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Prototype for Peco turntable kit


Focalplane

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The prototype for the Peco Kit is the Cowans Sheldon 70ft preserved turntable at Yeovil Junction. The Yeovil turntable is Grade II listed:

 

http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1392981

 

Photos of the Yeovil turntable do reveal a common ancestry but Peco simplified the design of their kit.

 

Research into Cowans Sheldon turntables demonstrates a wide variation of detail with the same basic design being sold with manual, electric or vacuum drive. When it comes to painting, the Yeovil example is probably a good "go by".

 

With regards to the electric drive, I am interested to know how the electric cable would be connected to the rotating bridge. One system would be to have connections near the hub of rotation, possibly as concentric wiper contacts. But flooding of the turntable well would be seen as a potential problem. This question is largely academic as examples of working electric drive turntables do not show any cabling - it must be hidden.

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If you Google "Old Oak Common Turntable Photo" then there will appear numerous recent (i.e. post-Beeching) photos of the Cowans electric turntable that recently left Old Oak Common for Swanage.  They provide the answer to my question above.  A simple (even rather flimsy looking) steel frame extends across the center of the bridge with electric cables strung from two pylons each side of the well:

 

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8020/7460991028_2b160693b2_z.jpg

 

I think Legge Lane should have this.

 

Note the operator's cabin.  I imagine this is a recent addition after steam was discontinued but I have no photographic evidence to hand to say if this is true.  But basically it is fair to say that such "amenities" were very rare on British Railways.

 

EDIT - Here is a high resolution shot from Flickr:

 

https://flic.kr/p/akfJ3f

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I suspect there are two reasons for the use of Yeovil Junction as the prototype for the PECO kit. First, and most obvious, is that it must be the nearest in situ turntable to Beer(!), and second because the probable designer, Bob Phelps lived locally and was a member of Yeovil MRG for many years. The 'table has been repainted several times in my memory including when it was first restored to use so I would be careful about using modern pictures as a colour reference.

 

Incidentally, the EH documentation looks remarkably like what is known as a 'windscreen listing' (ok, platform in this case) in the trade...

Adam

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Thanks, Adam for the information above. As you will see from my additional comment about Old Oak Common, the various photos there even during just the diesel era show several different paint schemes. During the 1950s there may have been very little paint, though white was used to highlight safety zones, a practice that was, I believe, started during the blackout of WWII.

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