I am going to have a transfer table on my great northern layout insted of a turn table.
If you do not need to turn engines or cars, but only to move them to different storage tracks then a transfer table would be cool.
From what I know, transfer tables were mainly used in large engine shops to transfer engines (mostly for diesel engines) that were being transferred one one work bay to another in the same building. Each bay did a different type of building or repair.
Did Great Northern use any transfer tables?
Have fun!
Yes, Great Northern did use transfer tables
Be aware that turntables and transfer tables serve entirely different purposes. While there might have been a transfer table somewhere that was also a turntable (capable of turning a locomotive end-for-end as well as moving it laterally) I have never heard of it. The engineering required would be - interesting.
By all means incorporate a transfer table with your backshop. (They were far more common for steam. Early drawbar-connected diesels were too long for contemporary transfer tables) You will still need a way to turn your locomotives to face the other way - which can be done with a balloon loop or a wye. (Note the wye just below the turntable on the track plan you provided.) Note, too, that transfer tables are always used at shops. I have never heard of a prototype transfer table that simply connected parallel tracks in an open, unroofed area that had never been a shop building.
EDIT: Mapquest gives a good overhead view of the ex-SP engine shops at Sacramento, including the transfer table between two parallel shop buildings. There’s a turntable, without roundhouse, at the north end of the shop just east of the transfer table - no direct access between the two.
At Steamtown (Scranton, PA) there is no visible transfer table - but there is a long building that might be a covering structure over one. Scranton is snow country, Sacramento isn’t.
Chuck
It seems to me sometime in the last year or so Classic Trains had a picture of a large RR shop facility that used a transfer table - or two transfer tables?? - but also had a turntable (no roundhouse). I presume the turntable was used to turn cars (IIRC this was a passenger car shop) so they would be in the right orientation when they went into a stall to be worked on.
Transfer tables were used for many of the situations noted above. Some trolley companies around the country used them in their maintenance yards as the cars were double ended and there was no need to turn them around.
Turn tables are a space hog and impractical on many model railroads. Transfer tables are a rarity so that makes them a bit cool… but…
So to answer your question… what are you going to do with this railroad? ? ? How do you plan to operate your pike???
That should draw you to some conclusions.
see ya
Bob
i am going to have a wye and the transfer table is going to be in the maintenance area.
The terminal railroad of St. Louis had a turntable and a transfer at the Brooklyn Shops before it closed and consolidated operations at the Madison Yard
Turntables themselves aren’t that much of a “space hog”. A 90’ turntable that can handle most non-articulated engines just takes up a square foot. Even a 130 ft turntable is only 18" square.
The space hog is really the roundhouse and service tracks.
From that standpoint a transfer table is a HUGE waste of space. They were only used at very large shops and usually buried on the back side of the shop. They also had relatively little use, only to move engines around from track to track in the shop complex. They aren’t part of the service tracks.
If you go to Google maps and look at Jenks Shops on the UP in N Little Rock, AR, on the south end of the shops there is a transfer table. Pretty much an engine has to go through 3 shops to get to the transfer table. The northmost is the service track (it has a turntable), next is the repair shop that repairs engines and does inspections. The southernmost is Jenks Shop that rebuilds engines. No engine goes from a train to the transfer table or from the transfer table to a train.
Until it was closed, Sacramento shops of the Espee had two transfer tables, SP scrapped one and UP removed the second, the scrapped example was later replaced by a replica comissioned by the CSRM, it is doubtful that the second TT will ever be restored as the location contains pumps removing contaiminated ground water. Prior to installing longer tables in 1941 large power was routed via a single feed track that bypassed the table, this caused no end of issues if this bay was unavailable, when it became necessary to jack and chain the pilot trucks on GS northerns as well as removal of the trailing trucks, cab forwards required driver removal and the use of dollies to transport the bolier/frame from table to shop, a very dangerous procedure if not performed correctly.## Dave
Mention has already been made of transfer tables being at major shops, but in general only mentioned the locomotive shops. They were also used in car back shops, especially those dealing with passenger cars. I suspect cables may have been used to move the cars between the shop bay and the transfer table.
While they will add interest as something unusual on a model railroad, they will only really be appropriate in a fairly extensive shop facility. You could perhaps selectively compress down to 5 parallel tracks, maybe four, but even that is going to take a fair bit of square footage. Anything less would be handled in real life by normal turnouts feeding the tracks directly.
The only example in a smaller facility that I am aware of in Canada was the C&O (Pere Marquette) facility in St.Thomas, Ontario. NYC also had one in the same town, but as part of a much larger backshop.
John