I have a 90’ Walthers turntable and am looking for a 3-stall roundhouse. The Walthers 933-3041 roundhouse seems to be on backorder no matter where I look. An alternative is the Atlas 709 which is readily available and much cheaper but the sales spiel says it’s made and designed for the Atlas turntable. Wouldn’t any roundhouse be compatible with any manufacturer’s turntable???
You would think so, but you might be better off matching the Walthers roundhouse and turntable. There are several available right now on eBay at a decent Buy It Now price.
Yes and no.
The Atlas turntable is designed for a wider angle between stalls so the roundhouse is designed for a wider angle between tracks.
The Walthers turntable and roundhouse are designed for a narrower angle track spacing.
So you can use the Atlas roundhouse but you might have to modify the leads between the turntable pit and the roundhouse to match any indexing.
Walthers shows it in stock and on sale. I sent you an e mail anyway
ratled
Yes you can use the Atlas Roundhouse with the Walthers 90’ turntable without a hitch as the Walthers T/T has it’s own indexing system and you can set any angle you so desire. The same can not be said for the opposite application. If you had an Atlas T/T it will only match up to their round house as they use 15 degree seperation between tracks and their indexing system is not adjustable.
All that aside tow other really nice choices are the Heljan Round house, Walthers Part # 322-802 or the CMR round house but it’s 6 stalls and a very fine kit.Well made goes together nicely and also nicely detailed.
http://www.custommodelrailroads.com/six-stallroundhouse.aspx
It’s no secrete as I have posted this sentiment before that I am no fan of the Walthers round house even though I have one on my layout. I don’t care for the complexity of their construction for one and there are weak point in my o/p such as the doors and transom windows. I found that the entire structure needed to be completely reinforced as the design of the structure leaves something to be desired in regards to over all durability. The same can not be said for either of the other two kits I mentioned. Some like the Walthers roundhouse and thats fine it’s just not one I would ever choose to build again.
The Atlas roundhouse, as has been mentioned, has 15-degree angular separation between stalls. The Atlas turntable also indexes at 15 degrees, so that’s fine. But, the roundhouse also has a short “apron” that fits exactly to the Atlas turntable. That would have to be cut off and removed. Another possible issue with the Atlas roundhouse is its depth. The turntable itself is only 9 inches across, about 65 scale feet, so the roundhouse doesn’t hold engines much larger than this. So, while you can comfortably get an 85-foot locomotive on the Walthers turntable, it will not fit in the Atlas roundhouse. Also, the end of the turntable would be uncomfortably close to the roundhouse itself.
Yup. The roundhouse needs to be located so all its stalls line up with the center of the turntable. Don’t know how far that is, but bet it will be “dangerously” close to the turntable resulting in a toy-like appearance.
Mark
I have an Atlas roundhouse with the Walthers Cornerstone 90’ turntable. As mentioned, you have to trim off the front of the base so that it flush with the roundhouse(or close to it). I used some scrap styrene to fill in the gap. The front of the roundhouse works out to somewhere around 2" from the turntable. It all ‘looks’ good. The stalls are somewhat short and my USRA Heavy 2-8-2 engines will not fit in it. Since this is a ‘middle of the road’ yard that several locals work out of, the roundhouse handles my pair of Baldwin 2-8-0’s and diesels with no problem!
If you really need to handle a 90’ engine, then the Walthers Cornerstone roundhouse should be considered.
Jim
Here’s the “satellite image” taken from a ladder while I was changing the smoke detector one day:
The turntable and roundhouse are both from Atlas. The turntable is 9 inches, or about 65 scale feet across.
Get the roundhouse kit, and modify it to the angle and depth you want. You can either modify the floor that comes with the kit, or get some simple sheet styrene and make your own. This is called Kit Bashing. There are no laws against this, although it no longer seems to be encouraged.
Do a little math, and get out the Dremel tool and go wild. It’s actually pretty fun!
