Ok, I know the turntable bit has been beaten to death on this forum. I have a small engine facility on an extended part of my layout. We’re talking about a one track diesel fuel facility + coal and water for steam. It also has a 2 stall engine house. That’s it.
So, I wanted a smallish 75’ to 90’ turntable for the servicing area. I know that the Walthers built up is the #1 way to go, but honestly I’m not spending that kind of $$$ for this small part of my smaller layout. In the future, with the “real” layout, I’ll go with the 130’ Walthers, but not now. I heard the kit Walthers needed a lot of work, and the Atlas was too basic, so I went with the $70 Peco kit. It ended up being a nice looking kit, but that is about it. Operation is less than acceptable.
I now have three choices. #1 is to chance it with the Walthers or Heljan and try to get it to work. #2 is to get the Atlas and attempt to do what others have and build a real looking table on top of it, using the Atlas basically as a mechanism. #3, forget the turntable, fill-in where the Peco one would have gone, and instead use regular trackwork only in the service area. Is that even remotely prototypical?
What do you all think?
i think it entirely a matter of your attitude toward the turntable. turntables perform two primary functions. 1- they reverse the direction in which the locomotive is headed and 2- they route the engine into the desired engine house track or stall. in later years, they were handy for turning piggyback flat cars so the car was headed properly toward the ramp for “circus” loading and unloading.
for most steam and single unit diesels the direction the locomotive is pointed is really only an issue for road power that is going some distance or if the engineer needs to be on the right side when switching cars in the yard
since you only have a 2 stall engine house, you can accomplish the second function with a simple switch or turnout if you prefer.
years ago, i bought one of the early Walthers turntables and it was a joke. i have no experience with any of the others but one of the neatest ones i ever saw was scratch built using an old record player. the guy built the whole thing as a 2’x2’ module and installed it on the layout after he had everything working to his satisfaction.
grizlump
Hi from Belgium,
CMR made very good turntable both in HO and in Nscale; the bridge ride on roller bearing. www.custommodelrailroads.com
AAA precision kit made also state of the art mechanical turntables.
Diamond scale make also very good looking turntable but they need some tunning.
Bowser had made also turntable but are no longer aviable; you can may be find some on Ebay.
Thats for some of best know manufacturer.
For the control www.nyrs.com make a state of the art control and have a kit to use their control for the Walthers turntable.
Good luck.
Marc
I’ve looked at the CMR, Diamond Scale, etc. and with those you are still talking about $100-200+ for a kit that may or may not work out. I don’t think I really want to dive into those brands just for this layout.
The real problem is that there is such a wide range when it comes to turntables. Basically it’s either buy one of the cheap kits that either doesn’t really look like one, or doesn’t work at all or spend $200+ for one that does work. There is just no middle ground.
You might try getting hold of a copy of “Popular Model Railroads You Can Build” (Kalmbach, 1977). It contains the Portage Hill & Communipaw series by Don Reschenberg. The last article in the series is about building your own turntable. There are a couple of used copies at Barnes & Noble.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Popular-Model-Railroads-You-Can-Build/Model-Railroader-Magazine-Staff/e/9780890245309
Either that, or try and get a copy of the August, 1963, issue of MR where the article originally appeared.
It appears to be available at The Engine Tender : http://www.enginetender.com/876i.htm (page down about 1/3 of the way). Stock number is 876-196308 and the issue is $1.00 (unfortunately,shipping is $10, IIRC).
EDIT: OR, you might get a few ideas on using an Atlas TT as a starting point for something like this.
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/sgratke/sgrr/trains/matt/index.htm
Andre
You’ve summed up your options. Either go cheap and live with the results or pry open the wallet and spend some $$ to get a nice TT. You other option is to find a way to install the expensive TT is such a way that you could re-use it on a future layout.
Very interesting link. I hadn’t found that one. Basically, I think I’m down to two options. Either 1. Go with the Atlas TT, and combine stuff from the above link, Mister Beasley’s version, and a couple of other similar modifications I have found. or 2. Just use regular track work, with a couple of turnouts and some flex to finish the area.
Both options will cost about the same. The track/turnouts would be about the same cost as a manual Atlas TT/motor and other parts. The main difference is that just using regular trackwork would be pretty simple, easy and straightforward. Doing the turntable mod will cause more headaches. I don’t know which to choose just yet.
Anyone know if you can just drive the Atlas TT with a standard motor or disable the indexing? I don’t want the 30 or 15 degree indexing, and I can just line it up by eye.
Anyone know if you can just drive the Atlas TT with a standard motor or disable the indexing? I don’t want the 30 or 15 degree indexing, and I can just line it up by eye.
The Atlas turntable uses a Geneva mechanism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_drive although the Atlas one has more slots than the one shown at the link. If you disable the indexing, what you’ll end up with will essentially be a 9" diameter lazy susan.
ANdre