Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative - Wiki
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Kentville Turntable
The Dominion Atlantic Railway's Kentville terminal employed a turntable to turn locomotives from the Windsor & Annapolis's establishment in 1868 until the Kentville railway facilities were abandoned in 1993. The Windsor and Annapolis built the first turntable and engine house at Kentville in 1868 south of the mainline. It consisted of a three stall engine house[1] and a covered turntable with an attached machine shop.[2] It burned in a fire on July 8, 1915.[3] The old WAR turntable was salvaged by a railway employee who installed it in his garage to turn his car[4] at his house on 476 Main Street Kentville. (The house, garage and old turntable were sold in 1957 a demolished by Irving Oil to build gas station.)[5]
A replacement roundhouse and turntable was built in the fall of 1916 by the DAR's Bridge and Building department led by foreman H. Dalton, north of the mainline. The roundhouse[6] included a 70-foot turntable serving the six stalls[7] as well as several outside storage tracks. The turntable was a 70-foot, half Deck Plate Girder turntable, a standard CPR design intended for secondary mainlines and branch lines. The Kentville turntable was one of sixty of these 70-foot turntables built across the CPR system. The bridge structures were mostly supplied by the Dominion Bridge Company and the Canadian Bridge Company.[8]
By 1920, the turntable included a Pilling Air Motor.[9] The turn table was rotated by a compressed air motor located under the control platform. The motor could be powered by compressed air from the nearby Machine Shop from overhead airlines or it could be connected to the locomotive air hose by a normal glad hand connector. The engine was moved so that the there was some weight on the air motor's wheels, and then the air cock was cracked. The air motor chuffed loudly, slipping and sliding, but eventually doing its job.
The turntable was in constant use in the steam era turning locomotives and accessing the roundhouse stalls. The 70-foot length was ideal for the DAR's 4-4-0 and 4-6-0 locomotives, although it required careful positioning for the longer 4-6-2 Pacific and RDC Dayliners, which only 18 inches to spare from the end wheels. The turntable continued in use, albeit less frequently, into the diesel era, often turning VIA Rail's dayliners, a delicate operation requiring assistance from a SW1200 to position the dayliner and power the turning motor through air hoses.[10]
When the Kentville shops and yard was closed by the CPR in 1993, the turntable was sold to a private landowner in the New Ross area who used it as a bridge to cross a small river. The air motor was ripped apart and buried in the turntable pit when the former yard and shop areas were landfilled.[11]
Images of the Turntable at Kentville
The open door leading to the enclosed turntable behind "Lightning", a broad gauge locomotive at the W&AR Engine House and Machine Shop, 1872.
Detail from Kentville Track Schematic showing the 70-foot turntable in front of the Kentville Roundhouse, Kentville Machine Shop and Kentville Water Tower, circa 1920.
Kentville Roundhouse with numbered stalls, 1927. Locomotive No. 39 visible in Stall No. 5.
The Advertiser Jan. 28, 1965 photograph of Locomotive No. 544 on the Kentville Turntable with roundhouse and machine shop workers plus the . The Kentville Water Tower, circa 1930.
Locomotive No. 470 on the turntable with the Kentville Water Tower and Yard Crane No. 3 in background, circa 1942.
Locomotive No. 2552 on the turntable with the Machine Shop and the Boiler Plant in background, circa 1942.
Locomotive No. 1090 on the turntable with the Kentville Water Tower in background, circa 1944.
Locomotive No. 470 on the turntable with the Water Tower in background, circa 1944.
Kentville roundhouse, turntable and machine shop from the coaling tower, 1940s or 50s.
Locomotives No. 6227 and No. 2627 by the Kentville Turntable, 1956.
No. 6227 in front of Kentville Roundhouse on August 27, 1956. Visible as well, boiler plant and smoke stack, turntable, water stand pipe, coaling tower and sanding tower.
turntable view of CPR No. 6227 at Kentville on August 27, 1956. Visible as well, boiler plant and smoke stack, water stand pipe and coaling tower.
No. 2526 arrives with Train No. 12 from Kingsport on Aug. 27, 1956. Visible as well, switcher No. 6227, water stand pipe, coaling tower, sanding tower, track crane.
No. 1038 between the turntable and the Kentville Roundhouse Sept. 1958.
The Kentville Roundhouse with locomotive 8139 on the turntable and a S-3 locomotive in the roundhouse, with the stack of the Canada Foods Plant in the background, 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with SW1200 locomotives, the Kentville Machine Shop and water stand pipe on left and a Pacific locomotive on far right, 1959.
