Rail roads and their tracks.

[Hay Dude]

Amazing find, Bruce. Is that “Hagley“ as in the “Hagley Museum”? I live a short drive/long walk from that museum.

The turn table doesnt make sense. Theres a recently reactivated passenger rail line (unused since ‘90) and the defunct Wawa to Chadds Ford RR line, washed out by Agnes in ‘72.
Why would there be a turntable where only 2 RR tracks converged?

 

[bcp]

Wawa topo map, 1894

Bruce

 

[bcp]

Museum is here:

200 Hagley Creek Rd · 200 Hagley Creek Rd, Wilmington, DE 19807

Building

www.google.com

I suspect, from the photo, that it was the end of a commuter run, using that gas-electric car, or maybe a locomotive and one car earlier.. That way it can run forward both ways. The turntable may have been an old one, sidelined when a longer one was installed somewhere. Just labor and concrete needed.

Bruce

 

[bcp]

I wonder if there were two turntables.

The first I indicated shows a circular feature with a raised "roadbed" going toward the track.

Then I found another photo that places it at a different location. See below, with the aerial image rotated to match the photo.

That photo is from a facebook thread about the area. Turntable pit removed in 2020, it said.

West Chester Railroad and PRR West Chester Branch | the old turntable at wawa around 1940...rte | Facebook

the old turntable at wawa around 1940...rte. 1 is on the right running top to bootom,you can see the trestle on the right going over rte. 1,a number of buildings were still there at that time now...

hi-in.facebook.com

Bruce

 

[Hay Dude]

My father went to the Williamson School (of Free Trades)

 

[Hay Dude]

what powered the turntable?

 

[MossRoad]

what powered the turntable?

Two guys pushing.

 

[MossRoad]

Wawa turntable, maybe.

https://digital.hagley.org/AVD_2001242_01_002_013?solr_nav%5Bid%5D=e72df671c46656a150ef&solr_nav%5Bpage%5D=0&solr_nav%5Boffset%5D=0

View attachment 732942


Bruce

That's the area that Hay Dude showed them putting in a new commuter station.

 

[the old grind]

Two guys pushing.

In the steam era it was often done by turning a hand-wheel or two and a gear train to rotate the table. btw, TTs in the UK were typically shorter as steam engines were shorter than ours. Not all had tenders because distances were shorter and fuel was plentiful. Coal was a most common freight commodity, so was always accessible.

 

[MossRoad]

I have a friend that's about 15 years older than me. When he was a kid back in the late 40's/early 50's, his father had a job working for a RR and he had to move the engines in and out of the roundhouse, onto the turntable, then over to a pit to clean out the fireboxes. My friend said he has fond memories of his dad putting him up in the engine, then going over to the hand crank to rotate the engine to the appropriate track. Man, that would have been fun.