Turntable at the end of a fiddle yard

In message , snipped-for-privacy@mwfree.net writes

If it's any help, there's a prototype for this: Hayes and Bromley North stations on the SECR had turntables for engine release just prior to the buffer stops at the end of the platform.

In message , John Sullivan may have written...

Agreed, I also recall a few GWR branches that had the same feature, though I wouldn't be able to supply any names unless I had a wade through my magazine collection. Didn't Ventnor have a similar idea, with its famous 'decked' turntable?

Birmingham Moor Street had this feature well into BR days, perhaps this is the GWR example the poster is thinking of?

Moor Street did not have a turntable, it had a traverser. (Probably rarer than turntables, I never heard of another at a platform end in the UK) Keith

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In message , Keith Norgrove may have written...

Didn't Paddington have one at some point?

"John Sullivan" wrote

There was a similar arrangement at Withernsea in East Yorkshire, with a platform end (40' ?) turntable to allow the loco to be released and turned at the same time.

John.

Also North Woolwich in London (Great Eastern).

Using turntables at the end of fiddle yards has been done many times. Saves space but a good turntable is expensive. It also means you can turn engines without the use of the 0-5-0. I used a turntable on the end of 3 track staging / fiddle yard on a layout I had many years ago. Tracks of the turntable were arranged for locomotive storage.

Of course, Withernsea was the end of the line - aka The Last Resort.

Would a sector plate be better? Easier to make than a t.t., but you couldn't turn the loco. O.K. if you just wanted to run a tank engine around its train. Regards, Bill.

"MartinS" wrote

It's worse than that now it has no railway!

John.

turntable?

The Hotwells terminus of the Bristol "Port and Pier" railway (situated just beneath Clifton Suspension Bridge) had such a turntable. But it closed in about 1922, and I can't think of any more recent examples on the GWR.

Andy Kirkham Glasgow

I believe the turntable at Hotwells disappeared in 1893 when the station was enlarged..

Pete

Terry I'd be very interested to know which proprietary turntables you would describe as good but expensive? I'd guess not Hornby, Peco or Dapol. Fleischmann? I don't know of any others. I ask because I'm looking for a good one, if it's not too expensive! Nice site by the way.

Thanks for the site feed back.

I do not have experience with the current Hornby, Peco or Dapol products. For a fiddle yard they are probably good enough as resemblance to a prototype is unimportant. I did have a Fleishman turntable, these are expensive and are a good option if you want an electric powered automatic indexing turntable. I have old Hornby turntables in a box, it's to long ago to remember how good or bad they are. My current layout has a scratch built turntable. It's the second turntable I have built, the first was scraped, only the bearing housing was re used. It is mechanically operated, and electrical pickup is from underneath the layout, using double the contacts necessary for reliability on the underside of a copper clad disc.

A well known NSW layout Lambing Flat

went a step further in the easy and cheap to build sector plate fiddle yard. James used a piece of flex track as the sector plate, simply sliding across the base board. No turnouts or fancy engineering, but it required 0-5-0 action to turn engines. I forget how the track was kept aligned.

If you want to see how it can be done, ask to see the fiddle yard of Horton Regis - the Epsom club's 'O' gauge Edwardian layout.

Not to be confused with Horton, the Beckenham club's 'OO' modern image layout.

Keith,

Just hijacked this thread to contact you since I haven't had a chance to dig out your valid email address.

But somewhere you posted a URL some time ago for a very good picture of a Midland wagon lift, which, from memory, looked more like a funicular with an angled lift rather than the more common vertical lift. I've searched all my archives to try and find your message which contained the URL, but with no luck. Any hopes of posting the URL again?

Jim.

I'd love to see a model of it, send me a photo when you are done. Regards Keith

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