The turntable at Danbury served a nine stall round house in the steam era. Installed in 1917 the 95' turntable was located at the East end of the Danbury yard along with other steam era servicing facilities of coal, water and sand. The turntable was used into and thru the Diesel era by the New Haven Railroad and continued use after the New Haven was merged into the Penn Central in 1969.
The turntable can be seen in the lower right in the Danbury yard aerial photo below.
The turntable appears still in a serviceable condition in these the two photos I took in the late 1970's during the early Conrail era.
Decline and Restoration
The turntable eventually became unserviceable under Conrail ownership and fell into disrepair, the pit was filled in with trash and debris from the yard. Fortunately the turntable was never removed.
A second life for the turntable began with the incorporation of the Danbury Railway Museum in 1994. By 1998 the once neglected turntable had been restored to a serviceable condition by the efforts of the dedicated hard working volunteer members of the museum. More about the restoration can be read here. Today visitors to the museum can take a 360° ride on the turntable.
1950's.
During the modeling era of the layout the turntable and roundhouse were still in use. Below are photos of the turntable as it appeared in the 1950's, this is the look modeling efforts will try to achieve.
The Model
A motorized offering from Walthers below will be used as a beginning for the model, next post will show an effort to "Danbury-ize" this turntable.
Oooohhh - very exciting! I assume you've seen Pryke's article on doing the Hyannis table?
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to following your build here!