I have looked at the roundhouse kits, and have not found anything I really like, certainly not at a price I like. I am now wondering about scratch building a roundhouse. It looks like the dimentions and proportions are the important parts. I am also interested in pics or lists of what goes in a 6 - 8 stall roundhouse in the 1950’s. I plan to house large engines. It looks like the large Walters turntable will be what I end up with.
Does anyone have plans or access to plans or suggestions on where to find plans?
The April ‘07 issue of Railmodel Journal just started a series by V.S. Roseman on using Walthers’ Cornerstone Modulars® which you might take a gander at the next time you drift into your local. If you can figure out how to use these modular components it would save you substantially over constructing a commercial roundhouse.
And addressing your other issue of dimensions: it seems to me that very recently I encountered plans for a roundhouse in which the modeler had built this to encompass a structure which had, over the course of the years, been adapted to accomodate an ever-increasing size of steamers. For the life of me, however, I cannot remember where I saw it.
I might add at this point that I remember in the sixties and seventies when all-diesel pikes were a rarity - all-steam pikes appear to be that way today - the model magazines had a number of articles on roundhouse construction complete with footprint graphics as well as elevation drawings. You might check the master index to see just what you can find.
If I were doing this, I’d look at a whole bunch of photos, and then I’d consider which turntable I would use with it. The two have to match in several ways or you’ll have odd-looking track segments around the complex. Additionally, I would consider which locomotives the house would be meant to service. If only smaller steam, a smaller house. If the house had been planned for super-steam, measure against your largest models and design accordingly.
If you go to google earth and type in the Drake st. and Pacific Blvd. in Vancouver. It will zoom in on the old Canadian Pacific roundhouse and turntable. You can then at least measure the footprint of the building by using their measuring tool.
Most roundhouses were enlarged over the years to house more/longer engines. This led to a single inward radius and several different exterior radii. The new, longer stalls were not always added on the same end of the original structure.
Except in truly frigid places, the roundhouse was a repair shop, not a garage. Most locos were parked either on ready tracks or on uncovered radial tracks off the turntable. (Of course, steam was very labor intensive, so there was lots of shop work required.)
Almost every roundhouse I’ve ever seen, either in pictures or in person, has a stepped roof with windows between the steps. Without those windows, the interior would have been as dark as Carlsbad Caverns.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with rectangular engine shops)
The windows on the B&O Roundhouse at the Museum is a perfect example. It is bright and airy in there. Now if it was just roof, it would be dark and depressing.
Build your roundhouse according to your longest engine.
I have a set of two walthers roundhouse kits and will build a set of tracks that I call “Mallet” tracks for longer engines that wont fit.
Ma and Pa and EBT had great roundhouses but a little bit small for truly big steam.
I saw a roundhouse once that had tracks skirting the turntable that went directly into larger garages. One large one was built on each end of the normal size RH. It may have been to fit the 2-10-4s of the day.
Might be an idea to check out the MR magazine index to see if there are published plans for roundhouses. They could be a start to doing your own correctly.
That construction article I cited above was by Steve Orth and began - Part I - in the January '07 Railmodel Journal and, I am going to guess, finished in either the February or March issue; this article concerns the Onion Specific roundhouse in Green River, Wyo. The article has 24 construction photographs and uses W