The Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum is building a copy of the railroad's original Wiscasset, ME turntable. The original turntable was a 48' wood queen post turntable designed by the Portland Company. Our turntable pit design is a blend of the Wiscasset and Albion turntable pits. Albion was the railroad's northern terminal and had another Portland Company turntable. Except for the excavation work all the labor has been performed by museum volunteers. Our contractor started excavating for the foundation on 7/13/16 and we finished all the site and foundation work 9/1/16.

I'm just copy and pasting my posts off the wwfry forum. The pictures start with the timber delivery and cover up to the present date.

Some pictures of the original Wiscasset turntable. The original turntables did not have a continuous ring rail at the outer edge of the turntable. There is a continuous inner ring rail under the center of the turntable that forms the bearing assembly the turntable spins on. The outer ring rail is only present where tracks connect to the turntable bridge. In the pictures of the Wiscasset turntable the "pit" originally had a timber retaining wall that was later replaced with concrete. The Albion turntable had nothing around the pit area just the ground sloping into the pit area. Our turntable at Sheepscot will have concrete bulkhead with a piece of ring rail in front of the roundhouse and turntable lead area. The rest of the turntable area will be open like the Albion turntable pit.

You can see the outer ring rail ending past the the last track in the foreground.



You can see the wheels holding up the turntable on the inner ring rail in this picture.



The earlier timber retaining wall.



Albion turntable.







3/9/16 Wayne delivered the turntable castings today.





4/27/16 We pulled up track 7 today to make way for the turntable. What's left of track 7 will be realigned to become the turntable lead from the yard.







5/26/16 Douglas fir timbers for the turntable arrived in Sheepscot this morning. We still have some oak timbers coming for the queen posts and some other parts.









6/9/16 Randy and Phil cutting plywood for the concrete forms for the turntable foundation. The steel rods on the trailer are for the turntable and B&SR 67 rebuild.





Jonthan started machining the wheel castings for the turntable.





6/23/16 The concrete form crew has been busy.













Rebar assembled for the center bearing footer.



Oak for the queen post assemblies at the sawmill.



6/24/16 Rebar bent up for the center bearing foundation.



Our shiny new rebar bender.



Sorting timbers out.



6/29/16 Working on the main beams.















Rebar work for the center bearing foundation.











7/2/16 One set of main beams has been stacked up on their sides to be marked and drilled for bolts that hold the beams together.





Cross members are being cut to length.







First batch of cross members had their first coat of wood preservative applied today.



Moving timbers around for cutting.



7/8/16 Rebar plan with the different foundation areas marked.



Rebar panels for the concrete beams that connect the center bearing support and the retaining wall / ring rail support in front of the roundhouse area.



Rebar hoops bent up that tie into the panels above.



Rebar cage for the center bearing done.



The third bundle of rebar the pieces of the left are whats left of the second bundle.



Cutting the last of the cross beams.



Every cross beam is getting three coats of wood preservative along with the main stringers. The turntable won't stay green after a couple months the  wood will weather a shade of brown.



7/9/16 More rebar was cut and bent today. I believe we only have one more set of hoops to bend up.



7/14/16 Excavating for the turntable foundation Wednesday 7/13.









































7/15/16 More excavation pictures from Thursday 7/14.





















7/18/16 The rebar cage for the center bearing was placed in the hole today and work was started on assembling the rest of the rebar. Once all the rebar is in we can put the forms up for the footers and start pouring concrete.





Checking that center bearing rebar cage is the right place.



Starting on the rest of the rebar.





7/20/16 Foundation progress.























7/25/16 The footing was poured this afternoon.



























7/26/15 Hard to see in the pictures but more rebar was added today.





7/27/16 The rebar work for the next concrete pour was finished today and work started on putting up the concrete forms.



8/4/16 More foundation progress.















8/10/15 More foundation progress. The next concrete pour should be the beginning of next week.











8/15/16 Most recent batch of turntable pictures. The forms were finished last week and gravel was placed around the bottom of the forms to keep the forms from shifting during the concrete pour. More gravel was placed in and around the hole to allow the concrete trucks to get closer to the forms. Today the forms were coated with release agent and a bonding agent was applied to the top of the footers. We also started drilling the main beams for bolts today.



























Center bearing wheel being turned.



Drilling the main beams for bolts. Two main beams are bolted together to form one assembly for each side of the turntable bridge.



Completed cross members for the turntable bridge staged in the parking lot.



8/16/16 2nd concrete pour.























8/18/16 Last set of forms being put together today.









Center bearing wheels being machined.





8/24/16 The last concrete pour was done this afternoon.

Last set of forms up waiting on concrete.





Concrete in place.



The crew started pulling forms off the center bearing foundation.



