you all see this? walthers - engine serviceing facility It's a PDF, give it a few seconds. http://www.walthers.com/instructions/extras/0933/09330000002601a.pdf
Nice Huh? I have most of the kits in HO, they are sweet. Oddly the cost of the N scale turntable is exactly what I paid for the HO version, (ouch!). Might not be too hard to swallow if they include the indexing like the HO one has. I hope Walthers does the whole service facility including the Diesel shops and Yard office, (for my era). These should sell well. 2slim P.S. There is a good spread in the March/April NSR on these. I'll be needing that Machine Shop!! [ February 27, 2006, 08:56 PM: Message edited by: 2slim ]
The Walthers article is a waste of electrons. If they had actually laid out the N Scale buildings and done a complete, accurately dimensioned trackplan it would be a big help. I have a turntable and coaling tower on order but cannot do any approach tracks, etc. because I don't have any firm dimensions to work from right now. Photos and text by an N Scaler that actually has used the N Scale items to build the engine terminal might give enough information to do a little pre-work. 2slim....how does the HO turntable work? Do you "train" the table to stop at your actual track locations or do they have to be at the 10 degree preset locations? I am planning on using Atlas Roundhouse components to make a 7 1/2 degree house. Charlie Vlk
Charlie: These questions came up before. Whoever answered said that, although the turntable has a limited number of indexed stops, it is not fixed at 10-degree intervals. The 10-degree reference relates to the angles of the new roundhouse. I have the turntable, roundhouse, coal tower, and 3 add-on stall kits on order. Will likely order another 2 add-on stall kits to get to 180-degrees like the roundhouse at Harrisburg. Now if I only had the real estate on the layout! The PRR loco facility at Harrisburg scales to about 30 feet long -- longer than the passenger station I am doing!!!
In the latest issue of MR, Walthers claims that information will be available showing dimensional data. I was hoping that would be in the above article, but it is not, as Charlie observes. It is yet to appear on the Walthers website. Makes planning hard dont it? Does the equivalent exist for the HO products and can we scale that data? Dave
I love the Walthers ads (in MR and NSR)... It shows the turntable pit as 10+ inches in diameter and the bridge as 16+ inches (if I recall). Obviously they didn't update the bridge length from the original HO artwork. Reinforces their commitment, doesn't it!!!
Jerry- I thought I was drinking too much when I saw the dimensions as you stated. I know my knowledge is limited, but I couldn't figure out what they were describing.
Does anybody know whether all the stalls in the roundhouse will accomodate 135 ft locos, or only 1? I am getting conflicting info from the lit. Thanks, Dave
Jerry- I believe it was listed at 18"+. With my absolutely limited knowledge of things in general and trains in particular, it had me thinking for quite a while. I enjoyed the thought provoking advertisement by Walthers.
There is a PDF file on their website with dimensions and specs for the turntable. Not sure if this is old news or not: http://www.walthers.com/instructions/extras/0933/09330000002613a.pdf
I liked the article and found it to be inspiring. Because it was written by the seller, I did not take it seriously as I would a non biased how to article by a private modeler for N scale. To say "this is for HO but for N scale just scale it down" is rather comical to me. I don't know the kit but I know Murphy's law which says it's not that easy. To me, the meat and patatoes of the whole scene is the turntable pit and bridge construction, drive, and indexing system. How solid is the pit? what is it made of? How does the indexing mechanism work? What are the tolerances of the indexing mechanism? Are the tolerances the same as the HO pit? If so, they would be sloppy for N scale and only engines with pizza cutter wheels would work with it. These are the kinds of concerns that went unanswered. I love the diorama but I want to know much more about the turntable than they are telling us because with a sloppy turntable, the diorama is just that....A diorama.
Fortunately for Walthers... N scale is dimensionally about 60% the size of HO scale, but in overall area used to achieve the same results, it is about 30% the size of HO scale. So... where it may take 20 sqft to do that HO engine servicing facility... it should able to fit in about 7 sqft in N scale... but would we really want to squeeze it into that small a space?
