In San Diego, the San Diego Trolley removed and reinstalled a turntable in their yard. They expanded the yard for trolley and moved it south by a few yars. The SD&AE has no wyes and using the turntable for cars which require unloading on just on side.

In Campo, the Pacific Southwest Railway Museum as a turntable awaiting installation. More land is needed before that one goes in.

I think the Reader turntable originally came from the Moscow, Camden & San Augustine in Texas, being installed first at Scott, Arkansas, then on the Reader. For what it's worth, the CP/D&H had a new turntable built and installed at the former DL&W yard in East Binghamton, NY a few years ago. There is another longer one at the remains of the former DL&W roundhouse next to that yard, but only the bridge and ring rail remain among the ruins.

The Fort Worth & Western in Texas has relocated turntables at Grapevine and the Fort Worth Stockyards to serve the Tarantula steam train.

Steamtown, while in Vermont, had a relocated turntable at its
Riverside site--it's since been removed as the entire site in now a trans-load facility.

There is a hand-powered turntable that was first used in 1991 in Rollag Minnesota. To see some pictures of it, go to www.rollag.com and then click on "exhibits"
There is also a operable turntable in Willmar Minnesota that was used to turn the 261. The 261 barely fits on it, with just inches to spare on each end.

Robert

CSX has a new one in the Queensgate (Cincinnati) yard, and I didn't see mentioned the one that isn't in use right now on the Hartwell RR. MTM has reinstalled one where one had previously been (larger than the original as I recall) at the Jackson Street roundhouse. I saw the Texas State RR one (without pit) that was built as a temporary installlation to turn engines when a bridge was out or something like that. It had an air motor to turn it from the engine's reservoir, I think it is still in place, though it had a center bearing lean issue when I saw it. I'm guessing the Amtrak one "out east" may be the the one in Ivy City (DC), I'm sure someone here would know better, it looked new to me. Hasn't the UP also moved tables in the not too distant past?

What I would like to see people list here is what they cost to install (or at least a ballpark cost). I find most museums are not being at all realistic in what they think the installation cost will be. It appears to me that most people don't understand the most costly part is the pit and foundation work that is left in the ground when a table is "saved". Certainly the soil stability will have a big impact on the foundation costs, so these will vary widely. I have heard from many older railroad engineers that most of the new installations they have seen are built to a far higher quality than they felt a railroad would have ever done, implying these may be heavily overbuilt. I've countered that most of us had only one chance to do this right and no way to easily reset the table if something goes wrong!

The Whitewater Valley is in the planning process right now to install the former B&O Newark Ohio table. We have TE (INDOT Enhancement) funds already awarded for the work, so that part is done. Soil boring work has been done and preliminary drawings are in the works. The TE funding method will impose higher costs for a variety of reasons. I'll share our total costs once I know what they will be!

David Farlow

Good evening Forum Members,

As co-project manager for the 86' turntable installation at the Railroad Museum of Long Island's Riverhead Restoration site I can put a price on aquisition through design. Cost estimates on the actual construction will be developed from the engineering design. We're at the point now of raising money to perform the design work.

cost of turntable: $24,000.00
cost of transport: $18,000.00
soil bearing tests: $1,800.00
engineering design: $48,000.00
stabilization, misc: $10,000.00

We are five years and $53,800.00 into this project. From first laying eyes on the turntable at the Arcade and Attica Railroad to having it delivered to Riverhead took exactly one year. Since July 2002, volunteers have stabilized and painted the turntable and excavated the old pit, foundation and bearing. The soil bearing tests were performed to great satisfaction and we have received quotes for the engineering design work.

Volunteer focus shifted from the turntable in late 2004 when restoration work on LIRR G5s locomotive 39 began in earnest. Attention to this turntable and another extant turntable at our Greenport Museum will become increasingly important as 39's restoration comes closer to completion.

In closing, I cannot stress the importance of volunteers and donated services on a project like this. Thousands of volunteer manhours have been put to cleaning, scraping, painting, digging, and moving. We have had the support of local contractors for crane and backhoe services, surveyors, engineers and architects. It is a community team effort that is hard to put a figure to - PRICELESS!

Good luck to all turntable projects. Scott, I've shared your excellent photos with my Board of Directors and told them - "this is what we'll be looking like in a few years!" Keep up the good work!

Don Fisher, n2qhvRMLI

Don,

I used to live near Riverhead and read with great interest the first part of the move of your turntable.

Did you ever write up the part II? Last time I looked it was not on the LIRR Museum site.

If it is available can you send me one?

Also, where was the historic location of the table in Riverhead?

I used to go into the lumberyard that is now the site of your museum and mineature train back in the 1980s.

Ted Miles

The costs so far for the turntable installation for Altoona has been ;

$85,000.00 for the turntable and shipping
$95,000.00 for all engineering and soil borings
$640,000.00 for the foundation and site work
$12,000.00 for on site engineer for caisson installation
$68,000.00 for track installation on and around the turntable

Our project also had transportation enhancement funding that drove up some of the cost and delaying the start of construction. We have had many “growing” pains with this project along with the fact that our contractor is now some 50 days overdue and our season starts April 1st. Anyone starting a turntable installation project can PM me there phone number and I may be able to give you some pointers on what we have learned. One of the biggest problems has been the result of having to use the lowest bidder, which in our case we already had some track history on from another project and it wasn’t good.

