With the Walthers unit apparently unavailable until sometime this upcoming Spring, I’m in a bind. My son has added a turntable to Santa’s list. It’s the one thing we really do need.
So here starts the dilemma. Waiting until Spring just won’t work.
I’d like to keep the bill to under $100, 90 - 100 foot diameter, and pit-type.
The only option I’ve been able to find is the Heljan Manual Turntable (14" Diameter). Does anyone have this particular turntable? Any issues? I do not plan on motorizing it. Armstrong is how I’d like to stay.
A turntable (and roundhouse) is a really neat addition to a layout. Of course they are expensive and can be difficult to install and take up considerable real estate.
The Heljan has been around an awful long time but as I recall they run a good $200 or so. In any case, I would routinely hit Ebay (use search word “turntable” and pull the model trains section when the results appear), for sooner or later it will appear.
I have a Walthers large turntable on my layout and as this was the first HO layout I build I could not get enough turnouts and a turntable seemed almost necessary. Mine ended up with 12 stalls and 7 or 8 outside storage tracks. Yes I went crazy. Even had to widen the peninsula to make it fit. Now and I mean this none of my large friends can wiggle around the peninsular. I weigh 135 so I never though about normal size men moving around in the train room. It works well and looks great, but it takes up way more space than any other building and we don’t use it enough to warrant the space it consumes. If I was young enough to start over it would go, along with about 1/2 of my turnouts. Just wanted to pass my experience on to you. Bill
Jay - To be quite honest, you aren’t going to get a highly reliable (even manually operated) 90-100 foot HO turntable for the price you are quoting.
The Heljan manually operated turntable really needs significant modification if you want even passable success with it as it’s really not at all well balanced and depending on chance, the “pit” may not even be truly circular and will bind against the bridge.
My recommendation would be to look over what Diamond Scale Products has to offer. Their turntables are quality items that work very dependably, but their prices are about half again as much as you are talking about.
Trainworld (www.trainworldonline.com) is listing the Walthers 933-3171 kit for $35. It’s 90 feet, unmotorized, and it’s a kit. I have no experience with this model, but it’s hard to beat for that price. I have heard that the Walthers turntable kits are difficult to get right, but for that price, it could be a placeholder until you’re ready to upgrade.
This would presumably be simply Walthers version of (and identical with) the Heljan manual turntable, suffering the same shortcomings that I outlined above regarding the latter.
Incidentally, the Peco turntable that was cited ealier by another poster is, as far as I can tell from advertisements, far too short (~45’) in its bridge length to handle nearly any North American locomotive beyond an 0-4-0T, or 0-6-0T switcher.
Being the resident turntable nut at the club I can speak with some experience, don’t be so hipped up on the new Walthers T/T with DCC it’s for all intents and purposes going to be a great turntable, that being said for the most part it is no different then the current 130’ or 90’ versions that are readily available the only difference being that the newest version is dcc controllable. Where as the first version is controlled via a control box. However there are plenty of articles on line how to make them dcc controllable by installing a simple decoder into the control-box. So if the big draw for you is being able to control the turntable form the throttle don’t be discouraged. I converted one of my 130’ t/t so far and to be quite honest most of the time still use the control box.I have mine mounted to the fascia via Velcro so if i feel the need to move around some what I can but haven’t so far.
Regarding the other units mentioned the Walthers kit and the Heljan unit are one in the same if memory serves me correct and their both garbage. The ring gear assembly used to turn the bridge is a wast of plastic and will do nothing more then frustrate the bejesus out of you. The rails on the bridge get power via a pair of copper strips which wipe along two copper rollers that do not make suitable contact. There is no reversing circuit so you have to wire one in similar to what you need to do when using an Atlas t/t. A small basic turntable in it self not really of the same quality as the Walthers built ups but a far site better then the Walthers kit
I am sure if you do some internet shopping you can find yourself a nice deal on the Walthers built up (The best bang for your buck) I paid around $230/ea for mine several years a go I wouldn’t be surprised if you can do better then that. My O/P on turntables is they are really cool and make a great focal point to a layout, require some considerable amount of space to make all of the other parts that go with them fit IE: round house, coaling tower, wat
I don´t know what Peco TT you have seen, but the most reliable and BIG TT must be the Peco TT
I had one at my previous layout and it was SO reliable:
“The Peco Turntable. This easily assembled model is based on a Ransome and Rapier well type turntable supplied to many railways both at home and overseas. The deck length is 305mm. A hole 308.16mm needs to be cut into the baseboard to accommodate it. The kit contains the detailed plastic mouldings, rail and electrical contacts. As supplied, the deck is rotated by hand, but it can be motorised using the motor kit”
12" long, is that long enough for US locomotives? Or do the US 0-6-0t have an extremely long wheelbase?..
The only Peco HO turntable I was able to find detailed reference to for sale on websites here State-side was the LK-55, which listed its bridge length as 151mm, or only about 6". There are other listings for an LK-555 turntable stated as for On30 use on the Horizon Hobbies website, but no specs at all are provided relative to it.
Graffen, the confusion arises from the fact that when I do a web search by entering “Peco HO Turntable” the following site link comes out at the very top of the list: