Turntable and Roundhouse locations.

[Southwest Chief]

You can add the turntable in Winslow Arizona to your list.  I see it every time I pass by on the Southwest Chief.  It was there the last time I checked.  Here is a sat image that shows it:

Winslow Turntable

[nanaimo73]

 All:
I will try to update the list on a weekly basis until I run out of information from others and after that only when I happen to find more.  Does anybody know how long I can "edit" the first post I made?  Can I edit it 'always' or only within some number of day after it is posted?  I'd rather update it in one place (and maybe post a note at the end of the thread to indicate I have done so) rather than keep adding long lists to the thread.

 

I have a few "lists" next door on the Trackside Guide Forum which I've edited several hundred times over the last two years. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Have you read the Turntable thread over there ? It has 158 posts on it,

http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/308669/ShowPost.aspx

[snagletooth]

Semper Vaporo, I'm not sure if you got my response on the burning roundhouse thread, so at the risk of reapting myself... The "working" turntable is at Eola and still working, and the footprints of the roundhouse are still there, even in person. The "gazebo, residential" turntable is long gone. That's the CB&Q shops, an historical landmark, now The Walter Payton Roundhouse Resturant. The  other building attach to it is the Transportation center. There were two completely round roundhouse way back, long before my day, and from what I understand, one of them never had a turntable in it at all. I believe the one still standing is that one, but I'm not sure. Stories told to me by people older than me, but still not old enough to know either. I never remember seeing one in there in my younger days exploring it, nor ever seeing even any sign that there ever was.  There was another turntable at the "old" (not "original")station south of there. I barely remember seeing the outline, kind of a depression in the ground, really. You won't see it on any satellite photo, i've tried. It was in the SE corner, past what was the boiler house, backed by the alley near North Ave. They got rid of that when they replaced the steamers with the E's. No need to turn them, and they wouldn't have fit, anyway. Most of the parts were salvaged for the Eola TT, guess they were pretty similar.

[canazar]

There is a turntable in Phoenix at the BNSF yard.  It is still used to pretty actively.  You can look it up on the sat maps too.  It is roughly 19th Ave and McDowell.

[jdkuehn]

There are/were several additional Colorado locations.  The locomotive shops at BNSF's 38th Street Yard in Denver - at least a couple of years ago had a working turntable and the machine shop from the old roundhouse still in existance off the turntable.

The Colorado Railroad Museum in Golden has a working turntable and roundhouse.  The roundhouse is not historic and was built maybe 5-7 years ago.  The turntable may be historic, but I don't know where it came from.  The track is narrow gauge.

Como, Colorado has the old C&S roundhouse (stone construction) and division headquarters/depot building still there and in pretty good shape.  There is a turntable also there, but it is not operational, and I do not think it is the original turntable.

The Cumbres and Toltec engine house in Chama, NM has two original roundhouse stalls, but the turntable was removed many years ago, and replaced with regular track.

The old Colorado Midland Roundhouse (stone structure) still exists at Colorado City (just outside of Colorado Springs on the road to Manitou Springs), but without a turntable.  It is now a pottery plant and store I think for Van Briggle (it may be one of the ones on your list). 

The other one on the list is probably the old Rock Island roundhouse and turntable just north of Colorado Springs (a part of CS called Roswell).  It is not a warehouse exactly, but houses a number of PCC cars for a trolley system once proposed for CS.  I don't know much about the status of the PCC cars and the proposed system. 

There also was a roundhouse in Eastern Colorado along the UP's KP line that was in derelict condition, but I don't recall the town. 

I think there are also remains of a roundhouse at Texline on the FW&D line between Trinidad Colorado and Amarillo, TX.  There was no turntable anymore.

 There is also a very nice three-stall roundhouse and turntable in Victoria, BC at the south end of the E&N railroad.  Technically the roundhouse might be in Esquimault, BC.  There is a group active with an internet site, I think trying to preserve this site.

[Randy Stahl]

There are 2 working turntables in Fond du lac Wisconsin, both have working roundhouses. One is used by the locomotive dept, the other by the maintenence of way dept.

There is a working turntable and is/was a partial roundhouse in Green Bay Wi.

Stevens Point Wi still has a working roundhouse and turntable.

Gladstone Mi has a working turntable and a NEW roundhouse to replace the one lost in a tornado in the 80s.

Herman Maine still has the roundhouse standing. 

Derby Maine has a turntable in service and the roundhouse for storage.

Millinocket Maine has a working turntable and remains of the unused roundhouse.

