Virginia Museum of Transportation acquires turntable

CO 2666 · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:12 pm

Per the VMT Facebook page:

Quote:

It was quite the trip from Elkins, West Virignia but our turntable made it to it's new home in Roanoke's Norwich neighborhood near Bridge Street late Monday night. [...] This turntable will be used on the Roanoke Southern beltline, a tourist train running from Franklin Road to just before Bridge Street.

More photos here (FB account isn't needed to view): https://www.facebook.com/VA.Museum.Tran ... 0613889811

Best,
-Andrew

patentable · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2017 4:41 pm

in the strange world we live in seems that turn tables move east. IRM gets a turntable from Denver, Virginia Museum of Transportation gets one from Chicago....
Hope it arrives safely and is installed soon.
bob

Ron Goldfeder · **Posted:** Tue Aug 29, 2017 9:21 pm

This turntable is 90 feet long. Who built it and when is what we would like to know. If it still has a builder's plate can someone post its data or a photo of it? And just where do they plan to install it? Glad to see it found a home.

Ron Goldfeder · **Posted:** Wed Aug 30, 2017 2:00 pm

This turntable arrived in Elkins, WV, in July 2009 by rail. It weighed 82 tons and was believed to have been installed in Chicago in 1914. In 2012 the West Virginia Railroad Museum at Elkins decided to relocate to Beverly, WV, less than 10 miles from Elkins, where there is room for the installation of their 90’ turntable. A dispute with the county development authority which controlled the Elkins site has caused the move to a more friendly community. In 2013 the Randolph County Development Authority withdrew its grant of $125,000 for installation of the turntable at the West Virginia Railroad Museum at Elkins. A pit for it had been excavated but there would be additional expenses to make it usable for the turntable. The turntable was stored in the open in Elkins and the move to other locations had been shelved. In 2016 the turntable was sold by the Randolph County Development Authority for $11,557 to Will Harris North Fork Inc, which was going to donate it to the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke, VA. Now it has arrived in Roanoke, and its trek is quite a story.

Emmo213 · **Posted:** Thu Aug 31, 2017 5:47 pm

Good to see VMT still making progress but it's too bad it's a 92' turntable and not 100'.

WVNorthern · **Posted:** Thu Aug 31, 2017 6:39 pm

Turntables have been known to be lengthened.

bigjim4life · **Posted:** Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:19 am

So is this the turntable that will (supposedly) be put in Goshen? It doesn't sound like the belt line will be much of a thing anymore...

J3a-614 · **Posted:** Fri Oct 20, 2023 1:54 am

If the turntable is 90 feet long, how will the VMT use it at Goshen or anywhere else? A diagram of the J with tender shows a wheelbase of 95 feet, a C&O J-3a's wheelbase is almost 99 feet.

Maybe there's still some use for it in the Roanoke area.

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/fileSendA ... comoti.pdf

https://themeparkarchitect.com/wp-conte ... 2x1024.jpg

PMC · **Joined:** Sat Oct 17, 2015 5:55 pm **Posts:** 2876

A bit OT, but ORHC just completed installation of their former Brooklyn Yard (Albany OR) SP turntable in Portland: https://railfan.com/oregon-rail-heritag ... turntable/

DavidKaplan · **Posted:** Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:06 pm

Don't forget how UP evidently turned a loco when the turntable was too short.

Does anyone know how this practice was handled? I forget where this photo clip came from.

joe6167 · **Posted:** Tue Oct 24, 2023 1:14 pm

I seem to recall photos of perhaps PRR solving the problem by mounting some angled rails on the end of the turntable that the tender would sit on. Probably in an issue of Trains.

NJDixon · **Joined:** Mon Dec 06, 2021 4:36 pm **Posts:** 366

joe6167 wrote:

I seem to recall photos of perhaps PRR solving the problem by mounting some angled rails on the end of the turntable that the tender would sit on. Probably in an issue of Trains.

That was out to Columbus, when the PRR was leasing the big ATSF 5011-series 2-10-4s and they didn't fit the existing turntable. They would have to run the tender levels quite low to not bend the rails back down as well.

Jon Dziobko photo of the whole arrangement:

https://www.railpictures.net/photo/317692/

Andrew Durden · **Posted:** Tue Oct 24, 2023 2:33 pm

J3a-614 wrote:

If the turntable is 90 feet long, how will the VMT use it at Goshen or anywhere else? A diagram of the J with tender shows a wheelbase of 95 feet, a C&O J-3a's wheelbase is almost 99 feet.

The release says it's bound for the Roanoke belt operation. The J can't operate on the belt anyway.