Building the turntable at Mara – Part 2 (The deck)

Now that I have a turntable that will operate reliably it was time to make the deck to accommodate my On30 locomotives. Normally the bridge girders are placed under the rails. This in not a problem in using the HO bridge as the track spacing nor HO and On30 are the same, the difference being a wider deck is required to support the On30 engines.

 

Tape was used to attached a piece of .125 x ,250 styrene to act as a stop to make sure that all the ties when added were in a straight line.  Tape was also added sticky side up to hold the ties in place when laid.

 

I square was used to make sure that the first tie was 90 degrees to the stop. I used scale 8″ x 8″ for the ties. The ties were cut 12 ft long, the length was picked as it looked right to me.

 

A .060 styrene spacer was used to align the ties to each other. at about every 10th tie I checked the ties with my square to make sure the ties were still 90 degrees to the stop.

 

Once all the ties were laid the bridge was centered on the ties and the bridge glued to the ties using 5 minute epoxy.

 

Scale 8″ x 8″ end rails were glued to the ties.

 

The almost completed deck. The rails were then added along with the planks inside the rails.

 

At this point I wanted to make sure that there would be no problems so it was test fitted in place.

 

I put one of my 4-4-0’s on the turntable to see how it would look.

 

Next up was my Connie which is the longest locomotive I own. Any future locomotive purchases will have to fit on the turntable.

Everything worked great so the bridge was removed and the rest of the deck boards were added and stained to my tie colour. The walls of the pit was painted a concrete colour and I used a “rust” paint marker to paint the rails. Sand and loose dirt was glued to the bottom of the pit to complete the turntable. Care was taken not to get any sand or dirt on the center post as I didn’t want anything to interfere with the operation of the turntable.

 

The completed turntable. Now that the deck is added you don’t notice that the outside wheel bracket is missing.

Next up powering the turntable.