Item 46298. Does anyone have one yet? It looks like it can install surface mount without cutting a hole in the layout top. Is this correct? Will it take the Bachmann mikado? I'm away from home and can't measure. Does DCC mean that it has a motor addressed like a locomotive and runs with a DCC cab like a locomotive ?
I've waited a long time for a surface mount turntable that would at least take the consolidation and the decapod. I think this one will. The venerable Atlas turntable at 9" is just a silly hair too short to handle them.
I haven't bought one of the brand new ones but I have their DCC one. The track on the deck is 10". The tracks on the apron are 2". The total diameter of the whole thing is 14 1/4". It is surface mount. The E-Z track pieces slide right into it. You can use a DCC address just like with a loco or a turnout. As far as I know, the only difference now is that the decoder is included where as with the one I bought, a separate decoder was needed.
Boy this sounds great, I only wish they'd done it 12" instead of 10, then the mikado would fit for certain.
I was able to measure the mikado wheel base. It's 10 1/2" close coupled. Agggghhhhh! 😱🤬. I now have the same problem that the Atlas turntable had with the consolidation and the decapod! Why oh why oh why Mr. Bach Man? The mikados and Pacifics are big sellers and even an 11" turntable would have handled them.
A diesel switcher is shown on the table in the picture. Railroads almost never turned them. A turntable is a steam era item. I'm going to get one of these turntables but I'll still have to take the mikados down to the imaginary wye with the 0-5-0 switcher.
This leaves me dumbfounded. A little more thought would have been good here. And all your major steam engines could have been accommodated. Is there some good reason 10" was chosen for this item?
Diesels on turntables........ ;D
https://youtu.be/K7L5LfyAWO4 (https://youtu.be/K7L5LfyAWO4)
https://youtu.be/QX_4q9fvFvw (https://youtu.be/QX_4q9fvFvw)
https://youtu.be/ccFNgyQIrPg (https://youtu.be/ccFNgyQIrPg)
https://youtu.be/Q5ddG8kOlp8 (https://youtu.be/Q5ddG8kOlp8)
https://youtu.be/3rBxeSFrCcY (https://youtu.be/3rBxeSFrCcY)
https://youtu.be/c6iGWWFoNU0 (https://youtu.be/c6iGWWFoNU0)
https://youtu.be/66__RTczAGg (https://youtu.be/66__RTczAGg)
Sid
Ok ok ok, they turned em but most diesels, early cab units excluded, really didn't have to be turned. Every couple of days on the NS down the street from my house I see modern units pulling transfer runs running long hood first, funny looking but they do it. I still maintain that turntables are largely, with a few survivors, steam era artifacts that, along with roundhouses, water tanks, and coaling stations, have mostly disappeared. And I think that the Bach Man blew it big time making an otherwise fine turntable that can't take his average sized mainline steamers.
If a person wanted to do some modifying and put a longer piece of track on top of the deck track with jumpers to the deck track and use 1" pieces on the apron tracks on top of the 2" pieces there or cover them, you could cut the tabs off the E-Z Track and raise the E-Z Track a little and butt it up against the apron.
There is just enough room for a 12" piece of track if you remove the building and just cover the motor.
I am the process of "remodeling" mine so I have it apart and have the deck off.
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Terry, when you operate the turntable will it smoothly pass intervening tracks without stopping? Or does it stop at every track and have to be started again?
When you power it up, it stops at every track and goes through it's cycle underneath then moves on to the next one. I use my E-Z Command with it. You can use the speed control to determine how fast it moves and goes through the cycles. The quicker you go, the noisier it is.
Here's a video someone put up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsln03OpBmQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsln03OpBmQ)
Looks like they borrowed the Atlas mechanism.
Sid
Can it move in either direction? Is there a manual operation option?
It can go either direction. You can't move it manually with the way the gear system is set up in it. The horizontal motor has a worm gear that turns a double layer gear that turns a double layer gear, etc.
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Trainman, doesel switchers on turntables are alot more common than you'd think. Matter of fact I saw one last week at Juniata shop. The smaller the switcher the better.
Roundhouses were shop facilities where locomotives went to be worked on. That didn't change with the diesel era, at least not right away. While many such facilities were made unnecessary because diesels were less labour intensive, they were still needed until more suitable facilities could be constructed. Many lasted well into the 1980s and a few are still in use. The stall setup with inspection pits in the floors were good for minor repairs, same as with steam.