Canadian Pacific has built a brand new turntable at their Conklin yard, East Binghamton, NY.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=33157

the original DL&W roundhouse, with intact turntable pit and bridge, still exists a few hundred feet away. (unused)

Scot

Bob Kutella and Alan Maples commented on the status of the Eureka Springs & North Arkansas Railway. I just pulled up their website which shows a schedule for 2005, but nothing for 2006. Since they state they run from April through October, I would have thought that a schedule for 2006 would have been posted by now. Anyone know for sure whether they are going to be running this year?

Les

I thought it might prove interesting to post our costs in rehabbing the existing 110 ft. table at Port Jervis,NY which we did in preparation for the 1996-98 excursions from Hoboken. Important to state that the table is owned by the City of Pt. Jervis as is the surrounding land, and that it had been abandoned sometime in the late 50's or early 60's when no longer needed by the Erie RR for its operations. In 1995 when we commenced our efforts we found it intact with the pit literally choked full of 30 plus years of trash,shopping carts(from a next door supermarket), trees with up to a 12 inch diameter, dead animals etc., etc. We were very fortunate to have a local architect and railfan come forward and volunteer to head up the local volunteer committee to get the job done, Mr. Bernard Kozykowski. Berny devoted immense amounts of time, energy and political savy over the next 9 months to meet the deadline of having the table functional in time for the first excursion in Oct. 1996. Thanks to many many volunteers and contributions by many local businesses it got done and worked smoothly. As most of the project was accomplished by donations of either labor or materials we had to "turn" the table the first season with a borrowed bulldozer as the donated rebuilt electric motors weren't done in time(beggars need to be patient) and this actually was a better crowd pleaser than when we were able to operate it normally with the rebuilt motors. On the very first trip we tried to turn it with a team of draft horses but they couldn't get it started around so we went to the(standby) dozer which had no trouble at all doing the job.
Following is an approx. cost table of the project;
1. Clean out pit-remove trash,trees etc. All volunteer........$-0-
2. Sandblast/repaint table.................................................$ 250.00
3. Repair/lube center bearing,outridder bearings..................$465.00
4. Relay 650 ft. access siding (materials donated)................$1100.00
5. Build new control house,rewire controls............................$ 575.00
6. Install donated rebuilt motors...........................................$645.00
7. Purchase/install area lighting............................................$976.00
8. Purchase/ install perimeter fencing....................................$1100.00
-----------
Total Cost--------$5111.00

I had no idea what an incredible bargain it truly was until I saw the figures posted above on what Altoona is spending to achieve the same end. WOW-the difference between 5 grand and nearly a MILLION is hard to fathom even when the obvious huge plus we had in Port Jervis was that the table was already there and "only" needed a complete rehabbing. Still hard to get ones arms around nearly a million dollars-but evidently that's what it costs. Guess the moral of this story is try to find a table thats fixable-and design your program around it (unless you've got a spare million lieing around!!). Interesting to say the least.
I want to congatulate the folks at Altoona for installing a table long enough to turn the 4-8-4's that are now and may be in the future active runners as perhaps one fine day one or more of them will come to Altoona and want to be turned?? I among others fought(and lost) a multi-year battle with Dr. Latcher then the Superintendant at Steamtown urging him to install at least a 100 ft. table as they were starting to construct the new Steamtown so that they could turn visiting Northerns, but no, he finally decided to install the shorty now there as they had discovered "historic evidence" that the table that used to be there was only 90 ft. and thats what they'd install. I can't remember what they spent to build the shorty now there but it was a GIGOONDA number, (IF I remember correctly they spent something like $2.3 million?? ) while 50 miles down the road in Binghamton NY sat (and sits) a 110ft. table that was offered as a donation. Well, as most of you know when MILW261 came to visit, they had to seperate engine&tender everytime they needed to get her in the house(save one track) and to this day the place is basically non-functional for a 4-8-4.
Only in America!!!
Ross Rowland

The TSR does have a turntable at Maydelle, Tx that came from Paris, Texas. i don't know if it was from the joint Frisco/Santa Fe facility there, or from the Paris and Mt Pleasant.

Based on our experience with the Owosso turntable, it seems like $250,000 to $400,000 will probably do the job of installing an old bridge in a new pit depending on what special situations are encountered with the soils, foundations, and repairs to the steel bridge. Although we had quite a few donated services for our project. It sounds as though extreme measures had to be taken with the soils under the Altoona table.

Incidentally, I've seen CAD drawings by our engineer of our lengthened table with the axles of a Reading T-hog applied to it. A C&O J-3 will fit, too. You never can tell. No Challengers or Alleghenies, though.

Mark,

the "Tarantula" put a new one in in the North Ft. Worth Stockyards area some years ago. Nicely done attractive brick pit, bridge looked to be a re-use. They had 1-2 addtional TT bridges sitting in the weeds last time I rode.

The foundations in Altoona were not very special in a cost regard. We did encounter foundations from some of the old shop buildings that once stood on the property but we knew that they were there and had built that into the contract. The on site engineer was a requirement from PennDOT because of transportation enhancement moneys. The other key issue is that T.E. moneys dictated this as a prevailing wage job site with the lowest paid job making around $17.50 per hour plus benefits. Our average caisson depth below ring wall is about 11 feet with 27 2-foot diameter and 27 4-foot diameter. The total tabulation of concrete came to 1008 cubic yards for caissons and ring wall. I don’t have a total on rebar. One other cost you have to look at is our track work, of that $68,000.00 only a small part of that goes on the 105-foot bridge. We have had over 1200 feet of track laid for the spurs around it. Part of our engineering cost also went to design the complete job. When we purchased the turntable we were only able to obtain about half the blueprints needed for it and was left to fill in the blanks, almost as bad as having nothing at all.