TT and Roundhouse "Finished" - For now

[rogertra]

Finally, it's "finished", for now.  Obviously there will be touch ups etc., but for the sake of this board, this is how it finally looks.



Remember how we started?



The new garden tracks ballasted and sceniced.  Ops, gotta fix that roundhouse roof.



And the finished and working turntable.

As you can see, the table has been weathered and the "concrete" pit has been converted to "cinders and weeds", far more prototypical than a solid concrete pit.

And just for Gene, that's a GER No. 732 a class U2 heavy Mountain on the table with a regular Spectrum tender Vs the long tender it came with.  So they do fit even with only a couple of scale feet to spare.  :-)

[SteamGene]

Do I recognize the tender, Roger?  Is that a little Virginia state flag flying at the rear?  <SEG>  In all truth, your Mountain with that tender is probably more accurate than the Mountain with the large USRA tender.  IIRC, the only USRA locos that had the large tender were the heavy Texans and the Mallets.   
Nice job.  I'm going to use your photos as guides as I do mine. 

[Tyke]

Rogertra:

I'm in the process of installing a 130' turntable...slowly, because of slow bench work!
In looking at your photos and the instructions that came with the turntable, I can see where the locomotive is powered while it is on the tt, but it is not clear to me how the loco gets its power when it leaves the tt and is in the repair shop. There appears to be a small gap between the track on the tt and the track to the shop. Is the loco pushed by hand?

Tyke

[rogertra]

Tyke.

I installed a push button in the track power supply to the TT deck so that locos accidently cannot move when the 'table is in motion.

All the radial tracks are also individually powered by push buttons as the turntable comes with no means of powering the radial tracks.  Not only are the radial tracks indivdually powered but so are the inbound (Under the coal tower) and outbound tracks.  Each of these is further broken down into three sections that are also controlled by switches .  This is so locos can be stored on these tracks with the track power supply "off",  and so be safe from accidental movement.

Although I currently don't use DCC, in an engine yard I'd still provided sections that can be isolated so that locos can't move accidently.

[Tyke]

Roger T:

Thank you for your prompt reply to my query.

Tyke

[SteamGene]

Roger,
Where did you feed power to the rails in the round house?  I have very little room to solder feeders to the rail between the round house and the turntable and it looks like you have the same problem. 
Gene

[rogertra]

Roger,
Where did you feed power to the rails in the round house?  I have very little room to solder feeders to the rail between the round house and the turntable and it looks like you have the same problem. 
Gene

Gene. 

I installed rails inside the roundhouse, using CA glue,  leaving about one inch outside the doors.  I used code 70 rail.

I then positioned the roundhouse using the Mk1 Human Eyeball and the measurements suggested by Walthers.   Once I was happy with the position of the roundhouse, I screwed it down using four one inch screws, one in each corner where they can easily be hidden.  This firmly locks the roundhouse in position.

I then custom cut each "filler" track from the edge of the TT pit to the rails  in the roundhouse.  Once I was happy with the rail length, correcting slightly long rails with a file, I soldered four inch drop wires to the bottom of the rail and feed these through previously drilled 1/8" holes in the baseboard under where the rails would be.

The "filler" track was connected to the roundhouse tracks with railjoiners and a touch of solder (I don't like to rely on rail joiners for contact and then the drop wires were soldered to the bus wires under the layout.

Hope that helps.

And yes, you may indeed see little Virginia state flag flying at the rear.  :-)