Guilford has a working turntable in Waterville Me.

CN has a turntable and roundhouse in Fulton Ky and one in Memphis Tn.

 

[Modelcar]

.....The turntable appears to still be in position at Orbisonia, Pa., at the East Broad Top RR round house.  I was present many years ago and saw it being used and it was "man powered", that is to turn it....!

Another unique feature of it, of course it is of 3' gauge.

I used "Flash Earth" to pull up the image.

[dredmann]

The New Orleans Public Belt Railroad has a roundhouse adjacent to its headquarters at 4822 Tchoupitoulas St., New Orleans, LA. It was built in 1925 IIRC, and it is still in use. Actually, they are renovating the complex right now, although the use will remain railroad. I'm not sure whether there's a turntable there.

[rrandb]

 In downtown Kansas City MO just west of union station off the kansas city terminal line is an old roundhouse that was recently renovated for either office space or upscale condo's. The original profile or somthing close to it should be visable fron above. It still looks very much like a roundhouse from the highway only with expensive aluminum and glass walls where the stall doors were before. There are I beleive new roofs and open rear walls i.e. more windows. It is still the original brick side walls. Good hunting and as always enjoy.

[Lost World]

Here are two you don't have yet:

Lehigh & New England roundhouse and shops, Pen Argyl PA.  Both buildings are still intact.  This is in Northhampton County, located on the west end of town.

Chesapeake & Ohio roundhouse, Handley WV.  The building is gone, but the pit was still there last time I checked, and the concrete coal dock was still standing.  The CSX main runs right past it.

[SFbrkmn]

The former Santa Fe turntable continues to be in use by BNSF @ Newton,KS. The old roundhouse was built in 1897 and torn down in 1955. The turntable was constructed in 1935 and I believe is 89 feet long. Along w/engs being turned, every so often, a yd job will bring a car uptown to be turned.

[Semper Vaporo]

I edited the first post to contain an updated list.  It now contains 218 sites.  I also fixed some typos, and corrected some of the names of places, etc.

I want to thank Dough for his help in compiling the list to this point.  He has added most of the new sites.

"Transfer Tables" are now to be included in the list.

Dough is still perusing the RRPhotos site to add more and I am checking out some more sites that people have mentioned here and in e-mails.

I am only adding things "I" can actually verify some way so some of the anecdotal info is not included (yet).

If you find errors, please let me know.

I make no guarantee that the list is accurate in any case!  You know, typos, bleary eyes staring at fuzzy images, misinterpreting names or just plain oopsies.  There is no intent to leave out any particular site arbitrarily.

 

[tatans]

I'm waiting to see my contribution  on that list at the first of the message, where is it?? along with the rest of the new locations, just found out there is a roundhouse in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada that a few people are trying to preserve, the town wants it torn down,

[alphas]

I was at Lewistown, PA last year and they still had a working turntable in the yard there, west of the Amtrak station.  

[Semper Vaporo]

I'm waiting to see my contribution  on that list at the first of the message, where is it?? along with the rest of the new locations, just found out there is a roundhouse in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada that a few people are trying to preserve, the town wants it torn down,

 

You mean... Moose Jaw, SK, Canada... about the 15th from the bottom of the list.  Let me know if I have screwed up the abreviation for Saskatchewan... (and forgive me if I just transscrambled the spelling of the whole name?)  I have already been taken to task for misstyping the postal abreviations for a couple of States!

This list could possibly have no relation to reality, it is just the best I can do as an Armchair Explorer using the most unreliable of research methods... "the internet"!

If you believe "the internet" is reliable... do a search for things like: How to make diamonds from charcoal and peanut butter in your microwave!

I will try to include all the places people suggest, but only if "I" can verify it by looking at an aerial photograph on one of the various web sites (or some other positional photographic evidence).

I have added one that is from an aerial photograph that I "HAD" (note past tense... the surface of the photo actually disintegrated in my hands and floated away!...NUTZ!... what a loss!).

I have also included one from someone that says he has recently physically seen the remnants of a turntable, even though I cannot see it in the images I have checked.  I included it because I was able to follow his directions to the place in the aerial image; but the trees are just too thick to see anything.

But, then again, I am trusting "Dough" to be honest in his findings.  I am "spot checking" his findings, but not because I don't trust him, but rather because I enjoy looking at these rare (or what I had thought were "rare") railroad relics.

