(rshsdepot) Antique turntable still used to swivel rail cars

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_comcast.net>]

From the News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)

Bernie Wagenblast
Transportation Communications Newsletter
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport-communications/


http://newsobserver.com/news/story/2694392p-2498276c.html  (with photo)

Antique Turntable Still Used To Swivel Rail Cars

By VICKI HYMAN, Staff Writer


RALEIGH -- At the end of a rail spur high on a berm above Capital Boulevard,
there is a weed-choked concrete basin more than 100 feet in diameter. A
bridge with a half-moon-shaped base hugs the hollow, and a spindly trestle
rises above it like a flimsy crown.

It looks like a curious relic, an abandoned piece of 19th-century American
railroading, fit for a museum, perhaps, but not for service.

It is fit for both. Railroad buffs would know the contraption immediately as
a turntable. Often enclosed in a roundhouse, a turntable was used to turn
engines around, sliding them into bays for repairs.

The Raleigh turntable, nearly a century old, is owned and still used
occasionally by freight hauler CSX at its downtown Raleigh rail yard, to
turn engines or, more often, errant rail cars that can only be unloaded from
one side.

"You're looking at one of the wisest investments," said Jonathan Peery , a
CSX support clerk looking on as the turntable's motor rattled to life,
sounding like a thousand beer bottles clanking against each other. "This
thing has been paid for for a hundred years."

The company that built it has been out of business for 60 .

Once diesel engines eclipsed steam locomotives for freight hauling,
manufacturers stopped making turntables, and railroads started ripping them
out in the 1950s.

Unlike steam locomotives, diesel locomotives can easily reverse, so
engineers didn't need turntables, opting instead to turn them around in a
"wye," a Y-shaped track layout.

At one time, there were at least four turntables in Raleigh, with many more
scattered throughout the state.

Now the downtown Raleigh turntable is the only one in active freight use in
the state, although visitors to the N.C. Transportation Museum in Spencer
can ride on another -- very, very slowly, according to Larry Neal, manager
of visitor services. "You can walk faster," he said.

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The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

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