Good day all. I am redoing a section of my layout and I have a question for you all. I am modeling the Canadian prairies, Saskatchewan in particular, in the eary 70’s. When did Canadian class 1 railroads generally stop using turntables? I’m thinking it was shortly after deiselization, but I’m not sure.
Diesels didn’t make turntables obsolete. Most diesels have a forward end that needs to be turned unless there is a lashup with a diesel on each end facing the correct direction. Here’s some information on turntables. It shows a roundhouse full of F-units with one pair using the turntable. It has a picture and a video of a modern BNSF diesel being turned.
Turntables have been a ‘round’ since the 1830s – and they’re still in rotation | BNSF | Rail Talk
August 21, 2063.
PRR turn table in Altoona PA is still in use by NS today at the back of the shop complex. They use it instead of having a ladder track. I do believe the one in Cumberland maryland owned by CSX in that shop comlex is still in use.
Shane
The TT at CPs Coquitlam yard is in constant use. There are lots of videos online of the modern day monsters getting a ride. Those locos head East again at some point.
There are FB groups such as RailsBC and Classic Canadian Pacific that are full of videos and photos of everything CP. One guy post a ton of videos of TT action at Coquitlam yard.
CN got rid of a lot of turntables in the late 1950s and early 1960s, at the same time as shop facilities at those locations were reduced in size or eliminated along with the end of steam. New diesel shops were built at Vancouver (Port Mann, now Thornton yard), Prince George, Edmonton (Calder, now Walker yard), Saskatoon (Chappell yard) and Winnipeg (Symington yard), with those last two being part of new yards outside their respective cities.
Walker yard has CN’s only remaining turntable in western Canada. It and the nearby fuel stand were overhauled as part of a major maintenance program a year or two ago. I suspect it was kept as the nearest wye is on the other side of the yard across many leads and through tracks. The backshop/powerhouse portion of the roundhouse is also still standing, being used by CN’s Facility Maintenance department.
Prince Albert, SK actually got a new roundhouse in the 1950s. It is still in regular use along with its air-powered turntable, now owned by Omnitrax’s Carlton Trail Railway.
Several other turntables survived into the 1970s, 80s and 90s, Boston Bar, Kamloops, Prince George and Jasper all come to mind. Those last three were dontated to museums or historic groups but only Prince George’s is installed, it is literally the centrepiece of their railway museum. Hanna, AB still has its roundhouse and turntable though it has been without an active rail connection since most of the Drumheller and Oyen Subs were abandoned in 2008, and it fell out of use decades earlier.
Here’s a turntable being removed, at Edson, AB in 1955. The roundhouse was demolished at the same time. This same scene would have happened at most other smaller divisional points around the same time.
On the other hand, diesels are faced in both directions in consists to allow the power set to face either direction without the need for a turntable. So while diesels didn’t make turntables obsolete, they made unnecessary.
Most of us can think of many examples where turntables were not needed. I rode the Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr from Sacramento to Denver in the mid-1970’s. Between Cheyenne WY and Denver CO, the powerset of SDP40F’s were back to back, and they uncoupled, ran around the train, and pulled it backwards to Denver. Then in Denver, ran around the train to position it for the run to Chicago. No turntable needed. D&RGW would run power sets from Denver to Salt Lake City or Provo UT, and the power sets with diesels facing both ways would just position for the trip back east when ready to pull a freight rain handed off by the WP back east.
My late 70’s ear layout will not have turntable so I will not be faced with figuring out how to install one and make it work.
Not entirely.
In order to build a consist like that at the engine facility you’ll still need to ability to turn an engine occasionally.
But if there’s a wye nearby you can use that’s less maintenance than a turnable.
Road power is turned all the time on the local wye in order to set up engines for an outbound consist, or turn a consist where the trailing unit does not face outwards and needs to head back in the other direction.
No. How do you think the engine pointed the other way got facing the other way?
It was turned on a wye or turntable.
Hence my date in 2063 for when they “stopped” being used. They are still in use (although not as frequently as steam era days and there are fewer of them), but they will still be used as long as engines have a front that is different than the back.
The CN yards in Fond du Lac and Stevens Point, WI. (former Soo and WC) both have turntables, and they are used to turn power and MOW equipment.
Mike.
