Chris Nevard's Blog

The capstan is to aid rope shunting, which was one of the various ways that wagons were moved around in small yards like this - see this old post for more info on rope shunting and wagon turntables.

 

There's more here..... on 49395's 2010 Challenge entry....

 

Cheers

 

Jan

Nice one Jan! I'd not seen this one until now, thanks for sharing.

I've seen working wagon turntable used in conjuction with a non working walking horse on 2mm layouts.

Have you thought about putting another capstan behind the doors, in front of that overscale and frankly unconvincing eyeball*, so you could use a loco to pull the wagons offstage by using both capstans together as well as onstage?

 

Paul.

 

 

*Attempt at humour.

I haven't seen capstans used in a railway context, but they are used on our local canal, when I lived in London, for a similar purpose. They are used to allow a tractor to pull a barge out of a dock on the opposite bank from the tractor.

 

I my opinion the capstan is the correct size, bearing in mind that if the chain or cable comes up an not in contact with the capstan the whiplash will cause savagery injuries to anyone standing in the vicinity.

 

 

Lisa - that's just showing off

Good idea Paul - but the chain would have to be just under 2 ft long and it would be pain trying to get down between the buildings to loop the darn thing around. I aim to simply grab it with a rod from the rear when going for wagon-rear-exit (through the doors there's an imaginery bottling plant with a winch) called Chris.