I'm about done ballasting my little yard with cinders, covering the ties (and then spending a lot of time cleaning the rail sides!). I've also got a small turntable that represents a concrete pit, and I'm wondering if the bottom of it would have been covered with cinders as well--or dirt with weeds, or carefully swept concrete with a few oil stains, or what. It's about 1930, if that matters. Thanks.
Maybe it depends on the railroad. IIRC, the two turntable pits in my home town in southern Illinois were dirt except the center swivel point concrete base and outer rail.
As stated before. That depends on the RR, large RR lots of money. Small RR no money.
Johnnny_reb Once a word is spoken it can not be unspoken!
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Old 1:1 shoestring shortline here [ existed from early 1920s thru 1950s ] used a pair of 'armstrong' TTs. Two crewmen dismounted and strong-armed TT around, by pushing on the sturdy arm, extending at waist height from each bridge end; walking the dirt path, circling TT. No pit existed in the usual sense. Grade, soil, weeds, simply ran downhill to center bearing mount under TT bridge. Each track end at TT was supported by small stone or concrete abutment, topped with a tie. TTFN.....papasmurf
This may not be terribly prototypical, but I had fun building it anyway.
It's an Atlas deck turntable, "pit bashed" into what you see.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I just ballasted my Turntable pit with dark gray ballast and lightly added some ground foam to represent weeds and grass.
Elmer.
The above is my opinion, from an active and experienced Model Railroader in N scale and HO since 1961.
(Modeling Freelance, Eastern US, HO scale, in 1962, with NCE DCC for locomotive control and a stand alone LocoNet for block detection and signals.) http://waynes-trains.com/ at home, and N scale at the Club.