This would be for the steam era. The Pennsylvania RR in 1870 built a roundhouse for rolling stock construction and repair complete with turntable. It had a capacity for 114 cars and a 65 foot TT. The shop was in Altoona. There was one through track. I have the description and layout in a freight car book by John White.
Rich
Are you asking where you can buy one of these?? Or just passing along info?
It appears like info as far as I can see.
I could never have enough room for a structure like that. It was 400 feet outside diameter with a 100 foot diameter open area around the turntable. I have a three stall engine roundhouse that is quite large compared to the size of my layout.
It was a use for a roundhouse that I had never seen before. I would love to post the track plan of the yard at that time but copyrights do not allow it.
Rich
Post a link to it. That won’t violate anything. How wide is a single stall? 20’?? That would only be a 5 stall at 100’. (I’m just guessing) You have to remember cars were only around 40’ back then. I’d still like to see it though.
The historic, fully enclosed roundhouse at Mt. Clare, now the B&O Railroad Museum was originally built as a passenger car shop.
Lee
Hmmm…if it was only a 65-foot turntable, then they must have used manpower to push the cars on and off, eh? There isn’t enough room for an engine, even a very small one, along with a single car.
Thinking in terms of modern equipment it would seem that way, but in the 1870’s the typical box car was 33 to 36 feet over the sills - and the old link-and-pin socket didn’t add much to that. Plus the fact that a typical shop goat (an 0-4-0T with roller skate wheel drivers) was no giant. The JNR B20 class, which was built 70 years LATER, was only 7 meters over the coupler pulling faces.
OTOH, those old wooden cars didn’t weigh much, either…
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
True, but they did ride on friction bearing trucks. Now, where’s the shop goat? They could have used car pullers or car pushers as well.
Brad
First time I’ve ever heard of a roundhouse that wasn’t for locomotives, was this very common??? just how big were these things ?? any photos or diagrams?? sounds interesting.