the 3-stall roundhouse. The separation runs under the center track. To add 1 or 2 stalls, you would have to cut one of the base pieces to fit. All the other major parts (walls, roof, etc.) are one-part-per-stall already.
Is this a “lift-off” building, or does it have to be glued to the base? If it is glued to the base, can the roof be taken off?
The same applies with the N scale RH…the floor is a two piece joined in the middle of the center stall,so some tinkering is definitely required to make these a four or five stall RH.And yes the walls are glued to the floor but you don’t have to glue the roof panels…which I did…hopefully I won’t have to replace a piece of track.
When I first posted that picture of the roundhouse, someone commented on how well the interior was lighted for the photograph. I admitted my secret - the roof isn’t even on for the photo, and you can see the floor lamp which provided the “interior” lighting. I keep the roof sections on most of the time (there are 3, one per stall) but they aren’t glued.
The base needs to be glued down so that the whole front assembly with the doors will stay put. Even so, I still need to do some work on the doors, since a couple have come loose since I put the roundhouse on the layout.
It’s a lot easier to nudge a stubborn loco if you can get the roof off easily. I’ve even had stupidity-induced derailments in there.