Except for a few finishing touches, I have completed the turntable and roundhouse of my engine terminal using Walther’s 130’ TT. I am very happy with the result but there are two things I wish I had done differently and if anyone else is contemplating installing one, maybe they can avoid my mistakes.
First of all, I recommend you use either Walther’s or Shinnora for all track leading to the turntable rather than Atlas. I learned after most of the tracks had been installed and ballasted that Atlas ties are thicker and the rails will not sit flush with the rim of the TT. My solution was to slightly bend the track downward so that where it met the bridge, it would be level with thebridge track. In some cases I did not put enough bend in the track and the rails are still slighty in the air. On the last few leads, I figured out that I could trim the Atlas ties by beveling them on a belt sander so that the rails would sit flush. This worked out well but it probably would have been easier to use track with skinnier ties. I will probably ending up replacing some of my lead tracks that have been ballasted although it won’t be easy.
The other problem had to do with ballast. Be very careful about ballast falling into the turntable pit. I was not too concerned with it since I figured it would be natural for this to happen on a real turntable. It should have been obvious if I had been thinking ahead that this was going to interfer with the operations of the TT. The bridge rides the ring rail on cogs and if ballast gets in between the teeth, it will play havoc with the operation of the bridge. Even a small bit of ballast can cause the bridge to stall or even stop completely. It took me quite a while but I finally got all of it cleaned out. I used WS fine ballast but I wish I had used medium around the TT. The larger ballast would have been less likely to get between the teeth and would have been much easier to clean up.
Good tips…Are the bridge tracks code 83 or code 100.I am using code 100 on my layout and I have the same problem with tie thickness between atlas,micro-engineering,connecting to peco and shinohara turnouts.Not a major problem,but now i can avoid it when i install my walthers tt. Thanks for the info.
Thanks for the tips! I’m looking real hard at getting the new Walthers 90 footer. As much as I would love the 130 footer, the thing is just too big. One of the great things about this forum is the sharing of experiences.
I have just purchased the 130’ model and have not installed it yet, so your points and warning are well taken.
I have read over the installation instructions that came with the TT, and they quite emphatically warn the user to vacuum up any depris that might have fallen into the pit ( cog teeth). Secondly, they also state, that the mating track SHOULD INDEED be beveled where they meet the TT track. This is yet another example, to##### READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE PROCEEDING. Too many of us, in our irrational exurberance to jump right into the project, fail to read the instructions. READ< READ< READ !!!
The bridge comes RTR with the track already installed. It would require major surgery to replace the track and I wouldn’t even think of trying that. That still wouldn’t solve the problem of the Atlas rails not resting on the lip of the TT. The problem is that Atlas ties are thicker than the TT lip and you want the bottom of the rails to rest on the lip. With the Atlas track, I removed 3 ties from the end of the flex track which created space for the lip but the rails sat about 1/16" above the lip. The easiest way is probably to buy compatible track for the leads to the TT and I am assuming that the Walther’s track would be the correct height but you might want to verify that before you commit to it.
The track on the bridge itself appears to be code 83. It might be problematic to have code 100 leading to the TT. Even with the rails flush with the lip, the top of the rails would be too high creating a bump when the engine leaves the bridge track.
Shimming the TT would probably work but I like the idea of having the lip resting solidly on the plywood. You would have to determine the right size shim but that shouldn’t be difficult. I would think you would not want to have the shims spaced too far apart so you would need to place a lot of them all the way around the TT.
Davekelly - I have the 90 ft TT. Put together as is you will find it will wobble and bind. There have been several threads by others that show how to tighten up the wobble and make it track smooth. The ideas they share made my once PITA TT work like it should. Hopefully someone will come forward with a thread or info. (I am assuming of course you don’t all ready know this, If so ignore me)
Jecorbett - Good info. I haven’t got to the point of ballasting TT yet but I will keep your experience in mind.
Terry[8D]
You are 100% correct about the instructions. I did read through all of them but the problem was the installation was done off and on over a period of months and obviously there were points that I forgot about between work sessions. In hindsight, I probably should have taken the time to reread them each time before resuming work on the TT.
Once I realized I had a problem with ballast in the cog teeth, I immediately vacuumed the pit but the fine ballast got really wedged between the teeth and even my fairly powerful shop vac didn’t get it all out of there. I had to take a small screwdriver and scrape some of the bits out of the teeth and then revacuum.
I used the earlier version that needs to have the motor added, the 90’er. In order to ensure that the pit sat flush and met the incoming approach track properly, I did two things. I raised the berm around the pit slightly, mabe 1/4", and also dropped the pre-ballasted EZ-Track (I know, it isn’t a prototypical setup) a bit towards the pit edge. Even that was not sufficient.
Let me return to the ballasting issue for a moment. I took pains to place the TT in its cut-out, look at the level and how the rails would meet, adjusted until I had them both just about right, and THEN did the ballasting. I retained the crud from falling into the pit by using a masking tape d.a.m. [:-,] across the end of the approach track. I shaped and glued the ballast and then made the rest of the adjustments to the TT pit to suit…it was the easier way, to my mind.
Now back to the tracks. In order to get larger steamers onto the 90’er, I cheated and extended the rails on either end of the bridge by about 1"…yup, if you notice, it looks goofy, but it allowed me to do two things: put larger engines on it, AND place the three-staller farther away with the idea that, including extending the rails out of the stalls by the same amount, I could eventually add the 130’er when it came down to the price of a good used Mercedes. So, rails extend on both items, creating a large turning radius, and I can fit a larger TT when I want to without distrurbing the three-staller too much.
One other cheat (sigh): I bent the bridge rail ends upward by about 2 deg, not enough so that even a close look will detect it. It permits the notoriously poor mechanism and bearing to actually swing the loco when the bridge is weighted with it and not have the rail extensions bind on the lip of the pit.
Point well taken. I tried a couple of times to make the Heljan (Walthers) 90 footer work without success. What I am looking at getting is a new product. From what I understand it is basically the 130 footer, but with a 90 foot footprint.
Don’t every worry about posting the obvious in response to something I’ve posted . . . I’ve probably read it and forgotten it!!
Dave is their some sort of Magic involved with the new TT. 130 ft in a 90 ft space??? Hmmmm. Wow I could put allot more structures on my layout.[:D][:D]
Terry[8D]
Well, I was going to keep it a secret, but it is my way of painting structures. I start with a DPM kit, enlarge it to 1/48 or 1/24 scale which makes it sooooo much easier to paint the window frames etc. After painting I then shrink them back down to 1/87. I used the equipment from “Honey I Shrunk the Kids.” Bought the thing on ebay for about $50.00.