I’ve got bits and pieces of 5 Heljan roundhouse kits in this monster, and fabricated parts of the roof, floor and walls from sheet and strip styrene. The best part of kitbashing a roundhouse is that each stall is a repetition of the last one, so once you have your cutting template figured out, you just have to cut duplicates over and over.
Lee
I only wish I had the room to make a 20 stall roundhouse and all the supporting structures to make it seem necessary. Of course there’s a big difference in feasability when comparing N-scale to HO-scale. I am trying hard to be able to use a 6 stall roundhouse, which consists of 2 of the OP is looking for and I want to put the machine house on the side. With the Walthers 90’ turntable, that gives me 6" between the edge of the pit and the front of the roundhouse, which I find visually pleasing (hey, don’t we all do it?) and the 130’ TT would knock that distance down too much for my taste. I thought about the modern roundhouse but decided to go with the smaller and use the extra walls to kitbash a couple stalls longer. If you are not wanting to do the mailorder thing, the next thing is to talk to the LHS and see if they’ll bring it in for you or find the next trainshow and make a trip.
Thanks guys. I think I’ll go with the Walthers roundhouse but I have another question- A lot of you mention indexing of the turntable. Does that mean the turntable automatically stops at a predetermined spot, i.e., every 15 degrees? Or 10 degrees for Walthers? How does this work? My Walthers T/T keeps turning until I turn off the juice to the motor so aligning the T/T up with the track to the roundhouse would be pretty tricky.
The Walthers indexing works with an optical sensor. You set the turntable to “zero”, then rotate it to the position you want, stop it, then push a set button to create the custom index. Lather, rinse, repeat. It stops where you tell it to stop without regard to a pre-determined setting. The directions are right in the box.
Lee
I believe the Walthers 90ft table is or was actually made by Heljan at one time. I have the Walthers 90 and several Heljan roundhouse kits and they look they came from the same factory. They work great together, although I am currently swapping the TT for a Bowser model because of a “sturdiness” issue and better electrical connections.
BTW, the OP may have the much less expensive non-indexed version.
You’re right. Mine is NOT indexed! Since I’m a newby, I never realized turntables were indexed! Guess I’m outta luck unless I buy one that is indexed. I’ll check it out.
I have the same non-indexed 90’ TT. I can come up with something when the time comes to get it where I need. I couldn’t justify the costs of the indexing “FOR ME”.
The Walthers and Heljan roundhouses are made with a 10-degree separation between stalls. I don’t think the Walthers turntables are pre-set for to match that, I believe you have to index them…sort of like “programming” them…so that it can stop where you have stalls or other tracks.
The Atlas turntable isn’t really “indexed”, it has gearing that makes it stop every 15 degrees for a couple of seconds while it’s turning, so when it gets to the track you want, you shut off the power and there you are. It actually works very well, if you don’t mind the engine stopping at every track when you’re turning it around. Their roundhouse is built to match the 15 degree spacing of the track openings around the turntable.
BTW not sure, but many Walthers buildings were made by Heljan at one time, wouldn’t be surprised if the Walthers roundhouse kit was one.
The turntable indexing can be added with the Dallee indexer. See link below. I was going to use this on my tt but wound up with the Walthers 130’ indexed one. I think the index kit was about $60-70. http://www.dallee.com/Turntable.htm
Also, any roundhouse should work with the 90’ tt because the distance from tt edge to the roundhouse is a variation on the tt diameter and spacing of the roundhouse stalls, ususally 10 or 15 degrees. A simlpe layout with a compass or string and pencil will give you a good representation of what you will end up with.
BTW, the Walthers tt is great and simple to set up and index. Well worth the money.
The dimensions on the Atlas roundhouse is listed as 14-3/8" x 15" x 4-5/8" . I take it the apron in front of the building is part of the dimension, 14-3/8" (15"). What is the actual building length or apron length?
thanks
jim