Just to remind everyone, the OP asked when Canadian class 1 railroads quit using turntables and it is clear they have not. Whether a turntable was still operational in the locale he is modeling is another question. He was non-specific about where that was or if he is even modeling an actual location other than to say it is somewhere in the Saskatchewan praries in the early 1970s.
Turntables are less common than in the steam era and many locations now use wyes instead but turntables are still around and will be for a long time.
Hello All,
I concur that turntables have been relegated to the past but are still in use today.
To get slightly [#offtopic]…
Märklin produces a magazine that highlights their track plans.
They also classify motive power, cars and scenery by Eras:
- I (1835 to about 1925)
- II (1925 to 1945)
- III (1945 to 1970)
- IV (1970 to 1990)
- V (1990 to 2006)
- VI (2006 to the Present)
In one of their magazines, they published the same track plan set in several different eras: II, III, IV through VI.
Some of the variations involved servicing facilities in the different eras.
A notable difference was the use of a transfer table over a turntable and how that affected the track plan in the main service yard.
Even into the “modern” eras of these track plans, a turntable was included at the end of a branch line to turn diesels because there wasn’t enough room to model a wye.
As far as prototypical “abandonment” of turntables I found that the widespread building of transfer tables in service facilities happened in the 1970s.
There are earlier uses of transfer tables, but I suspect widespread acceptance of these rendered the turntable obsolete versus the type of motive power being turned.
Hope this helps.
Transfer tables don’t turn things though, so don’t replace a turntable’s function*. They only allow equipment to access multiple bays of a large building without an insanely space-consuming switch ladder.
*A turntable MAY have 2 functions - to access the multiple stalls of a roundhouse, and to turn equipment.
Many small branchline terminals had a turntable and only a 1 or 2 stall enginehouse, or even no engine facilities, and the turntable was only used for turning steam engines. If there was enought space for a wye though, that would be preferred. Turntables would be used if property/space was limited. These turntables mostly got eliminated, with wayfreights using double-ended diesel consists or simply running the power in reverse.
Many medium size engine facilities with turntables and roundhouses were also completely eliminated as diesels had longer range and required less maintenance than steam and heavy maintenance and repairs were more centralized, so the turntable and roundhouse were both abandoned/removed.
CPR still has working turntable in Alyth Yard in my home City. At least it still shows as having a bridge on google Earth. Not easy to see if it’s still operational.
It also has a Wye and the turntable is just outside the Wye.
Back in 1979 one of the first jobs I worked was as a hostler (for Amtrak) at New Haven Motor Storage. One of the responsibilities of the hostlers was to take F40’s and E units (that came in facing west from Boston) and turn them on the turntable on the other side of the main line (Lamberton Street), to head east again for their next trip up the Shore Line.
Later on in the early 1980’s they built a “loop” to turn the engines, and the old turntable was taken out. I think that it was sold or donated to someone, instead of being scrapped.
There is a TT in Grank Forks ND. It is often used to store and display MOW consists, small road and yard engines, and the like. There are also several in the Minneapolis area around yards and engine complexs.
Transfer tables are used at major car and backshops. They are not used at service tracks. They do not turn engines or cars. They have been used since the 1870’s (not a typo, since the 1800’s). They are used to move dead engines and cars side to to side in a large shop complex.
No. Completely different purposes and uses. Turntables have not been eliminated. They were not replaced by transfer tables. Both have been used continuously for the last 150 years and both are used today.
However because the number of servicing facilities and heavy backshops have been reduced, the numbers of turntables and transfer tables have been reduced.
Since diesels operate just as easily backwards as forwards, the need for turntables (or wyes) at the end of branch lines was eliminated. However major shops and service tracks still have ways to turn engines (turntables, wyes or balloon loops).
Turntables are very expensive to maintain and have more opportunities for failure. Railroads will replace them with wyes or balloon loops wherever and whenever they can. A wye is much cheaper to maintain, its major cost is the land to put it on.
Indeed the former PRR turntable at the M&E building in Altoona recently went through a rebuilding program:
181026_12_juniata by lmyers83, on Flickr
More can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/lrmyers/albums/72157700692484762
Regards, Ed
Turntable and roundhouse still in use at CSX’s Radnor yard in Nashville:
https://www.facebook.com/CSXTLocomotives/photos/a.270385831349/10159530130346350/?type=3&source=57
There is so much good stuff to look at in that photo. Thanks for posting it.
Rich