As many of you are aware, we in Altoona are building a turntable and piece of a roundhouse as a new addition to our yard. We came into possession of an interesting piece of PRR history that we will be installing on our turntable bridge. The links below are to photos of an original PRR handrail stanchion that was mounted on the 110ft table in East Altoona. It will soon reside on our table at the Railroaders Memorial Museum. Just thought it was an interesting tidbit!



http://www.railroadcity.com/gallery/index.php?id=70

http://www.railroadcity.com/gallery/index.php?id=71

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Here is a link to a photo of the turntable at East Altoona during demolition in April 1968. Photo courtesy of David Seidel.

http://www.railroadcity.com/gallery/index.php?id=72

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Those were a standard (what else??) PRR handrail stanchion, used on turntables, bridge and retaining wall edges, etc. Do you have enough to do the whole table, or will you be reproducing them?

And what about that neat cast-in-concrete pit wall Keystone, visible in the 1968 photo? Were those the track numbers?

We have about 6 unused original Pennsy stanchions along with the recovered relic. We will be asking a local foundry to cast us enough of them to place all along the turntable bridge.

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Sorry - forgot to answer about the Keystone. The 1942 in the Keystone designates the date the table was enlarged from 75 ft to 110 ft. The Keystone was pressed into the ringwall at the time the wall was formed. We plan to have a repilca Keystone with 2006 pressed into the wall of our new turntable pit.

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Very Nice, I don't consider my self a rivet counter but I love the attention to detail. I'm looking forward to seeing the result of all your museums effort on the new turntable pit and roundhouse section. I'll be making my way to you location to check things out when time permits. You say that you will be checking with a local foundry to reproduce the parts, does your museum do this much and what’s the pricing like for reproducing parts like these is it in the ball park? is it realistic? I realize cost is directly connected to complexity and quantity just wondering if it was worth it to have other details reproduced for some projects our groups are working on. We have approached some of the smaller foundries around our area (Western Virginia) and most of them have trouble fitting our small run items into there schedules and some times the size of our patterns cause a problem with there limited abilities. Thank you for all that you’re doing on your projects and the commitment to detail. Also look forward to any insight you can provide to casting reproductions, feasibility and pricing.

Another good use for the " classifieds " section, Listings of companys used by different groups. i.e. foundries that do special work such as casting of your handrail parts. Due to it being standard maybe other groups would be interested in having some made. Maybe said group knows of a foundry that can do a larger production run for a better price and if the need is known a coordinated effort can be formed driving the cost down for everyone involved.
People would be made aware of the fact someone was contimplating the casting and the groups could combine resources and effort and save quite a bit of money for thier project. It could serve to speed things up also. one group has a good pattern maker and gets that done quick, while somweone else knows the Foundry that can get a large run through quicker than the local can a small one.
How amny times have you thought or heard someone say I wish I knew you were doing that I wopuld have had one or some made. Or we could find anyone to do said job for us.
From my past experiance this is thinking outside of the" my project is secert theroy" box and help bring restoration cost down and open new options for groups that didn't even know things like "that" existed"
As a freind once said It's hard for any one person to name all the presidents but put any 3 together and they will.