I have a short list of sites where people have said there is/was one, but so far, I have not been able to actually see them.  Most of them are in places where Google Earth is just too poor of a resolution to see anything.  Some of them are not included yet just because I can't find a Turntable or Roundhouse in the city they have specified in spite of the images being high resolution.  Doesn't mean it ain't there, just that "I" haven't found it yet.  Hey, the eyes get bleary after a few hours!   Or maybe it has been totally paved over and no one will ever be able to find it.

The actual list I have, has additional columns that I am trying to fill in, but this forum's spacing is such that I cannot include them all and maintain any sort of clarity to it.  The additional columns include how the site was verified (Google Earth, MS/Yahoo, Photo, etc.) and additional information like what RR built it and when, present RR/owner, and a general comments area where I have been making comments like:  "Nice" or "3 stalls now, used to be full circle." etc.

I expect to work on this off and on for some time and will keep updating this site as I can.  If anyone wants to have the whole file I can send it to you... send me a Private Message with your e-mail address.  I probably should have done this in some database program (like Microsoft Access) but I have Microsoft Excel on my PC and that is what I am used to using for lots of random things.  If you do not have Excel, I can export the data in other formats that you might be able to import into some other program.  I can also export it as a text file that a really wide printer could print, but you could load it into NotePad, WordPad, Write or Word, or any other word processor to view as you can.  If someone wants to host the list on a web site with search capabilities or whatever, let me know and it is yours.

I will NOT make a "Mailing List" to send updates to.  Posting it here is ALL I will do, except: If you send your e-mail address to me I will respond ONCE with the whole list as it stands at that time.  I will post updates here and if you see them and want the new list you will have to request it again.

 

[Dough]

Ditto on what Semper Vaporo said about checking for errors.  Some of the images that I am trying to use are old and/or not very detailed.  Having some eyes on the ground would be great!

Also, the images for the West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia areas of the Appalachian mountains are pretty poor resolution in Google Earth.  However, it also appears that they have a very high proportion of turntables.  I imagine it has something to do with the difficulty of fitting a wye between the mountains.

It would be nice if someone with time would check the small towns on these lines using the http://www.flashearth.com/ program.  The Microsoft and Yahoo layers have some good resolution, but it just takes time.

 

[tatans]

Moose Jaw made your list hooray!  A new roundhouse building in Kentville, Nova Scotia, Canada:::  45  04'  47.29 N-----------64  30'  13.67'' W           good luck with your quest.

[nanaimo73]

Charles (and Dough),

Thanks for putting so much work into this project.

You have a listing for Miles City Montana, which I guss is for the CMSP&P, not NP. It says no turntable, outline of roundhouse. I believe just east of the former CMSP&P roundhouse are two former shop buildings, with what looks like a transfer table between them.

http://wikimapia.org/#y=46416640&x=-105838895&z=17&l=0&m=a&v=2

I believe it is still in use (Transco Railway Products?). 

[Semper Vaporo]

When I started doing this I was only looking for working/in-use roundhouses.  I soon found many turntables that were still in use but the roundhouse was gone and decided to include the sites that used to have roundhouses.  Then I started to record where nothing was left but the footprint of the structures on the ground.

I also began to recognize lone turntables and decided to include them even though I was sure no roundhouse was ever assiciated with them.

When I added the Miles City, MT roundhouse outline I wasn't even thinking about transfer tables!

Now I have begun to find these linear transfer tables and I guess I'll include them too.  They are a lot harder to see or find by just "flying over" them in the images.  Roundhouses are rather unique in shape/footprint.  The radial lines left in the concrete floor stick out like a sore thumb sometimes.  Linear transfer tables are not so obvious!

I'm having to fight with myself to limit the database to just these things.  I keep finding other interesting RR structures (big viaducts, trestles and bridges, shops and yards, loops, tunnels, etc.) that I think are interesting and I want to keep track of where they are/were for later reference.  (Then there is that thread on this board about passenger stations...)

Don't want to lose focus on what I started doing.

Keep 'em coming!

[pedrop]

Hi, What a wonderful job you are doing. I love roundhouse and turntables and I hope your job  can be turn in a book to us soon. I will provide you a list of the brazilian turntables I know. I also search for them here, specially on the ancient Railroads. last week I discover a photo of an old and unknown one at old Leopoldina Railway system .

The picture below  shows one of EFVM modern turntables  at Costa Lacerda yard, state of Minas Gerais (MG), city of Santa Barbara. The yellow poles around it are infra-red sensors. The picture was taken by my friend Leonardo Leao.

 

Pedro 

[Semper Vaporo]

I saw some photos of a recently built turntable being built and noted some strange yellow poles sticking up all around the site.  I wondered what they were for.  Thanks!

