Turntable (railroad)
Encyclopedia
Rolling stock
Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...
. When steam locomotives were still in wide use, many railroads needed a way to turn the locomotives around for return trips as their controls were often not configured for extended periods of running in reverse and in many locomotives the top speed was lower in reverse motion. Turntables were also used to turn observation car
Observation car
An observation car/carriage/coach is a type of railroad passenger car, generally operated in a passenger train as the last carriage, with windows on the rear of the car for passengers' viewing pleasure...
s so that their windowed lounge ends faced toward the rear of the train.
Overview
Most turntables consisted of a circular pit in which the bridge rotated. The outer ends of the bridge were typically supported by a rail running around the floor of the pit, supplementing the central pivot.The turntable bridge (the part of the turntable that included the tracks and that swivelled to turn the equipment) could span anywhere from 6 to 120 ft (1.8 to 36.6 m), depending on the railroad's needs. Larger turntables were installed in the locomotive maintenance facilities for longer locomotives, while short line and narrow gauge railroads typically used smaller turntables as their equipment was smaller. Turntables as small as 6 feet in diameter have been installed in some industrial facilities where the equipment is small enough to be pushed one at a time by human or horse power.
Turntables will have a positive locking mechanism to prevent undesired rotation and to align the bridge rails with the exit track. Rotation of the bridge could be accomplished manually (either by brute force or with a windlass system) by an external power source or by the braking system of the locomotive itself, though this required a locomotive to be on the table for it to be rotated.
Roundhouse
In engine maintenance facilities, a turntable was usually surrounded, in part or in whole, by a roundhouseRoundhouse
A roundhouse is a building used by railroads for servicing locomotives. Roundhouses are large, circular or semicircular structures that were traditionally located surrounding or adjacent to turntables...
. It was more common for the roundhouse to only cover a portion of the land around a turntable but fully circular roundhouses exist, such as these preserved roundhouses:
- The roundhouse that serves as the basis for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, MD
- The RoundhouseThe RoundhouseThe Roundhouse is a Grade II* listed former railway engine shed in Chalk Farm, London, England, which has been converted into a performing arts and concert venue. It was originally built in 1847 as a roundhouse , a circular building containing a railway turntable, but was only used for railway...
in LondonLondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, EnglandEnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, now an arts centre.
Turntables in North America
Due to the asymmetric design of many locomotives, turntables still in use are more common in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
than in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, where locomotive design favors configurations with a controller cabin on both ends or in the middle. In San Francisco, USA, the Powell cable car
San Francisco cable car system
The San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...
line uses turntables at the end of the routes, since the cable cars have operating controls at only one end of the car.
Vacuum operation
In Britain, where steam hauled trains generally have vacuum operated brakesVacuum brake
The vacuum brake is a braking system employed on trains and introduced in the mid-1860s. A variant, the automatic vacuum brake system, became almost universal in British train equipment and in those countries influenced by British practice. Vacuum brakes also enjoyed a brief period of adoption in...
, it was quite common for turntables to be operated by vacuum motors worked from the locomotive's vacuum ejector or pump via a flexible hose or pipe although a few manually and electrically operated examples exist.
Surviving turntables
Several working examples remain; many on Heritage railways in Great Britain, and also in the United States. Examples include:- Aberdeen
- Aviemore
- Barrow HillBarrow Hill Engine ShedBarrow Hill Roundhouse & Railway Centre, until 1948 known as Staveley Roundhouse & Train Centre, is a former Midland Railway roundhouse in Barrow Hill, near Staveley and Chesterfield, Derbyshire .-History:...
- Carnforth
- ChurstonPaignton and Dartmouth Steam RailwayThe Paignton & Dartmouth Steam Railway is a heritage railway on the former Kingswear branch line between Paignton and Kingswear in Torbay, Devon, England....
- DidcotDidcot Railway CentreDidcot Railway Centre, located in the town of Didcot in the English county of Oxfordshire, is based around the site of a comprehensive "engine shed" which became redundant after the nationalisation of the UK railways, due to the gradual changeover from steam to diesel motive power.-Description:The...
- Fort William
- Hornsey
- KidderminsterKidderminster Town railway stationKidderminster Town is a railway station situated in the town of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England. It is operated by the Severn Valley Railway, a heritage line which runs from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth...
- KeighleyKeighley and Worth Valley RailwayThe Keighley and Worth Valley Railway is a long branch line that served mills and villages in the Worth Valley and is now a heritage railway line in West Yorkshire, England. It runs from Keighley to Oxenhope. It connects to the national rail network line at Keighley railway station...
- Neville Hill
- NRM YorkNational Railway MuseumThe National Railway Museum is a museum in York forming part of the British National Museum of Science and Industry and telling the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001...
- Old Oak CommonOld Oak Common TMDOld Oak Common TMD is situated to the west of London, in Old Oak Common. The Traction Maintenance Depot is the main facility for the storage and servicing of locomotives and multiple-units which utilise Paddington Station. The depot codes are 'OC' for the diesel depot, and 'OO' for the carriage shed...
- Railtown 1897 State Historic ParkRailtown 1897 State Historic ParkRailtown 1897 State Historic Park, and its operating entity, the Sierra Railway, is known as "The Movie Railroad." Both entities are a heritage railway and are a unit of the California State Park System. Railtown 1897 is located in Jamestown, California...
in Jamestown, California - Peak Rail, Rowsley SouthRowsley South railway stationRowsley South railway station lies approximately a mile short of Rowsley village, the location of the settlement's previous stations. This makes Rowsley South the third station to be built in the area, constructed as it was by Peak Rail volunteers in the latter part of the 1990s.Opened to...
