Looking for info on commercially available, automated turntables...

[mark dance]

...not for me but for a friend.

He asked me for info on the performance of commercially available, working turntables.   He is looking for reliable and quiet drives, and decent prototypical appearance.

I have a non automated peco TT so I am no help to him.  What experiences have others had?

Thx in advance

Md

[nickelplate759]

The Walthers (N-scale) turntable is pretty good, but it is not what I'd call quiet.  Also, support and parts supply is iffy.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

The Walthers (N-scale) turntable is pretty good, but it is not what I'd call quiet.  Also, support and parts supply is iffy.

That turntable formed the basis for my abandoned engine terminal on my old layout for that very reason.

[jdcolombo]

If you want an automated (e.g., motorized, indexed) table that is fairly prototypical in looks (e.g., has a pit, a bridge, operators' shanty), then the Walthers is the only game in town from a commercial source.  That's it.  There isn't anything else.  It's not quiet; Walthers has no parts for them and no service.  You buy one, and you're pretty much on your own.  The first run had issues with gears cracking, although they could be replaced - but you had to source the gears yourself and do the repair yourself.  Don't know about the most recent version.  But unless the gears go bad, it works, and it looks great, IMHO:

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it's a shame Walthers sucks when it comes to parts/service. 

Other commercial turntables (Kato, Atlas, Bachmann) look nothing like a US prototype pit-style turntable.  The Kato might be modifiable into something US-prototype looking with a deeper pit and something to conceal part of the ring.  But the Kato table is only 6" long (about 80 scale feet), and hence won't hold steam engines bigger than a 2-8-2 Mikado.  The others are really just toys.

The only other option is to build your own.  There used to be a "craftsman kit" supplier that provided a pit and a bridge; you'd have to rig up the motor and if you wanted it indexed, an indexing method.  I don't remember the name, and not sure they are still in business.  Someone else might have that info.

John C.

[Cajonpassfan]

Diamond Scale?

[Rossford Yard]

Will second Walthers, at least their 120 foot fully automated one.  Not sure if the old 90 footer ever got updated.

Been 4 years since I had one on my last layout, but was extremely happy with it.  Don't specifically recall how much noise it made, but it was much quieter than that old Euro model I had, which was a mechanical horse, no problems, but yes, very loud.  And no, not very prototypical looking.  I'm not sure why noise is a deal killer really, given how thankful we should be to Walthers for putting out a great, great model that was, IMHO, the only answer to having a turntable - good looking, reliable and ready to install.

[Mark5]

Will second Walthers, at least their 120 foot fully automated one.

Minor point, but the WKW is 130'.

The Heljan manual TT that they once marked was 120'.

Mark

[jdcolombo]

Diamond Scale?

Yep.  That was it.  Diamond Scale.  They apparently are still in business and sell both a 100' and a 135' N scale turntable.  They also offer motors and indexing kits.  But these are craftsman kits, not "drop the thing into a hole and wire it up" like the Walthers.

http://www.diamond-scale.com/products__turntables.htm

John C.

[mark dance]

Thank you all

Md

[mmagliaro]

There was some other "old school" turntable craftsman kit.  I had one on my old PRR layout.  It appears in this video
from years ago on my layout:

Was this an early "Walthers" product?  I think it was.  Anybody remember?

It was quite an ordeal to make it work.  I wouldn't be complaining so much about the "new" Walthers turntable, which looks nice and is ready-to-go.  No parts, but then, you're no worse off than a craftsman kit where you have to make the motor drive yourself. 

As I recall, that old thing I had was a large wooden circle and some crude sleeves and bolts.  The bridge was wood with cast white metal side beam parts that you put on.  I can't remember what the pit wall was made of.  I covered the pit wall with textured gray paint.  Initially, I used a photocell on the lower bottom end of the bridge, with GOW lamps pointing through little holes in the pit wall, plus a Schmitt Trigger circuit to stop/start the turntable at each track.  In the end, I took that out and just used a really low-geared motor drive with a switch for low and high speed.  I found that totally by eye, it was quite easy to align the rails so I didn't bother with the automatic track indexing, which was always fussy.  The motor drive came out of a VERY old remote control TV channel changer (when you had a knob on the TV to change the channel, and "remote control" just ran a motor that actually turned the physical knob on the set!)

I mention this because you may not need any automatic track aligning feature at all and that just adds complication.  I thought I would back in the day, but honestly, it was pretty easy just to have a switch to run the table and stop it by eye.

[randgust]

OK, I'll ask the stupid question, mostly because I don't have a dog in the fight and don't have a turntable.

As the turntable geometry and mechanics are based on angle of separation between tracks, couldn't you use an HO turntable indexing system and simply use that as the drive system under an N turntable?   Literally a turntable on a turntable under it?    So that a 60' HO turntable could drive a 120' N on top of it on another shaft?

I'd think the HO guys beat this to death decades ago with something robust and reliable.

Last turntable I had was an Atlas HO one when I was 12.

[superchief]

Max, That was a Bowser turntable!

Walthers is the only game, unless you got with diamond scale and as already list is a craftsman kit with a hydro-cal pit. I still have the first run walthers and it works great!!!!!
                                                                                         Gordon

[Mark5]

OK, I'll ask the stupid question, mostly because I don't have a dog in the fight and don't have a turntable.

As the turntable geometry and mechanics are based on angle of separation between tracks, couldn't you use an HO turntable indexing system and simply use that as the drive system under an N turntable?   Literally a turntable on a turntable under it?    So that a 60' HO turntable could drive a 120' N on top of it on another shaft?

I'd think the HO guys beat this to death decades ago with something robust and reliable.

Last turntable I had was an Atlas HO one when I was 12.

Its been done countless times. I have a Heljan 120' that I was going to use the Atlas N turntable under it for indexing.

I got lazy and bought the Wally TT a few years ago.

Mark

[mmagliaro]

Max, That was a Bowser turntable!

Walthers is the only game, unless you got with diamond scale and as already list is a craftsman kit with a hydro-cal pit. I still have the first run walthers and it works great!!!!!
                                                                                         Gordon

YES!  I remember now!  Thank you.

[Spades]

Peco now offers a motorized turntable.  For those classic Peco non powered turntables there was https://www.locomotech.com/