Well it appears that there are still quite a few of these even today. I suspect there were quite a few more that were in use in the last few decades. Guess this dispells the myth that turntables are for steam. Undoubtably they were more plentiful in those days, but that doesn’t mean they faded along with the passing of steam. Indeed, they seem to be more then just an anomolly even today.
So what other ones do you all know of?
There’s one in the NS ex PRR yard in Grand Rapids, MI. Not sure if it still works, but they park engines on it from time to time. Also, as far as I know, Amtrak still has their ex ATSF turntable at Redondo Junction in CA.
TURNTABLES were built for Steam Engines and most often were the entrance to a Roundhouse to do minor servicing out of the weather.
Diesels, being bi-directional (running forward & backward) only required parallel tracks - whether outdoors, or inside a shop. Diesels didn’t require as much road maintenance.
An example might be AT&SF’s 16th St. Passenger roundhouse, and Corwith freight yards (having no Roundhouse in the 60’s). The 16th St.Roundhouse housed Santa Fe’s Passenger diesels in the 40’s - two to a stall. Why? - probably because it was already built, and it’s trackage was convenient to the Dearborn Passenger station. Similar was L.A. and Union Sation.
I Noticed the picture of Cheyenne’s huge turntable now serving only 7 stalls. There was also one in Evanston WY.(ex Big Boys) leased to GATX for tank cars.
In short. Passenger Diesels moved out Passenger steam - and occupied their space. As diesels outnumbered steam, newer larger Diesel fascilities were built, such as Barstow on the Santa Fe. LA’s 4th St. Roundhouse now houses Amtrak.
Chama NM still uses an open ‘Y’ track to turn it’s narrow gauge 2-8-2’s.
The one in Unity, ME is probably used by the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR. They used to run out of Belfast, but the town took over the land for commercial development. A restoration group has taken over the locos & rolling stock and has been running trains to Burnham Junction this summer. Their site is http://belfastrailroad.com/
The Portland, ME one is actually in South Portland at the Rigby Yard. The roundhouse used to be a lot larger.
Another turntable is in Rockland, ME used by the Maine Eastern RR. They have a couple of FP-7s and GP-7s http://www.maineeasternrailroad.com/
The map of this one is at
http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=43.625483~-70.295194&style=h&lvl=17
I do not know how pcarrell got his closeups. If you want to see the table, go to the max zoom on Rockland, follow Park St (US Route 1) to the west (left) to the intersection with Broadway (US Route 1A). Look to the west (left) another 1-1/2 blocks and look for the turntable on the south (bottom) side of the road. It’s a small turntable with a 4-stall woo
Don,
I know there haven’t been hardly any new constructions of turntables. That’s really what spawned the original question. Diesels are indeed able to be used bidirectional (unless dictated against by some rule of the RR they serve, NW comes to mind). This is why most people feel that they are such an anomoly today. But in doing some research I found that a lot of them are still around.
[quote user=“G Paine”]
The one in Unity, ME is probably used by the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR. They used to run out of Belfast, but the town took over the land for commercial development. A restoration group has taken over the locos & rolling stock and has been running trains to Burnham Junction this summer. Their site is http://belfastrailroad.com/
The Portland, ME one is actually in South Portland at the Rigby Yard. The roundhouse used to be a lot larger.
Another turntable is in Rockland, ME used by the Maine Eastern RR. They have a couple of FP-7s and GP-7s http://www.maineeasternrailroad.com/
The map of this one is at