It is time to start planning my engine servicing facility. What will give me the nicest looking roundhouse? Late steam, large to medium size locos. I think I want to have a detailed interior. I want 6 to nine stalls. I want a midwestern look.
I looked through Walther’s Cat. I have not seen many in person. What are your opinions of final look on different models. I am not afriad of craftsman models, nor troubled by detailed plastic.
I’m a little too young to provide any first hand roundhouse experience however I’ve seen a few on layouts. The one that sticks out most in my mind appeared to have arc welding going on inside. I believe that they might have used something like this to achieve a very realistic effect to my eye. It was somewhat subdued and wasn’t overused. I’m guessing that there might have been some sort of covering over a portion of the bare light and it seemed to randomly trigger every 10 to 20 seconds and then go away for a few minutes. It also helped that the roundhouse lived in a darker part of the layout.
I would also think that in the late steam era, many of the roundhouses were in place for several decades and had a pretty good buildup of soot and fair amount of filth on and around them from all the photos I’ve seen.
Eastern & Midwest Roundhouses were mostly brick and with square-ish windows.
Walthers’ Round house and LARGE turntable is probably what you want. You can add stalls. European windows dont look right.
Figure the longest engine you want to fit onto it 0r two Diesels. Later Articulateds generally sat alongside.
i wouldn’t worry about interiors since a solid roof covers everything.
I have an Atlas roundhouse, which mates very nicely with the Atlas turntable. Unfortunately, both are very small and not suitable for anything larger than small steam. My P2k 0-6-0 switcher just barely fits on the turntable and inside the stall. As a model, though, I think it’s pretty nice. It’s well detailed, and a good basis for some customizing. The walls are really thin, so I first sprayed them black on the inside, and then covered them with a concrete block pattern I downloaded and then printed on card stock. I used coffe stirrers for the wood floor.
Art. Check out this link for Sierrawest Scale Models. They make a beautiful stone roundhouse I’m sure you’ll love to have… I Know I would. LOL!!!
this is a 90 foot walthers turntable and a walthers roundhouse 3 stall. set up on a 2foot by 4 foot section of half inch plywood. The space that these buildingsa nd surounding facilities will eat up real estate very quickly, But in my thoughts it is worth it, the scenery posibilities are endless
Heljan makes a 120 foot (i think) size it is nicely detailed and i have a 6 stall Heljan roundhouse, it is a 27 inches across so it takes up a weee bit off space
Atlas has a turntable that is well suited for small spaces, and with a little imagination can be made to look quite nice
In short there is a lot of different sizes for any apllication, just need to decide what size engines you are going to run, that will determine what size your turntable going to be
I got 6 stalls walthers roundhouses in two 3-stall kits, coal tower, water tower etc etc… (Machine shop too) The last order will be the 130’ turntable.
Put all of that stuff on one end of a yard next to the ladder and use it to get the engines to and from thier trains. And to turn observation cars, A-B units for consisting etc.
The EBT had a roundhouse and turntable that I used to visit as a kid. It was strictly a place to take care of the engines each day. Strasburg RR has a engine house instead of a turntable that takes care of thier engines. The B&O Museum has a internal turntable which I think got damaged in the President’s day storm '03 when the roof failed. It probably has been repaired by now.
I’m sure you have seen my engine servicing facility, which includes a 12-stall Walthers roundhouse with attached machine shop, sanding towers and drying house, diesel fueling platform, concrete coaling tower, steel water tower, as well as the 90’ turntable in recent WPF threads. The only bad thing is that it takes up ALOT of room, but I feel it is well worth it.
The Walthers roundhouse is fairly detailed, and will easily accomodate Pacifics as well Hudsons. Only the modern roundhouse (which is much bigger and can accommodate most larger steamers) has brick details inside IIRC. My only complaint regarding my roundhouse are the VERY fragile stall door hinges.
I have a Korber six stall roundhouse. It makes a really nice model. The interior only consists of the posts going up to the roof. I think you will have to make your own interior, which shouldn’t be to hard, depending on the level of detail you want. I certainly agree with the arc welder statement. If you are not afraid to build craftsman models you should consider scratchbuilding the whole thing, Grandt Line has some really nice doors and windows that are made just for that. Walthers new roundhouse looks really good also.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
You beat me to it. Klambach’s book, HO Structures You Can Build, has a section devoted to designing and building a roundhouse. Since I’m going with small steam and need a small roundhouse, that’s what I’ll be doing.