And here's where the small switcher comes in handy: dead diesels need to be moved in and out of those stalls. Most turntables are not capable of turning two full sized road locomotives, and even if they were it would be wasteful to use one to spot locomotives. A small switcher like an SW1, on the other hand, will fit on the turntable with just about anything on the roster. Yards and shop facilities with turntables will often have a permanently assigned switcher whose only duty is to shuttle dead locomotives around the facitlty.
As for locomotives running long hood forward, It's obvious you've never run one. Think of trying to back your car a hundred miles and you can understand why it's rare to see it done. All the controls on modern locomotives are placed for running the locomotive forward. Running in reverese is awkward at best as everything is behind you. You could look over your shoulder all day but that gets painful. While you will find photos of locomotives running long hood forward in years past, in most cases their control stands were set up to do that. It was common on first generation diesels to have them set up to run that way. But the low nose locomotives that became standard in the 1960s were almost all set up so the engineer could see out that big windshield when running.
Jeffrey, the backward running diesels I've seen have all been on local transfer runs, not out on the main. But most of the engine "consists" have a cab facing outward on either end. They are in the CSX yard all the time. One of my retired engineer friends told me about having to run cab backwards a couple of hundred miles over a division. He said it was like backing your car up looking over your shoulder for 200 miles, with a hose from the exhaust pipe stuck into the car. So I already knew about that stuff, didn't need telling.
I also already know about short shop switchers, tank engines in the steam days, ever see the pictures of the MP one in st Louis or on the T&NO in Houston? But that's a bad argument to use for the Bachmann table which can barely take a single short steamer, or diesel by itself.
We actually still have a local roundhouse with turntable on the New Orleans Public Belt, but it's there because of limited real estate between the river and a major thoroughfare, much like being squeezed between hills in your part of the country. But you can be certain that where they could, in flat country where I live, railroads got rid of roundhouses and turntables as soon as they could where there was room for a run through facility. Besides the Public Belt, I can't think of the next nearest turntable. I don't know a thing about Juniata, but I bet if there was room for a wye they'd have ditched the turntable 60 years ago.
I spent all of one winter working with a crew repairing a 2-8-0 in the Mobile AL roundhouse. Its demolition was delayed to accommodate the last engine through it, a steam engine, fitting. So I've been around engine service, hands on. And although the Mobile AL winter isn't like your winter , it was plenty drafty, damp and cold in there since southern roundhouses had no stall doors and it was raining/40 deg the whole time.
Leave the top off and put the motor on a hinge with a lever so you could flip the motor up and turn the turntable by hand if you wanted. ;D
Does the operators shed on the table itself hold any kind of necessary items for operation? It occurred to me that, if I could, I'd remove that shed and redetail the table as an old wood Armstrong or gallows type, the kind I really want on my two bit short line railroad.
Do you mean like this? :) I'm still not done yet. I have other things to add.
The building does nothing. It just covers the plastic cover that covers the motor and electric stuff. I built a stand over the motor part. I was going to have a stationary diesel engine sitting over the hole with a big pulley and belt on it that disappeared into the hole below. I was making it for On30, but I'm getting rid of my On30 stuff and sticking with HO now so I have to modify the stand. I think I'm just going to have a pole on the deck and a guy pushing it. I'll modify the stand to look like coal or wood or sand bins.
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Yeah that's the idea. Someone , maybe Central Valley, made kits for these old fashioned wood turntables long years ago, with lots of truss rods and bracing. I'll try to find one to adapt to the Bach Man's. The last question , is there enough pit clearance under the table itself to add some gravel, cinders and weeds? If so, case closed, I'm getting one.
There isn't really any clearance under it. There is about 1/8" lip under the track section that you could file off. The deck would still be supported by the center pivot and contacts, the end lip piece of the deck and the rim around the inner part of the rotating circle. In my case, since I have added wood on top, it also strengthens it. As long as you kept the grass/gravel/etc. outside of the area of the contacts, you could put some low stuff in there if you removed the lip.
I might just have to paint some on mine. I have been using ink on the wood but the ink won't cover when I try to touch up the super glue spots. There's a place on the side where the super glue spurted out and doused it all.
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This is what I was going to do with the stand over the motor.
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