9/1/16 More turntable progress pictures. Drainage and grading work around the turntable should be done this week. Machine work is continuing on the bearing parts and work is progressing on the turntable bridge.































Main beams being drilled for bolts.



Bearing wheels being drilled for grease fittings.





Anchor castings for the inner truss rods have been machined.



Oak being cut for the queen post assemblies.



9/1/16 All of the major earth work and drainage around the turntable foundation was completed today. The ring rail ties were bolted to the foundation today and track seven was relined to serve as the turntable lead.

The last drain pipes going in. This drain is for the water coming off the shop roof.





Bolting down the ring rail ties. The area around the ties was filled in with stone to make walking around in the pit area easier.







Backfilling behind the retaining wall.







Lining track 7 over to the turntable.





Track 7 moved over to feed the turntable.







Overall view of the turntable sight at the end of today.







This picture was taken 7 weeks ago. Not bad progress.

Wow! That's impressive. Congratulations. Truly, a museum worth supporting.

Narrow gaugers can GET IT DONE! Excellent work!

Excellent work! A thousand years from now some archaeologist will find that and wonder what the hell it is.

The WW&F would like thank the Amherst Railway Society for a $10,000 grant to help pay for the concrete work necessary for the turntable project. Without their generosity, the project would not have gotten nearly as far as fast as it has.

For those so inclined to help support us, please check out our "21 Campaign":
https://fundrazr.com/21campaign

Fantastic job!! Thanks for Photographing the event and sharing it with us.

I'm particularly interested in that Skilsaw with the chainsaw attachment to get through the thick beams. Is that something you can buy or did you guys "MacGyver" it? We are going to have to do cut through similar sized beams in the near future when we replace the deck on our transfer table.

Great work and excellent documentation. I was surprised the aerial photo from your facebook site wasn't included. And others with stored turntables would benefit from some financial info if you could share any with us.

Even those not building a replica would have to do concrete work.

The chain saw attachment on the worm drive saw is a Prazi Beam Cutter. Not the finest of woodworking tools but better than using an actual chainsaw. I started cutting the cross members with the Makita beam saw but flipping 12"x12"x12's over twice for each cut got old fast. It's important when using the Prazi attachment to use something for a saw guide and cut slowly otherwise the cut tends to wander. I just clamp a 12" speed square to the timber being cut for a saw guide.

http://www.praziusa.com/beam-cutter-model-7000/

The folks at the museum are really something special!

They did not mention that a lot of the wood for the table came from their own right of way. They do not call Maine the Pine Tree State for nothing!

Ted Miles, WW&F Life Member

P.S.
I hope all of you have fun at the Narrow Gauge Convention there this week!

Great project and remarkable progress! Can't wait to see it completed, and thanks for taking the time to post all those pictures for those of us who can't get there in person.

One question - no taper on the center bearing wheel treads? I know you're not turning big Berks on it, but seems like it would reduce wear and turning effort.

Red Heun took this picture while flying over the Sheepscot Yard area and posted the picture on the museum's Facebook page. I labeled the buildings in the picture and roughly outlined the future roundhouse location in yellow. The red lines are the tracks feeding the turntable. The redline all the way to the right is track seven. Track seven used to run next to the shop building but we cut the track back and relined the track to serve as the turntable lead. The track into the right stall of the roundhouse is a through track and connects into the carbarn yard. Coal storage will be located on this track behind the roundhouse. The original Wiscasset roundhouse had a run through track in the left stall. With our run through track in the right stall our roundhouse will be a mirror image of the original

Anyone visiting Maine should make time to visit the WW&F in Alna. This is the most progressive, positive, railroad restoration in this part of the country. At a time when other railroads are being torn up for trails, WW&F is rebuilding and extending. I should add, their Victorian Christmas celebration is a never to be forgotten event. Wives and children love it too.

Maybe this is part of future phase 2, but I am surprised you didn't put a second wall set 180 degrees out from the one you did for 2 reasons:

1. to support the bridge in case you go past center with a locomotive (assuming an oops doesn't happen.

2. to allow for you to stage a locomotive on a stub track opposite the Roundhouse stall, equipment is going into or coming out of, for movement of non-powered equipment or dead equipment, as you might not have enough room to balance a locomotive and the piece being moved within the length of the table. (something we have discussed adding at our museum). This is safer than towing the piece with a tractor or a locomotive on adjacent trackage.

Nice job either way, I remember how much fun it was handling the 16" saw when we dapped our oak turntable timbers, oddly enough there wasn't a line of people wanting a turn with the big saw. Mainly it was just me and the saw's owner that used it.

Take care,
Rich C.
Ct Eastern RR Museum
Willimantic, Ct