No. 8131 and No. 8132 with the DAR machine shop and turntable on right, and car shops and power plant on left in August 1959.
The Kentville Turntable, power plant, car shop and No. 8131, from door of roundhouse in August 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with the Kentville Machine Shop on left and the water stand pipe, winter 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with diesels Nos. 8135, 8132, 8137, 8133, 8140, 8134, DAR Track Crane No. 3 and the Canada Foods Plant stack, June 12, 1960.
Kentville Turntable including the compressed air turning motor with doors of the Kentville Roundhouse in background, April 1975.
Kentville Turntable in front of Roundhouse with Kentville Railyard in background, May 5, 1976.
Looking out from the turntable into the Kentville Railyard May 6, 1976
VIA 6781 on the Kentville Turntable reversing direction and face East for its return trip to Halifax, May 30, 1987.
The compressed air motor for the Kentville Turntable reversing VIA 6781 for its return trip to Halifax, May 30, 1987.
VIA 6781 on the Kentville Turntable with the Kentville Roundhouse behind, reversing direction for its return trip to Halifax, May 30, 1987.
Kentville Roundhouse, turntable, south, east and north walls, 1990.
Surviving Turntable Structure at New Ross
Measurements at New Ross taken on July 3, 2022:
Overall Girder Length of truss: 70 feet
Plate Girder height at Centre of truss: 6 feet
Plate Girder height at truss ends: 44 inches
Width along top of truss: 13 inches along riveted top, 12 3/8 inches along smooth top at ends
Deck Width: 12 feet 6 1/2 inches
Width of inner braces at tie level: 13 inches
Rivet heads: 1 3/4" for big rivets along top of truss; 1 1/2" for rivets on side plating; 1 1/4" for interior side braces
Airline pipe at centre of truss: 1 1/4" diametre inside pipe, 1 5/8" diametre outside width of pipe
Hole for airline & connector at motor location top of truss: 2 1/4"
Holes in outside braces of truss plating to hang airline: 1 1/2"
Markings: Rolled markings on braces in several locations read: "GLENGARNOCK STEEL"
South side of former Kentville Turntable serving as bridge at New Ross, July 7, 2022.
Former Kentville Turntable at New Ross, showing the deck and girder from south east July 7, 2022.
References and Footnotes
- ↑ Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic, Dominion Atlantic Railway (1936) page 64
- ↑ Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873, (1873), page 22
- ↑ "KENTVILLE HIT BY ANOTHER FIRE The D.A.R. Roundhouse and Engine Sheds Burned and Two Locomotives Destroyed", Digby Courier, July 9, 1915, Carl Riff Notes
- ↑ Personal conversation and tour of Kentville rail yards by former DAR brakeman Leon Barron, May 1994.
- ↑ Penny White, comment on Facebook Post, July 16, 2022
- ↑ The Weekly Monitor, August 23, 1916
- ↑ Some sources say the roundhouse started with five stalls but a report in The Weekly Monitor, August 23, 1916 and a tour by a Halifax journalist in 1928 indicates 6 original stalls, with four added in 1926, Halifax Herald, May 1, 1928, Carl Riff notes.
- ↑ "CPR Standard 70' Turntable",C.P. Tracks, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec. 1994), p. 16-17
- ↑ Canadian Railway and Marine World, "Projected Lines, Construction Betterments, Etc. Work in 1920", November 1920
- ↑ Gary Ness, Canadian Pacific's Dominion Atlantic Railway (Volume 1), page 23
- ↑ Personal conversation and tour of Kentville rail yards by former DAR brakeman Leon Barron, May 1994.
External Links
Plans
- HO Scale plan from a composite of original CPR plans with detail photos of identical turntable on the Kettle Valley Railway: "CPR 70' HALF DECK TURNTABLE", KETTLE VALLEY MODEL RAILWAY , Thursday, March 5, 2015
- Plan: CPR Standard 70 FT Half Deck Turntable, Floor and Pit, 1911, Canadian Pacific Railway Historical Association Documents Library
- Plan: CPR Standard 70 FT Half Deck Turntable, Plate Girder Bridge Structure Plan, 1913, Canadian Pacific Railway Historical Association Documents Library
- Plan: CPR Standard 70 FT Half Deck Turntable, Details of Air Supply to Motor, 1912, Canadian Pacific Railway Historical Association Documents Library
