Does anyone know who has the best prices and availability of the new Walthers Cornerstone series 130 foot turntable.
I would like to add one to the HO layout I am building.
Thanks!
The K4KID
for the price that they are charging,i’m going to wait for the reviews and other modelers input.If they work and index as advertised,then i’ll get one.
Check with Trainworld, They list it at $199.99.
http://www.trainworld1.com/walthers/cornerstonehobldgs.html
I had a reservation in at Trainworld for one but canceled it after I saw the installation instructions at the Walthers website.
http://www.walthers.com/instructions/0933/09330000002829.pdf
I also want to get a real review and, if possible, see it in person before I would consider one. The picture on the Walthers site doesn’t show the actual shipping turntable as the drive design has apparantly changed since the picture was taken. The turntable now uses gear teeth cast into the pit to turn and they are not present in the advertised pictures. The turntables are already sold out and back ordered at Walthers so some people must have them. I just hope that someone speaks up and tells us the real story about it.
Charles
MSRP for these puppies is a whopping $300. I saw one (in the box) at one of my LHS’s. I’ll be curious how well they work in comparison with the older 90’ turntables, which have gottem many complaints on this forum.
Tom
sounds cool to me…I plan to get one soon as I can find one in stock. Expensive yes but…cool
Thanks for the replies.
i’ll probably wait for the reviews also, find out if there are any bugs.
I’ve waited this long, a little longer won’t hurt.
Well, I finally got to see one of the new Walthers turntables at my LHS and I was impressed from the brief glimpse I got of it. The gear teeth molded into the pit are pretty unobtrusive and almost resemble ties except that they are located only between the ring rail & pit wall instead of on both sides of the rail. The bridge looked very good as did the workmanship of the entire pit. I was a little disappointed that I had canceled my pre-order as they are now out of stock and the one at the LHS was already sold. They also told me that they had sold another one and the buyer reported that it worked “great”. I would still like to get some feedback on how well it works for the heavier engines like a brass or die cast Big Boy. That’s where my Diamond Scale TT was a little overwhelmed and it led to bent turntable trucks.
Charles
Not to promote another forum, but the Atlas forum has had a lot of posts lately on Walthers’ new TT. Mostly 2 complaints: control box (mounting/awkward) and program operation (to get to a middle track it stop at all tracks in between).
Any link? I wasn’t able to find anything pertinent when searching for “turntable”.
Found it http://forum.atlasrr.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=15974
The Atlas forum search facility isn’t worth much.
Well, I might as well chime in here on this one.
I have an HO Diamond Scale 135’ table on my layout, and for years I have been having problems with the wood index blocks that grow and shrink with the humidity changes. There are other things but fairly misc compared to the indexing that keeps shifting with the climate.
So I went up to see a modeling store in Roseville, California and the owner showed me this new turntable and it uses optics to caliberate its indexing feature. This is highly advanced technology that Walthers is putting out here; and though the three hundred retail price is high, the $199 to $250 range is completely reasonable to me for this optical functionality.
In fact, I am planning on replacing my Diamond Scale table with this.
From what I understand you simply plop the table into your layout, line up all of your approach tracks, and let the optical beam synchronize the exact bridge position for each approach track.
This is really a solid solution and a way forward for indexing issues.
I dont own one yet, but I would highly urge any of you to look at it closer.
It really does warrant it and I applaud Walthers for being very aggressive with this product.
If this is a sign of new product development from Walthers, they could change the hobby for years to come with such an aggressive product line.
v/r -
Trout
Nor Cal
I just got mine and, so far, I’m very pleased with its performance. Time will tell if it holds up but it does turn a Trix Big Boy smoothly, accurately and without complaint - something that my Diamond Scale turntable wasn’t able to do. I realize that the newer Diamond Scale turntables have a plastic center block and other improvements, but the Walthers is a very easy installation and the appearance is almost as good as the Diamond scale product. Having a decent turntable with accurate indexing built in is a major accomplishment at the street price being charged.
Wish Walthers decides to make this turntable in a smaller size someday. Don’t have room for a 130 footer.
Hi all…! Well I have purchased and installed the new walthers 130’ turntable on my layout…Everything is working beautiful. Indexing is richt on. Motor runs fine. Turns all engins no proble. Largest is Class A N&W (BLI )
What we did find on orig install was that the bridge would skip a little which on rollers in pit. This bothered us, thinking that we would have stripped gearing in no time. We glued some weights under bridge and system has run just great since then. Paid $250 , and when you add up all the diferent add ones you have to buy on other turntable products…I think we purchased a good product…Well that’s my 2cents worth…Tom