Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.
Discussion related to everything about model railroading, from layout design and planning, to reviews of related model tools and equipment. Discussion includes O, S, HO, N and Z, as well as narrow gauge topics. Also includes discussion of traditional "toy train" and "collector" topics such as Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. Also includes discussion of outdoor garden railways and live steamers.
Hello everyone. New to this group and this is my first post.
Just had a really bad experience with the kit version of the Walthers Cornerstone Series HO 90' turntable. It didn't even make a good frisbee. I am now going to try and get one that functions. Would appreciate any thoughts you guys might have about decent turntables. Quality of operation is the number one priority, followed by quality of the unit (closely related to my first priority), then ease of construction/installation (I'm not into spending a year fussing with one), and finally price (AAA appears to be really nice but at $500+ it seems a bit pricey).
Thanks very much!
Dan (researchhound)
researchhound wrote:Hello everyone. New to this group and this is my first post.
Just had a really bad experience with the kit version of the Walthers Cornerstone Series HO 90' turntable. It didn't even make a good frisbee.
Welcome aboard!
Yes, the Walther's turntable can be quite the piece of crap. At the club, we tried in vain to get the kit-built version to function, but eventually gave up and went for the ready-built version. The ready-built is pretty robust and has given us trouble-free operation.
Otto,
Thanks very much for the feedback!
I'm planning on contacting Walthers to share my opinion of their kit turntable. Now that I've been posting about it I've not heard a single good thing yet. They aren't doing their company or the modeling community any favors by offering this product. I spent a lot of time and effort into making it look great only to have it function like a piece of s---. Had I known I would have gotten the built up model to start with.
Good to know the built up works. I'm a little leery of Walthers right now and need to be reassured. If you are using it at the club level and are satisfied, it should be more than adequate for my small layout.
Dan
researchhound wrote:
Good to know the built up works. I'm a little leery of Walthers right now and need to be reassured. If you are using it at the club level and are satisfied, it should be more than adequate for my small layout.
Dan
The built-up version has provided years of reliable operation on the R&IT...
Dieter wrote:The ATLAS Turntable has always had a good reputation over the decades, and the mechanism is highly adaptable for other purposes.
Atlas doesn't make a turntable with a bridge and a pit, though, and that's what this fellow was looking for.
Acknowledged. However, if one digs in the mags over time, one can find where someone built their own pit and bridge -- and powered it with the Atlas turntable motor. If you want a long turntable, a friend of mine wrote me that he had a turntable made by Heljan that was long enough for an HO Challenger.
D/
Video If the problem is Digital,
The Solution is ANALOG!!
It seems to me that a relatively inexpensive kit could be created for a turntable of any reasonable length in increments from say 65' to 125' if the parts involved could be made trimmable to suit the desired turntable length. Such parts would include the pit, the bridge, a wrap-around retaining wall to be trimmed and fit into one of a variety of scored concentric circles in the pit, and a single-rail flex-track as ring rail. The central shaft and the mechanism (simple crank or electric) would of course be the same for a table of any length. When finished, the pit could be filled with enough "dirt" to conceal all of the unused scorings and ring-rail attachments.
Is this what the doctor ordered? There's your bridge, parked in a pit.
Nice looking North American model, from Heljan, it doesn't look like something out of Denmark and it's even got it's own motor.
D/
Video If the problem is Digital,
The Solution is ANALOG!!
Actually, there's at least one wye and several loops planned, along with one operating TT, (plus one that needs some work,) but it's realy the RH I was interested in. To hold a "Blackstone" the stalls need to be close to 15"! That lets out the smaller CORNERSTONE and the ATLAS RH's, (unless I want to kitbash or leave off the end wall of one stall.)
