Building a turntable? Roundhouse Rock!!!

Garden Railroading
1

I have been giving some thought to building a roundhouse turntable. Now that someone has inquired as to an engine house; I, now, ask you, my most esteemed compatriots of Large Scale, to propose your ideas to my self styled lexicon!!!

2

Here are some nice pictures Joe.May help you along a bit -
Regards,Troy

http://www.bigriverlines.com/Modelmaker/Big_River_Lines_site/BRRR/BRR_Concept/Turntable/Turntable.html

3

Excellent!!!

Thanks Troy. From your pics I can begin a flurry of projects. I like the spider details, while my attempt (a first attempt) will not yeild the detail of your masterwork, I am sure that from these pics I can have a functioning, albiet evolving, design.

Again Thanks,

Capt Carrales

4

Troy, thanks for an awesome link! Added it to my favorites for future reference[;)]

Good luck Capt C. can’t wait to see what you come up with.

5

Sidestreet Bannerworks has a turntable plan available. It’s at http://www.sidestreetbannerworks.com/railways/plans.html and is #47.

Mike

6

Capt.,

This page has some interesting history about a few turntables in it along with some pictures. http://www.fedshra.org/turntable.htm

I don’t know if I should give this tidbit away [;)] but I’ve had this thought on building a turntable. If a person where to use the headphone jack like the GR plans do to provide power (if needed that is) and put that system onto the end of an old car front wheel or trailer wheel spindle and use the hub for that wheel as the mounting point for the area that the bridge section attaches to the pit you could do one of 2 ways keep the assembly whole and use the second bearing and bolt it together or cut the spindle so you only have to use one bearing and let the whole bridge assy. sit on that bearing and center itself. The second way would be easily removable for cleaning the pit and such.

Then comes the thought of is it a manual turntable or a motorized one?

Take care,
Jack

7

Anyone know of a book or a web site that has plansor detailed pictures of an Armstrong turntable? I did an internet search and came up with nothing. My prototype railroad I’m following loosely (in my mind) had one.

8

To my understanding, the term “Armstrong” wasn’t a particular style of turntable, but referred to any turntable which was manually operated; requiring a strong arm to rotate it. The EBT’s turntable at Orbisonia is one such example. (Curiously, this turntable was originally equipped with pneumatic motors to turn it, but the railroad never used them, opting instead for manual control.) The telltale sign of an Armstrong turntable is the existance of long poles sticking out of the end against which the crew would pu***o move the turntable.


The end of the turntable at the EBT’s Rockhill Furnace yard. - Ben Sullivan photo

Later,

K

9

Thanks K, that explains alot! Dumb A@# me missed the quotation around the word “Armstrong”

The Washington turntable was built I guess from scratch, the Waynesburg yard incorporated a used bridge from the Pittsburgh, Cincinnatti, chicago & St. Louis R.R. from it’s Steubanville Ohio yard. The turntable and used bridge was constructed by the Keystone Bridge Co. in 1873