I want to build the 42 stall roundhouse that was on the PM/C&O Wyoming Yard in Grand Rapids, MI.
I am looking for more prototype accuracy than suggestive of the real thing.
I understand that I may have to build some or all from scratch.
I need some help understanding my challenge. Yes I know this will be a large feature, but how do I determine how large my structure will be in HO?
If I wanted to use a walthers roundhouse kit for example, I dont know if I can simply buy enough of them to make 42 stalls; dont I have to figure the angle of each stall to determine what kit to buy that will make up 42 stalls without the ends hitting each other? ? THe original nearly was a complete circle, basically one approach track to enter the turntable between the two ends.
No I dont have a lot of experience but I am hoping the vast knowledge on this board will put me in the right direction.
Hi. I have some basic info here. http://www.michiganrailroads.com/RRHX/Roundhouses/Locations/GrandRapidsWyomingRoundhousePM.htm
It would be very hard to recreate it, and if you are fairly new to the hobby like me, the best thing might be to build the walthers kits, and slowly purchase them. Or you could look for them on discounted train sites or ebay. Just some ideas.
My Layout Photos- http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/ajwarshal/library/
You will have to scratch build the whole thing. Manufactured kits of round houses are all wrong in angles and dimentions. The first thing to do is find measured drawings or blueprints of the structure. In HO scale don't expect to reach the turntable in the center to rerail a locomotive.
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
I also came up with 8 degrees - and note that the prototype had a 115 foot turntable.
In the absence of plans, I 'guesstimated" an inside wall of 1.75"/stall. This put the front wall 12.5 inches from the center of the turntable pit. With a stall length of 16 inches (tight!) your roundhouse wouldn't quite fit between standard gauge rails - diameter 57 inches.
One sneaky technique would cut the backdrop through the roundhouse about 14 inches from the turntable pit. This would render some of the stalls effectively useless and restrict others to short locomotives. The turntable center would be about 28 inches from the fascia side of the roundhouse - a long reach but not an impossible one. Tracks between the roundhouse and the fascia will toss a monkey wrench in the accessibility equation.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with turntables, but no roundhouses)
Maybe this will help you in your research... or maybe not? Either way you might like to take a look at the photo albums on the construction progress of the Age Of Steam roundhouse that Jerry Jacobson is building near Sugar Creek, Ohio.
http://www.ageofsteamroundhouse.com/index.html
Somewhere around here I have a PRRTHS Keystone magazine that has a pretty good article that includes dimensions and photos of the Pennsy roundhouse in Crestline, OH. I can continue to look for it if you'd be interested in some information from there.
http://www.crestlineroundhouse.org/engine.htm
This site has additional info on the Crestline roundhouse. It seems it was a USRA design and built by the Austin co. from Cleveland. Maybe there are similar details that might help you. There are some drawings here as well.
http://www.crestlineprr.com/index.html
Take care, Ed
Everyone, thank you for your reply. I KNEW, I JUST KNEW, you would all help me understand what a crazy idea it would be to do the full size. NO idea what I will do now. I was going to put it on a penninsula anyway, but now time to rethink.
Even if I did 20 or 24 stalls am I looking at same size I think? I have not put my math hat on yet.
Hi again kgill
I can not remember where I saw it but I'm pretty sure it was a feature in MR but the idea was to slice the World off right through the roundhouse (we all know the World continues into our aisles!)
In other words, IMAGINE that the roundhouse continues off the edge of the layout. I believe in the example I remember you could look right into the roundhouse interior where the imaginary buzz saw cut out for the aisle.
Just an option when you're pressed for space.
Happy modeling, Ed
Nobody really makes a kit that's terribly close to the Wyoming roundhouse.
The fronts of the stalls were pretty much flat all the way up. The doors, and the windows above them, were pretty much in the same plane- there isn't a setback for skylight windows like on the Walthers or Atlas kits.
The photo I have on hand that I thought would be a good reference is so focused on what's on the turntable (newly-delivered E7A #101) that it doesn't really show the stalls very well.
My own memories of the Wyoming roundhouse date from the very late 1960s through the period that they tore down stalls 1-18, from around 1977 through about 1982. I was shown around the diesel house a couple of times, but didn't really get into the roundhouse stalls.
-Fritz Milhaupt, Publications Editor, Pere Marquette Historical Society, Inc.http://www.pmhistsoc.org
Consider that the Age of Steam Roundhouse also uses a 115' turntable, and it has 18 stalls. Visualize Mr. Jacobson's roundhouse, expanded to 2-1/3 times its current size.
As for roundhouses with their aisle side cut off, I think this was done successfully by Tony Koester and/or Bill Darnaby, and probably by others as well.
You may need to use "selective compression", put in enough stalls to get the right look and feel of the roundhouse without literally modelling it 1:1 with all 42 stalls. We have to do that in many things in modelling, large bridges have to be made shorter than the real ones, mountains on model railroads are only a fraction of the real one's height. Same with track, a "broad" 30"R HO curve would be a very sharp curve on a real mainline - trains would be restricted to like 15-20 MPH!!
The Heljan roundhouse kit is different from the two Walther's kits, one or the other may be a good starting point for modelling that roundhouse.
Heljan, Walthers, and Atlas all offer kits that are basically modular - they're designed to be used together in multiples. I think with Atlas, the kits are just designed to be built as a 3-stall 'stand alone' or combined with other Atlas kits; the Walthers and Heljan ones have separate 3-stall "expansion" kits designed to add stalls to their original 3-stall kits. They're easy to use, my last layout had a 9-stall Atlas roundhouse that was really quite easy to do.
Oh man your going to like this..... Suppose you get yourself a copy of "PM Power" by a well known and very wise PM historian Art Million. And suppose you thumb through that bible to page 205. Get yee a good gander at the Wyo. Yards roundhouse design to include measurements, profiles, and just about anything else you will need to model this facility with ease and accuracy.
The book is a MUST HAVE for PM fans and modellers. You will find perusing it just might give you other ideas of roundhouses to model (smaller). There is a whole section on the PM's servicing facilities.
If you need or want more PM info, check out the PM Historical Society. Your only problem now is, do you have the room, and do you have enough PM locos to fill it?
I have it on good authority that there will be a number of articles on accurate HO models and reasonable stand-ins for PM steam locomotives in the PMHS newsletter the rest of this year.
And decals for the PM's diesel switchers will be back this year.
YOu may wish to look at the Sanborn Insurance Maps for that area. Probably have to go to a library for that acess but you could get a very good idea about how tracks are/were laid out. But it is possible they did not do a map of that area too. Here in Fort Wayne the PRR is reperesented pretty well. PRR had a 360 degree round house back in the 40s. I was even able to lacate maps of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, and Chicago and that road had a 360 round house as well. The biggest problem is if the RR was self insured there may not be maps available of their facilities.
Modeling a railroad hypothetically set in time.
I am designing the whole yard as if it were the 1930's. Stalls are every 8 degrees. 40 closed stalls, 2 stalls open at both ends, and 3 missing bays for tracks to the yard and mainline. You'll have to scratch build the round house and turntable. What is on the market stops at 10 degrees.
Google Earth is a big aid with the ruler feature. It's not perfect, but it's close enough to get it into CAD. Every building on the site will most likely have to be scratch built. Pictures are few online, so I am contacting librarys to see what they have in any form. Plans, newspapers, books, anything I get for free. Even if it is a little before or after the era I'm doing. Some pictures may reviel something not seen in other pictures, and I would hate to miss something that should be there.
Good Luck!