San Francisco Turntables:
Mission Bay & Bayshore |
Turntable Plans San Francisco SP |
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Bayshore's original turntable was an 80 foot S.P. Common Standard unit. Wx4 staff has no statistical information on Mission Bay, but an educated guess would be that it originally had a turntable identical to Bayshore's, but it was replaced in the 1920's with the 100 foot C.S. pin-connected pony truss shown below. Ashland Oregon had a similar 100 ft. table that was constructed in the 1920's. Bayshore, however, kept its short table until 1941. Earlier, Bakersfield had its 100 foot turntable replaced with a larger model, rendering it available for lengthening and installation at Bayshore. Thus, the Mission Bay table represents a good 'before' example of what SP converted. Since Mission Bay was primarily a passenger and switching loco facility - SP's GS-4's had a wheelbase of roughly 95 feet - the 100 foot design continued to be adequate to needs there. |
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Mission Bay 100' Common Standard Turntable
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The top chord of each truss consists of two flat steel bars connected to adjoining steelwork at either end by large pins, hence the name 'pin-connected' pony truss. Many early twentieth century SP through truss (river) bridges were also of the pin-connected variety, but in their bottom chords. 1959 photograph |
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The operator's cab shows in the above 1953 photograph. |
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Bayshore's 110' Ex-Bakersfield Turntable
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Right off, you'll notice that heavy-duty replacement for the top chord. |
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(left, below) Those are some beefy gussets, eh? | |||||
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The rounded housings at the photo's bottom right contain the motor and the drive. |
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