What a strange juxtaposition of technologies.  A railroad turntable, usually associated with ancient, outdated (a false association, if you ask me) technology and infrared sensors, which are usually associated with "modern" technology.

I can't believe infrared sensors are better than just looking to see if the rail line up!

 

[Anonymous]

There also was a roundhouse in Eastern Colorado along the UP's KP line that was in derelict condition, but I don't recall the town. 

Hugo -- belongs to the town, used to house the grader, etc.  It's in reasonably good shape.

There is still a turntable at 4th Street Yard/Burnham Shops in Denver, as someone else noted.

S. Hadid 

[Murphy Siding]

     Perhaps not directly related, but bear in mind, that I am a lumber salesman.....Eight or ten years ago, I sold some 1X12 rough sawn lumber to a builder in Madison, S.D., for use on a replica sort of roundhouse at Prairie Villiage.  Prairie Villiage has a 1 mile loop, around a group of old buildings brought in to make an 1890 villiage.  There is a turntable, and *I think* a 3 stall roundhouse.  I always wondered why they wanted to put verticle, rough cut lumber on the roundhouse.  I sure don't rememer seeing many old photos that would lead me to believe that would be considered *authentic* on the northern prairies

[MP173]

Nice project.

If you are adding transfer tables, I have a few to add:

East Chicago, Indiana 151st and Railroad Ave, Union Tank Car Manufacturing plant

Decatur, Il, 22nd Street, ADM Railcar Repair plant

Logansport, In. ?, dont know the address, but I can find it if you are wanting to add these to the list.  It is now a railcar repair shop.

I know that the ADM and UTLX transfer tables are being used daily.

ed

[Semper Vaporo]

I stared at the East Chicago transfer table for quite a while before I recognized it as a transfer table.  BIG.  They sure have a lot of wheel sets laying around!

Decatur IL is lousy resolution in Google Earth,  I'll keep that reference and check using the other mapping sites later.

The Logansport transfer table is just east of a working Turntable and evidence of a roundhouse.  A couple of 1 stall square buildings and several radial storage tracks are all that is there now.  The transfer table feeds a large building.

Thanks

 

[pedrop]

I saw some photos of a recently built turntable being built and noted some strange yellow poles sticking up all around the site.  I wondered what they were for.  Thanks!

What a strange juxtaposition of technologies.  A railroad turntable, usually associated with ancient, outdated (a false association, if you ask me) technology and infrared sensors, which are usually associated with "modern" technology.

I can't believe infrared sensors are better than just looking to see if the rail line up! 

 CVRD is a modern company that uses best technology for its purpose: mining and railroad transportation. That´s why it decide to use the infra-red sensors to eliminate any chance of an accident. Also, the turntable is controlled by the yard tower, so it is not necessary a guy to see if the lines is in position or not. The loco goes to the turntable and the sensors indicates when it is in corret position over the table. Then, the table starts to turn. This system is very useful at night, specially at raining ones. The link below shows the same turntable working with a BB40-9WM.

http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z144/LEONARDO1976/?action=view&current=EFVM15NAROTUNDADECS.flv

 

Pedro

 

[Anonymous]

The Kentville Town Council is determined to demolish the Kentville Roundhouse, the only roundhouse remaining in Nova Scotia.  See recent photographs at http://ns1763.ca/rail/kenround.html

[pedrop]

The Kentville Town Council is determined to demolish the Kentville Roundhouse, the only roundhouse remaining in Nova Scotia.  See recent photographs at http://ns1763.ca/rail/kenround.html

It should be better if they decide to restore it and use with another purpose, like an art gallery, a museum, and so on. It is necessary to convince them to change their bad ideia. The time changed. Today we must preserve the old relics like that.

[Northtowne]

You have a ? after the Summerville, GA turntable. Don't know what you mean by that but there is one on the old Central of Georgia that ran thru Summerville from Chattanooga to Rome, GA. The turntable is a recent installation of one removed from Birmingham, AL, I think. It is used primarily to turn Tennessee Valley Railroad Musuem excursion steam motive power that comes down from Chattanooga. It is in excellent shape having been re-built and installed in a new concrete foundation. Was not part of the original Cen of Ga operation.

 Northtowne

[Murphy Siding]

     Call me a dumby if you wish, but what is a transfer table?  I'm picturing old photos fo Milwaukee Road shops, where a door opens, a new car moves east to west, then is *transfered* to a north-south line?  Something like that?