Position of turntable in engine yard

When planning an engine yard with a turntable, it is easy to forget that the whole idea of a turntable in real life is to save space, by turning locomotives in a small area instead of running them through loops and turnouts.

One often sees turntables placed on a layout that tends to waste precious space, specifically one sees the roundhouses placed beyond the turntable like this:

Scenes around the Bw

Here are some scenes from the engine yard, taken when the yard was in the old layout.

Second roundhouse installed

The second roundhouse is now installed on the layout and wired up!

Christmas in the roundhouse

Some of the workers in the roundhouse like to decorate a tree during December...

First Roundhouse

The roundhouse is at last installed on the layout and all wired up...

Roundhouse interior walls

A large proportion of the effort to create interior details for the roundhouse was the preparation of the interior walls.

This page shows how I made them and I also provide links to the files so that you may use them for your own personal purposes.

Loco shed smoke catchers

Loco sheds have large funnels above the tracks to help direct smoke out the chimneys. Since I was creating interior details of my roundhouse I have made smoke catchers. I need two per track. This allows a steamer to be parked head first or tender first, or even two small locos on one track.

I made mine out of a thin card and used a 6mm drinking straw cut to 30mm lengths for the new chimney. This allows the catchers to be positioned 60mm above the rails. The chimney caps from the Märklin 7288 roundhouse kit can be made to fit in the top of the drinking straw.

Roundhouse interior details

I put a lot of effort into the interior detailing of my roundhouses. 

Arc-welder in HO

I designed and made a welding machine out of thin card

Roundhouse construction (Märklin 7288)

I have started constructing one of my two roundhouses. It is an old Märklin 7288 kit that does not have any interior details.

HO scale workbenches

I needed a lot of workbenches for my loco workshop, I only had some HO tables that did not look right in a workshop and my local dealer did not have anything suitable, so I decided to make them out of thin card.

I created a design in a CAD program and used its fill feature to create a green color scheme and doors and drawers on both sides.