New Bachmann DCC turntable

[Trainman203]

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.

[Terry Toenges]

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.

[Trainman203]

Boy this sounds great, I only wish they'd done it 12" instead of 10, then the mikado would fit for certain.

[Trainman203]

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?

[WoundedBear]

Diesels on turntables........

https://youtu.be/K7L5LfyAWO4

https://youtu.be/QX_4q9fvFvw

https://youtu.be/ccFNgyQIrPg

https://youtu.be/Q5ddG8kOlp8

https://youtu.be/3rBxeSFrCcY

https://youtu.be/c6iGWWFoNU0

https://youtu.be/66__RTczAGg

Sid

[Trainman203]

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.

[Terry Toenges]

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.

[Trainman203]

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?

[Terry Toenges]

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

[WoundedBear]

Looks like they borrowed the Atlas mechanism.

Sid

[Trainman203]

Can it move in either direction?  Is there a manual operation option?

[Terry Toenges]

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.

[jward]

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.

[Trainman203]

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.

[Terry Toenges]

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.