wjstix wrote:As far as two roundhouses / turntables, although there were some 'full circle' roundhouses out there with around 60-70 stalls, in reality that could become a major bottleneck since only one engine can be on the turntable at a time. If a railroad needed stalls for more than 35-40+ engines at one location, it usually meant it was a pretty busy location, and in the long term it was more time- and cost-effective to build two separate roundhouses and turntables.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
dehusman wrote: How long were the turbines?Dave H.
How long were the turbines?
Dave H.
This double roundhouse thing isn't unique to the west... B&O had dual roundhouses at Riverside Yard in Baltimore, which I believe survived into the 1970's, and a pair at Martinsburg, WV that still stand... one is now a community events center, and the other is an historic ruin, but they're there... These date to the earliest days of the railroad in that area.
Enola Yard near Harrisburg, PA also sported twin roundhouses used by the PRR. Only one turntable survives, but it gets regular use as part of the busy engine terminal there.
I'm sure there were (are?) many other examples...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Hi RT,
Union Pacific's Cheyenne roundhouse was two parts, as mentioned before they had what were referred to as the Passenger House and the freight house. The two houses were separate but serviced by the same turntable, and totalled 48 stalls IIRC, which was not quite but close to a full circle. the freight house had direct backshop access through 5 of its stalls.
I believe, but could be wrong on this point, but the original turntable was long enough to handle both classes of Challengers. IIRC, the stalls had to lenghtened out the back to accommodate them. When UP ordered the Big Boys they installed 130' turntables at several locations including Cheyenne. To be able to close the stall doors (it gets REALLY COLD in Cheyenne in the winter ) they extended some stalls 11 feet as I recall, towards the turntable, as extending further out the back was impractical. In Cheyenne, they lengthened both directions to fit the BBs, so a RR could extend either direction, which ever was most practical in each scenario, or as also mentioned earlier adding longer stalls to one end or the other would often be the easiest rework.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
In many places the "backshop" was a completely separate building not connected to the roundhouse. The roundhouse was for running repairs, a backshop was a building for doing heavy repairs to an engine. If you wanted to replace a flue or work on the valve gear you did that in the roundhouse. If you needed to rebuild the boiler or change out the drivers, you did that in a backshop.
A roundhouse is like going to your doctor's office for a checkup. A backshop is like going to a hospital for surgery.
While we're talking SP here, they set great examples for the types of questions asked here.
SP commonly had "freight" and "passenger" roundhouses, such as Bayshore (freight) and Mission Bay (San Francisco) with the latter being built in much closer proximity to the passenger station than the former. Alhambra Street (passenger) and Taylor(freight) in Los Angeles were other such examples.
Expansion of roundhouses was done by either adding stalls of greater length, expanding the existing stalls out the backside of the roundhouse or by creating run through tracks. SP's cab forwards often rated "Mallet Sheds" such as at Dunsmuir, due to their considerable length. Roundhosues modified to accept the big AC's often had Mallet Tracks and Mallet getaways to accomodate the larger articulateds.
R. T. POTEET wrote:My question is this: assuming enough lead to allow an expansion of the turntable from, say, 90 feet to 120 feet, how did the railroad company expand their roundhouse to fit their longer locomotives? Specifically, did the company create longer bays by extending to the back of their existing structure? and if so, how might this have effected any backshop buildings? One of the (model) roundhouses cited previously showed a variation in bay length but, if I recall right, these longer bays were off to one side; this may have minimized interference with the backshop. Is it possible that, rather than extending the length of the existing bays, the company would have constructed new bays at one end of an already existing structure?
Railroads would commonly do one or more of:
1. Lengthening existing roundhouse stalls.
2. Adding longer stalls to the side(s) of the roundhouse.
3. Building a separate roundhouse with longer stalls.
4. Building a separate (usually rectangular) enginehouse, not necessarily directly connected with the turntable, for the longer locomotives, such as the "Mallet houses" the Southern Pacific built in such places as Dunsmuir and Truckee, California yards.
5. Not adding to or modifying the roundhouse, but just letting part of the tender stick out, like at SP's Port Costa, California engine terminal.
Mark