Maletrain, Walthers has a nice template for marking out the turntable and 10 degree roundhouse. It will show you the space required, just note that each roundhouse stall is 11 inches long. You could also use this template to mark out the 10 degree stalls for the Kato roundhouse. However, it will not help much for the 7.5 degree set up. Here is the link: http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/933-2613
The longer lead track is the reason that I elected to use a Heljan roundhouse with the Walther's indexed turntable. I purchased the Walther's roundhouse, but did not use it.
Hello, Is the roundhouse in the picture the same kit as the Heljan 643/b643. I just got back into the hobby and finally mounted my Walthers 130' TT onto the start of my first large layout. I had purchased several years ago from Ebay a beautiful 14 stall pre-built Heljan roundhouse (with 4 stall extensions) and am trying to figure out the spacing / distance to make it work with the Walthers 130' TT. Any would be helpful
The Walthers 130' turntable will work just fine with the Heljan B643 roundhouse. The roundhouse base must be positioned approximately 6.75" from the edge of the turntable pit outer ring in order for the geometry to work correctly. Here is a photo of the Walthers 130' table with my roundhouse during early construction of my layout. The roundhouse was built using three Heljan B643 bases glued together (the exterior walls and the rest of the building superstructure was then custom built on top of the bases): Our Ntrak club also has a 130' Walthers table that we use with a "stock" Heljan 643 6-stall roundhouse. But it does take a chunk of room to do this - the club's roundhouse/turntable is on a 4' Ntrak corner, and mine is also located in a corner of the layout. Here's a photo of what this scene looks like today: John C.
Old thread recently resurrected. The Union RR (USS subsidiary) served the various USS mills in the Monongahela Valley south of Pittsburgh. In McKeesport they had a small roundhouse to service the steam donkey engines that plied the mill. The building had no turntable and was served by switches. The building itself is odd shaped being in the form of a "J" when viewed from overhead. I imagine that the original building was a round house and the vertical part of the 'J" was added later to service diesels. The original roundhouse appears to have four stalls
Hello Wolf, What brand of track are you using? I have Peco code 80 concrete tie flex track and its way to tall in rail height compared to the bridge rails. I purchased it because the instructions said the bridge rails are code 80 and I liked the look of the track. Evidently not all code 80 is the same. Thanks, Amato
Hi Amato. I am using Atlas C55. I had to shim it up to meet the height of the C80 bridge track. You C80 Peco should work fine. Just cut back the appropriate number of ties so the rail goes over the top of the edge of the TT. Regards, Wolf
Wolf, Thanks for the reply. I did cut back the appropriate number of ties like the instructions said. Its just bear rail over the top of the edge of the TT with an ~1mm gap between the ends of the bridge rails and the service tracks. The problem is the total height of the track - from the bottom of the ties to the top of the rails. The TT is mounted flush to the same surface that the track sitting on and when lined up the Peco rails sit much higher that the pit rails. What did you use to shim the C55 and how much of the ends did you shim so there is a smooth transition. Please be more specific I am basically a novice who has collected a large amount of N-scale over the years and is finally building a real layout.
Hi Amato, I used .020 styrene under the rails at the TT edge. And, I let the ties and rail "float" from the edge of the TT back towards the roundhouse. Your issue may be the thickness of the Peco ties. You may need to shim the entire TT to match the height of the Peco ties. Measure the thickness of the ties and the TT. That should give you the dimension you need for that shim. Hope that helps a bit, Wolf
