N Scale Turntable

Peco?

As purchased it's manual but there have been several articles on motorising it.

The Kato motorized turntable always gets good reviews, and while not cheap, is supposed to be worth the investment. I believe it is actually made by Fleischmann.

Jeff,

There are several option here:

In the Walthers catalog are several European turntables - somewhat pricy though. More reasonable in cost are these:

* Atlas - about 100", but is 'above' ground(can be had with a motorizing kit) * Peco - 80' turntable(will just hold a Kato 2-8-2) * L A Model Products(Peco turntable assembled/motorized) - BLW has this on thier web site * CMR - 90-135'' kit(expensive) - motorizing/indexing available.

The Atlas works great, is self indexing, and matches up with thier own roundhouse. The Peco is the 'sleeper' - it looks good, and is quite inexpensive. The Walthers/Heljan turntable is a real piece of junk - you will need to rebuild it to get it to run with any reliability. I have not seen the L A Model Products, but the BLW review sounds good. I have seen the CMR kits assembled - look great, but not sure how much work is needed to assemble the units. Here are some web sites:

Hope this helps with your selection!

Jim Bernier

Jeff wrote:

Hey jef check this out - A Walthers turntable for looks with an Atlas turntable underneath for drive & indexing:

Hop that helps,

Ken Bessler Design Services Company

So long as you don't mind that Geneva motion hiccup every

15 or 11 degrees.

Do you actually need the turntable indexing?

If you use one of the adjustable motor/gear combinations eg Micro Mark's you could use a regular throttle and the good old US standard eyeball.

I once saw a P4 (4mm exact scale) layout using prototypes from the

1830s and 1840s (Mike Sharman's Bogsworth Junction, in England), and he used the same throttle for the trains and turntable, switching between the two.

I don't know how much practice it took, but he lined the tracks up OK each time. If he overshot slightly he just backed up to get it right.

I'm not too terribly worried about indexing. Would be nice, but not really necessary. Thanks for the info though, gave me quite a few leads.

Jeff

Good idea. Now I can put that atlas thing to work (got it as a gift some time ago)

TG