Can the Atlas 3 stall roundhouse be used with the new Walthers indexing turntable? The Atlas structure says it has 15 degree spacing… I am not sure on the Walthers turntable…
Can anyone out there help?
thanks
Roger
I can’t reply definitively, but I have read threads where posters have said they do not match. If you can get a footprint diagram, you will soon find if you can situate the house back from the TT lip enough so that you can get the tracks to work. You may need to build frogs where the radial track must cross each other a few scale feet from the TT. The prototypes did this, and it would be a real eye-opener…if more work.
I have found that the Walther’s 3-bay Cornerstone model is best situated about 2" back from the lip of both the indexed built-up and the kit TT’s that it markets.
Selector:
Thanks for the feedback… Wouldn’t you know it, I bought the Atlas roundhouse without checking… Lucky me more experience…
Thanks again
Roger
The Atlas roundhouse is well-matched to the Atlas turntable. For the price, it’s really a very nice kit, and it can be painted and detailed to make it an even better model. It features the 15-degree alignment, the same at the Atlas turntable, and also has a front “apron” that is designed to butt up against that turntable to perfectly align everything.
You may also notice that the roundhouse matches the size of the turntable. The turntable track is only 9 inches long, so the stalls in the roundhouse, actually inside beyond the doors, are barely longer than this. If you’re using a longer turntable and larger engines, you may be disappointed that they don’t fit in the roundhouse very well. You can park them with their noses sticking out the door, but there isn’t much room there before they start getting in the way of the adjacent stalls.
Fortunately my largest engines are PFM Pacifics. Everything else is 2-8-0 or smaller. I sort of solved the problem by moving the Atlas engine house to the other end of the layout. I will purchase an Atlas turntable and maybe do the conversion that showed up in MR some time back…
Thanks for the input.
Roger
The practical answer is “No.” The indexing is not the same. The Atlas TT and roundhouse are great for crowded spaces, but the Walthers kit needs more room. If you have the room, you could curve the tracks into the roundhouse if you do not plan to use more than three stalls, but you would probably regret it later.
Yes it will, the trick leave the floor off then you can line the track up anyway you want. I just put in the Walthers 90ft self indexing turntable along with their roundhouse and the Atlas one. I am going to build a new wood floor for the Atlas one anyway. Why two sizes of roundhouses I have been looking at alot of photo’s of proto engine fac. there where alot which had the two sizes. The Atlas one is smaller built when the steam engines were much smaller, as the 30’s and 40’s rolled in the engines started getting bigger and bigger, so they had to build bigger roundhouses.