Hi
I know many of you have put in a Walthers 130’ turntable and yes, I know it’s been around a while, but this is my first one (I will need two!) Superb kit by the way and I am at the ‘read the instructions’ stage. (For that amount of money, yes I am reading the instructions!) OK, here’s the question…
I have cork under my track, do I need to raise the turntable to suit?
Thanks guys as always.
Barry [8D]
You need to match three components: the lead to the turntable bridge, the bridge rails themselves, and then the bay tracks into the servicing building/roundhouse.
You could sand-paper your lead so that it acts as a ramp down to the bridge, but that would not be a practice used by the railroads…not to a deep pit. Ideally, and what I did, you would place cork or something under the flange at the pit’s edge and raise it to meet the lead rails. Same for the roundhouse.
Or, if you don’t want the elevated look and having to make a dirt berm around all those things, take up the lead tracks and remove the cork. Make a much longer ramp if necessary, but I would not encourage you to make a steep ramp from just 10-12" out from the pit rim.
You could have a less steep ramp, in other words, and raise the pit just that much…less of a berm, IOW.
-Crandell
I have the N scale turntable and I have Peco C55 track on top of Midwest cork roadbed. I did also put cork underneath the flange of the turntable pit and the rails line up perfectly ( the flange must be the same thickness as the Peco ties). And Peco’s C55 matches quite well to the bridge rail track that comes with it. All my loco’s run smoothly over the gaps when going on or off the bridge.
Scott
Thanks Crandell, thanks Scott
Yes, as I thought. I will have to decide whether to put cork under the turntable to make it the same level or feather the cork to a long decline towards the pit. At the moment I’m considering feathering the cork, after all all these areas would be ‘grubby’ and hard worked and so the ties and ballast would not be clear to see. I like the idea of that.
Thanks guys
Barry
Yes if you intend to use roadbed (which would never be used in a yard)it has to be raised the thickness of the roadbed.
So if you intend to put a sheet of cork over the entire area when your servicing terminal will be located that will work out just as mine did. I installed mine directly on the plywood and the rail height is perfect when you remove a couple of ties. The trains run so slow in the yard that there is little or sound transfer nothing that bothers me.
Yep, you’ve made up my mind, that’s the way to go. It’s straight onto the 3/4" ply.
Thank you all. Great information and advice as always on this forum.
Cheers
Barry
Your final decision confuses me.
I think that Allegheny 2-6-6-6 was suggesting covering the entire engine servicing area with cork, raising the turntable in the process, not placing the turntable directly on the plywood.
I have WS Foam Track Bed under my track, so I used WS Foam sheets throughout the engine servicing area, raising the turntable in the process to the height of the incoming rails.
Placing the turntable directly on the plywood will cause nothing but problems.
Rich
Rich you are partially correct, I did suggest that he had the option to cover the entire area with sheet cork and raise then just sit the lip of the turntable on top of the cork but as we all know a lot of people have had problems with cork drying out and cracking etc. over time. What problems do you think will come of putting the T/T and the track directly on the 3/4" plywood I’m curious as mine has been mounted this way for over 5 years and I have not had a single problem. Yes as mentioned you do get a little more noise transfer but nothing appreciable being as the engines are moving through this area at lets say 5 scale mph at best.
Roadbed of any kind would never have been used in a engine servicing terminal steam or diesel as it would serve no purpose to do so and typically in steam facilities the entire yard would have been nothing but coal and cinders with a few weeds perhaps here and there. A great source of information is Kalmbach’s book on Engine Servicing terminals by Marty McGuirk. He lays out exactly how a steam and diesel or transition era facility would be layed out. from position of your round house coaling tracks ash pits etc. he even has a great how to piece on the Walthers roundhouse and turntable.
This image shows my elevations. Essentially, all the tracks visible and the turntable are at the same level. The only thing between the plywood and the items you see is a 1/8" thick sheet of vinyl underlay to help quiet things down…which it does.
Now that I think about it more, I recall placing strips of that underlay below the flange of the pit to elevate it a bit. This was for two reasons: the bridge tracks are Code 70 and the lead and yard tracks are Code 100…a mismatch. So, by elevating the pit a bit, grooving channels in the pit for bare Code 100 lead rail ends, and having to form a slight incline up to the bridge pit (you can sort of see it if you follow the grade and elevations in the image), I get no rail height disparity and the engines would not be able to roll down and into the pit when the bridge was not lined for access.
-Crandell
When I first put together the engine servicing terminal a few years back, and the 130’ turntable as part of it, I was faced with the problem of how to transition off the WS Foam Track Bed, which is 5mm, thick to the bare plywood surface. I finally decided to use the WS Foam sheets throughout the engine servicing terminal in order to match the height of the track bed. I used WS Cinders as a thin cover over the foam sheets since I agree that road ballast would be inapproriate in the engine servicing temrinal. The lip of the turntable sits on the foam sheet so the rail heights (Code 83) match.
The main reason I felt there would be problems mounting the TT on the plywood surf