Thanks for the great photos, Cisco. Hopefully I can get over there one of these days to tour the facility.
well i know the gg1 was electric and i know that was a popular pennsy loco sooo yeah
I'm not familiar with the Bowser turntable you talk about (never bought it or looked at it) but if you are looking for a way to power the rails on the turntable bridge outside of the split rail on the bogie track, there are ways to do this through the central axle the bridge turns on. If I recall correctly, Walther's kits used two brass wipers to power the bridge rails. I've seen others use motor brushings in place of the wipers.
If that explanation isn't clear and you need a good tutorial, drop me a PM.
Manually-powered turntables have no need for a control booth.
You can add a second gap to each section, making a dead section longer than the bogies- this will of course produce a section unuseable for power, and cause sound decoders to stop. it should be carefully planned with respect toyour track locations.
I have two Bowser turntables and one scratchbuilt.
Mine are powered from all of the pit rail to one side of the bridge, and the other side of the bridge gets power from the center shaft. This keeps power on all the time. The caveat with this, is that power MUST be reversed in order to TURN an engine. I currently (HA) do this with a toggle switch, and if thrown fast enough, doesn't cause a sound issue. Of course you must have a way of identifying wich end of the bridge is "forward" with respect to the toggle switch position.
As finances permit, I will probably purchase a PSX-AR autoreverser to eliminate the toggle. They are a bit pricey, but I have one on a wye, and it is so fast the decoder doesn't even notice.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my question regarding the proper location of the control booth on the turntable bridge. Apparently it was a moot question as I later found an article on Digitrax's Knowledge Base that states "if the turntable has a split ring --- the arrangement will not produce acceptable results."
Does anyone know if there is anything that can be done short of replacing the turntable. It was bought for me by my family (1984 Bowser 18" part number 7919).
Thanks again,
Dad's toy
Excellent! I'll have to visit.
-Crandell
Here are some photos of the newest turntable installation in North America.....the turntable at the West Coast Railway Museum down the street from me in Squamish, British Columbia.
Note the control shack on this one...at the end.
Some other shots of the interior of the newly-completed roundhouse which will also serve as a convention center in additon to housing the Royal Hudson and some restored Pullmans.
Grand Opening was last week. President of CN rail was guest of honour after donating 2.25 million dollars to our little town project.
From all of the photos that I have seen, the control shack is at the end of the bridge track.
Alton Junction
The tower or centenary in question is actually called a "power arch" as many if not most turntables were electrically powered which was generated on site at the power house. Very early turntable on small branch lines and even some logging railroads were hand operated by hand. A large timber came off one end and either a team of mules of men themselves pushed on the timber turning the locomotive.There were some also that were powered by a small pony motor or lugger .
As far as the location of the "control booth" or Control Cab could have been mounted in a number of locations. Some were on the end of the bridge and some in the center and even some had no cab at all and were controlled outside of the actual turntable it self perhaps in a small structure or building. If you do an image search you'll see how many different types of turntables there actually were. Pretty interesting stuff.
Is the gentleman building one from scratch, or from a kit.....? It should be obvious in the case of a kit. But the operator's shack goes over the drive in most cases. The drive can be electric or pneumatic, perhaps even steam in some case...not sure about that. But the operator had to have hands-on to the analog linkages, and those linkages would be designed to be as short as possible, so the shack would be just above the mechanism.
As for where the operator may have situated his shack, it would be by corporate policy, and I would guess that it would be at the end of the bridge where egress and ingress to the bridge were made. In other words, if receiving an engine from the roundhouse, it may be that he was required to turn the bridge so that he was at that side of the pit. I don't think it matters much, personally, but perhaps someone with an encyclopedia or an encyclopedic memory can help us out.
Sometimes the control shack was located at the center pivot area but usually they were at the end.
Roger Huber
I have DCC, so I pulled the running lights from the constant track voltage.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Here's a couple of pics of the one at Strasburg RR.
Springfield PA
Travis Malek if you are modeling a PRR railroad then you will have to install cantary wires on the turnable that turn with the track.
if you are modeling a PRR railroad then you will have to install cantary wires on the turnable that turn with the track.
If you mean catenary, thats _not_ correct at all.
Most of the PRR was _not_ electrified. Where it was, the electric locos were bi-directional and rarely turned anyway, if ever. And if they needed to be turned, they could be shoved on and off with a shop goat.
Usualy they are at the end of the turnable track and if you are modeling a PRR railroad then you will have to install cantary wires on the turnable that turn with the track. and dont forget floodlights
Can someone tell me if there is a specific location for the control booth(?) on a turntable bridge.
Thanks,