- Minehead (West Somerset Railway)
- PickeringNorth Yorkshire Moors RailwayThe North Yorkshire Moors Railway is a heritage railway in North Yorkshire, England. First opened in 1836 as the Whitby and Pickering Railway, the railway was planned in 1831 by George Stephenson as a means of opening up trade routes inland from the then important seaport of Whitby. The line...
- San Francisco cable car systemSan Francisco cable car systemThe San Francisco cable car system is the world's last permanently operational manually operated cable car system, in the US sense of a tramway whose cars are pulled along by cables embedded in the street. It is an icon of San Francisco, California...
- Scarborough
- St Blazey
- SwanageSwanage RailwayThe Swanage Railway is a long heritage railway in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England. The railway follows the route of the Purbeck branch line between Norden railway station, Corfe Castle railway station, Harman's Cross railway station, Herston Halt railway station and Swanage...
- Tyseley
- WansfordNene Valley RailwayThe Nene Valley Railway is a preserved railway in Cambridgeshire, England, running between Peterborough Nene Valley and Yarwell Junction. The line is currently seven and a half miles in length...
- Yeovil Junction
Accidents
In the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, when deciding liability for turntable accidents, most state courts followed the precedent set by the United States Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
in Sioux City & Pacific R.R. v. Stout (1873). In that case, a six-year-old child was playing on the unguarded, unfenced turntable when his friends began turning it. While attempting to get off, his foot became stuck and was crushed. The Court held that although the railroad was not bound by the same duty of care to strangers as it was to its passengers, it would be liable for negligence "if from the evidence given it might justly be inferred by the jury that the defendant, in the construction, location, management, or condition of its machine has omitted that care and attention to prevent the occurrence of accidents which prudent and careful men ordinarily bestow."
In the case of Chicago B. & Q.R. Co. v. Krayenbuhl
Chicago B. & Q.R. Co. v. Krayenbuhl
Chicago B. & Q.R. Co. v. Krayenbuhl 65 Neb. 899, 91 N.W. 880. was a case that established negligent liability on a railroad company....
(1902), a four year old child was playing on an unlocked, unguarded railroad turntable. Other children set the turntable in motion, and it severed the ankle of the young child. The child's family sued the railroad company on a theory of negligence and won at trial. The Nebraska Supreme Court held that the railroad company may have been liable for negligence after considering the "character and location of the premises, the purpose for which they are used, the probability of injury therefrom, the precautions necessary to prevent such injury, and the relations such precautions bear to the beneficial use of the premises." However, the Supreme Court reversed the trial court's decision based on an improper jury instruction as to the evidence.
Accidents to locomotives sometimes occurred. For example, if a locomotive failed to stop (when the turntable was incorrectly set) it might fall into the turntable pit.
Unusual turntables
- In one location in France, lack of space forced the installation of an asymmetric turntable, where the pivot point was about one-third along its length. Such a turntable cannot rotate 360 degrees.
- At Ventnor railway stationVentnor railway stationVentnor railway station was the terminus of the Isle of Wight Railway line from Ryde.The station lay on a ledge above sea level which had to be quarried into the hill side. The station was immediately outside a long tunnel through St. Boniface Down. A lack of space meant that a turntable was...
, due to lack of space a small turntable was provided to allow steam engines to run around their trains, and similarly at Bembridge railway stationBembridge railway stationBembridge was the terminus of the 2¾ mile branch line that connected it to the main line at Brading. On holiday Saturdays the sector table revolved continuously because the station area was too small to contain points. Opened in 1882, when the area contained the Island's main port, it ran with...
. - In SolingenSolingenSolingen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and with a 2009 population of 161,366 is the second largest city in the Bergisches Land...
at line 683 there is a turntable for trolleybusTrolleybusA trolleybus is an electric bus that draws its electricity from overhead wires using spring-loaded trolley poles. Two wires and poles are required to complete the electrical circuit...
es.
Multiple turntables
Stations housing large numbers of engines may have more than one turntable: – Old Oak Common TMDOld Oak Common TMD
Old Oak Common TMD is situated to the west of London, in Old Oak Common. The Traction Maintenance Depot is the main facility for the storage and servicing of locomotives and multiple-units which utilise Paddington Station. The depot codes are 'OC' for the diesel depot, and 'OO' for the carriage shed...
near Paddington – 4 Enfield – 2 Broadmeadow – 2 Linwood – formerly 2 (second removed during 1980/1990's) Valladolid
Valladolid
Valladolid is a historic city and municipality in north-central Spain, situated at the confluence of the Pisuerga and Esgueva rivers, and located within three wine-making regions: Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Cigales...
(41.6403 °N 4.7292 °W) – 2
See also
- WyeWye (railroad)A wye or triangular junction, in rail terminology, is a triangular shaped arrangement of rail tracks with a switch or set of points at each corner. In mainline railroads, this can be used at a rail junction, where three rail lines join, in order to allow trains to pass from any line to any other...
– a way of turning whole trains. - Transfer tableTransfer tableA transfer table, also called a traverser , is a piece of railroad equipment. It is similar in function to a turntable, though it cannot be used to turn equipment around. The table consists of a single length of track which can be moved from side to side, in a direction perpendicular to the track...
(UK: 'traverser') – provides access to two or more parallel tracksRail tracksThe track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...
in a space saving manner like a turntable, but without the ability to turn. - A Sector plate is a traverser that rotates by a small angle.