Can anyone estimate the weight of an 80 ft steel turntable? Info is needed for transport over highways.

Thanks,

Jim Herron
Fla RR Museum

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As Kelly said there are many designs of turntables and just knowing its length is not enough to estimate its weight. If you could post a photo of it a comparison could be made with others that might allow a general guess as to its likely weight. If you could tell us its current location that might help if it had been moved there from elsewhere and we had some information on it already.

If you can lift it slightly with hydraulic jacks of known diameter, and know the pressure required to lift the table, the math to come up with a very accurate weight is dead simple.

Steve Hunter

Solid state strain gauges are accurate and fairly cheap. So if you can lift it enough to insert a strain gauge you can get a very accurate weight. Measuring force at all support points should give an accurate total figure.

Kelly's suggestion is the way to go. There aren't that many different sizes of structural steel in them. Once you figure one cross members weight , add them up. One foot of "I" beam X length etc. IRMs Burnham Shops 130' turn table was 923 lbs per foot over all . Of course the ends were actually lighter because of the taper but being a balanced load , the cranes and flatcar didn't know that.