Turntable and associated stuff wisdom please.

[ctclibby]

Good Morning all - hope your turkey day was excellent! I stuffed myself and had to be rolled away from the table - THEN the wife came up with Pumpkin Cream Pie; never had that and it was gooood.

Trying to shoehorn a 135ft turntable into the only corner that looks like it will fit. Question is: How far from the edge of the TT to the roundhouse? Since I will be designing the roundhouse to mate with the TT, I can go with pretty much any track spacing. Know that it is my layout and I can do what I wish, although I want to be at least somewhat realistic. What have y'all done? Ideas?

Thanks!

 

[ctclibby]

Guess that a pix is worth a gazillion?

The outer track going around the corner has a 43in radii. The first turnout you see on the inside corner track is 29in from table edge so somewhat reachable. If I have to do anything with the 3 corner tracks, I should be able to get to them from the corner. The isleway is currently 38in so I could bump the TT and stuff into it a bit and make a squeeze point ifn I have to. Note that the TT is 20in diameter for testing - should be 18.6In for 135ft. I like to make stuff just slightly bigger to keep the gotchya's away during build time.

 

[Selector]

It depends on which roundhouse. I believe the Walthers Cornerstone roundhouse is a good mate for their 90' model, but I don't know about the 130'. The best thing to do is to look at the site where the information is published about the roundhouse's footprint, and go from there. Generally, the outside edge of the pit's lip of the turntable lies within about four inches of the bay openings for the roundhouse, but it can be closer or further away if you don't mind a kink somewhere.

Secondly, again depending on the roundhouse, there is an office extending out back on the left side corner of the Walthers version...or used to be. Your diagram hasn't accounted for that in clearance with the inner curved main. Remember, along curves in our hobby, longer rolling stock runs inside the curve at the middle of the length. Even for your generous curves, you'll want at least two inches between the outer wall of the extension rear of the roundhouse and the inner rail.

It won't be ideal, but if you must, you can slip the pit of the TT a bit more toward the edge or fascia of the benchwork. Rotating engines won't care if their pilots are out over the floor as they are turned since you are going to be close by observing unless something goes wrong.

 

[Bigboy57]

This is the template Walthers includes with their 130’ turntable

 

[dennis461]

Take the two outermost engine bays of the roundhouse. Draw lines, ceter of track out the front doors.
Where the lines cross is the center o the turntable.
That sets the distance.

If you run out of room, you'll need curved tracks between TT and roundhouse.

 

[ctclibby]

Bigboy57 - Thanks for that template. Googled for just that and didn't find anything.

So, the template has 10 degree track separation. Using my current drawing ( above ), I have 5 inches of play between the TT and RH. If I go down to 5 degree track separation, the distance between the TT and RH would eat almost all of my play - 4 3/4 inches which means that my drawing is probably close enough for the initial design.

I still have other gimme space - TT can be closer to isleway by a inch or so, my 20in TT diameter can go down somewhat and the 3 corner tracks ( 2 main, 1 yard lead ) can move an inch or so closer to the benchwork edge ( currently 4 inches ).

I see I will need to sharpen my pencil and do the math for the RH door widths and support structure along with getting the coupler to coupler distance of my longest engine ( Bigboy ).

 

[Bigboy57]

I didn’t have room for the modern roundhouse with the extension for the big boy so I used two of the smaller roundhouse kits and scratch built the middle three stalls for a total of 9 stalls. I have not built doors for the middle three as of yet but I’ll get to it eventually.

 

[ctclibby]

Great pix Bigboy. Gave me some reference to what others are doing. I am gonna try for a little more distance between TT and RH ifn I have the room.
I have visited multiple 1:1 TT's and found that there is *usually* parts of the building that have been added after the original building has been built. You will get to the doors don't worry about it. There is no snow around your TT, so it is not cold enough that you need to keep stuff inside warm - right?

 

[Bigboy57]

Well, I guess I’m modeling mid summer in the Colorado foothills so the snow will never come to my layout but the doors need to be put there. It’s just a lower priority than other things on my layout . The thing about this hobby is that a person is never done…there is always more.