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Do you have any real working turntables near your trainroom? I do, Let’s have a “Show or tell”

In this video we are at the Steam Railroading Institute, 405 S Washington St, Owosso, Michigan. We will watch the yard crew use the turntable to move passenger cars for the Pere Marquette 1225. Polar Express. They share this yard with the Great Lake Central Railroad. (Play time five minutes)

Gary: Hope to see you out rail-fanning. 🚂

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Gary, the bottom photo table is easy to view from Shenandoah Ave., but, use is minimal. The top photo table is used quite often, but, you need to drive up on RR property to see it. Both are at Shaffer's Crossing (24th St. area). Downtown at East End Shops, the main table can be easily viewed, the car shop table is hidden and neither of them really operating since NS closed the shops.

There a couple working ones in St.Paul MN. Minnesota Transportation Museum's former-GN Jackson St. roundhouse still has a working turntable in use. Minnesota Commercial Ry. still uses a roundhouse and turntable in the Midway area for their engines. Since the original Minnesota Transfer RR only used switch engines, the turntable bridge is pretty small - some of MN Commercial's big Alco diesels barely fit on it!

https://www.google.com/maps/@4...6,156m/data=!3m1!1e3

I live in Roanoke, VA and the O. Winston Link Museum is here along with two turntables in the Shaffers Crossing yards. You cannot really see them very well from the road, these pics are lifted out of google and the local GIS. There is also a hump yard that sometimes you can hear but visibility from the roads is nearly nil. There is a busy bridge nearby that with binoculars you can peep at the hump yards - it's not as exciting as you'd think As a young man I had a part time job across from the East End Shops (not pictured here) and sometimes there was neat stuff to see/watch - very little use of the shops and turntables for years now.

http://towns-and-nature.blogsp...wer-roundhouses.html

O. Winston Link Museum

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Images (4)
  • O. Winston Link, Y-6 Locomotive on the Turntable, Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia: O. Winston Link, Y-6 Locomotive on the Turntable, Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia
  • Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia (two turntables): Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia
  • Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia Turntable 1: Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia
  • Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia Turntable 2: Shaffers Crossing Yards, Roanoke, Virginia
Last edited by woodsyT

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