OK I HAVE to add my 2 cents worth here. I am about 65 to 70% complete on my engine servicing facility and have gotten a ton of great information right here. I am using the Walthers roundhouse with three extended stalls and three add on’s. I have gone through great pains in detailing it. I have been following Marty McGuirk’s book put out by Kalmbach “Locomotive Servicing Terminals” like all of the K-books worth every single dime. So I am totally disappointed with the quality and fit and finish of the Walthers kit. I had to call customer svc. at Walthers for bad roof pieces missing or broken parts etc. Thankfully they are all top shelf guys there and they have replaced the bad or missing parts free of charge. One of the things I don’t care is the fact that the walls are in two pieces with the windows sandwiched in between. The doors well as mentioned non of them ever work like they are supposed to and the pins that hold them in are tiny flimsy little things that break when you look at them. If your a novice modeler or even semi skilled this kit is a giant pain in the butt. The finished product is pretty nice but here’s the kicker. My wife read an add on Craigslist this week for a guy selling a 25’x80’ layout with tones of trains and loads of houses building trees etc. So we go up there today and when I walk in the guys workshop there sitting on the bench is a Heljan 6 stall roundhouse. Fully assembled but only missing the doors. I guess the old timer who built the set up knew what a giant pain in the butt they were and left them off. So me who can never walk away from a bargain bought all of the industry buildings a few hundred nicely done tree’s, the roundhouse and a 134’ Diamond Scale turntable with the drive/indexing system still in the box. Don’t ask me what I paid cause I ain’t gonna tell ya. When I got the stuff home my buddy a fellow train nutcase met me in my driveway. We inspected the roundhouse and except for some dust the thing is in stellar condition.
Ezielenski, those are some incredible photos of your roundhouses and engine service facility. If I can just get a scene that looks just half that good, I’ll be pleased - great work!
I’ll show you mine that I have just started on, but after seeing yours, mine is just, well, call it a beginner’s turntable/roundhouse yard! [:D] Heck, Rick Bradley’s, yours is more like where mine is heading, yours looks great too. The photo below shows only the initial installation, since the photo was taken, I have put down all of the approach and other tracks down.
Dont fear! Your picture shows a neat and care in your work.
Take a little at a time as you go.
Good work!
WOW!!!
Art,
Below is a link to the library of congress HABS/HAER web-site. Inside the site,you can find drawings,pictures ect of railroad roundhouses. I use this site often when researching something.
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query
You can type in just about anything and it will pop up. If you want drawings of how the roundhouse & other buildings are set up,just type in “roundhouse drawings”,in the search engine box. HABS/HAER has tons of pictures of the roundhouse inside and out.
How this helps…
Patrick
Beaufort,SC
Dragon River Steel Corp {DRSC}
It appears that its a dead link,so heres another one.Just type in what you want in the search engine box.
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/habs_haer/
Patrick
The Walthers Cornerstone roundhouse seams to be modeled after a C&NW standard design. A living example of it survives in Spooner, WI. The 90’ turntable is the same prototype too, and again Spooner has one of those.
Unless anyone knoes of another prototype, they look exactally the same.
Phil
Does anyone make a kit for a corrigated iron enginehouse or roundhouse? Most all kits I have seen are eastern brick prototypes. I need one that is more shortline styled. - Nevin
they take up so darn much room my personal opinion at this point is they aren’t worth it. I don’t have one on the stretch of the PRR I am modeling nor did they. That’s convenient! If I were to do it again I might consider an engine staging yard at a division point and have the facilities off lines as it were with ready tracks for switching out engines.
ROUNDHOUSES take up real estate. (Best advice is to fit it into a return loop).
My Korber 6 stall fits inside a 31" radius track (62" diam.) and access is a problem. 4x8 limits radii to 22" which an Atlas’ 9" TT fits inside.
TOY sized curves and TOY sized turnlables require TOY sized engines. Better to have a 3 stall roundhouse and large turntable. I recommend drawing to scale before huying.
ezielinski’s roundhouse is gorgeous. I just wonder what his dimesions are?