St. Blazey Turntable

December wasn't mentioned. It might be best to read the quote again. <BJ>
''But there was a Steam Dreams tour to Penzance as recently as last September: 34046+5029 down on 5th and back on 8th''.

 

St Blazey turntable has now been repaired and is available for use again.

 

Hope there will be a steam special so that it gets used.

 

Are there any Royal Duchy's this year?

 

I hope so.

Booked on 28th August

 

A pic of the turntable has appeared on Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/HistoricEngland/status/761157764521439232/photo/1

And the trust formed to develop proposals for reusing the buildings now have a website: http://roundhousecornwall.org/

 

<Pedant mode on> That website refers to "the sole surviving semi-circular Roundhouse left in the country" but the picture clearly shows a quadrant shaped building. <Pedant mode off>

It's a sign of the time that the trust has needed a grant just to do a feasibility study. Still, it's progress, so good news.

 

Technically I suppose its a sector of a circle, not a full semicircle, but still unusual, especially in the west of England where GW built turntable sheds were rectangular.
Does anyone know *why* the Cornwall Minerals Railway had such a spectacular structure built? According to the only reference I have, RCTS absorbbed locos, the Cornwall Minerals railway possessed only 18 locomotives, all identical 0-6-0ST intended to be worked in pairs back to back, so the need for such a complex structure seems uncertain unless it was simply to save space.

 

The CMR was certainly lavishly funded by loans from the International Finance Society speculating on large scale Iron Ore production in Cornwall . It was constructed remarkably quickly, in less than a year, bearing in mind the scale of the new works; it built the shed with nine roads to accomodate its entire fleet of brand new standardised locos in pairs. Within only a few years it was in receivership (after making the mine go into receivership because it didn't maintain its guaranteed volume of traffic) selling off its locos and leasing the line to the GWR.

 

Does anyone know how old the turntable is? The VCT lists it as 1951, and I wondering whether that is accurate as some VCT dates for other turntables I am researching seem to be a bit suspicious. Ta.

 

I confirm the Cowans Sheldon builders plate on this turntable carries the date 1951 and works number 9534 as I have seen it myself

 

Brill. Thanks very much indeed.

 

Robin,

If you have any research that shows a different date from what is on the turntable database I'm sure whoever runs it would be really pleased to hear about it. Those of us who run the databases have some expertise, but certainly don't know all the answers, and are always glad of additional input

 

Well the two questions I have with the VCT database at present concerns the turntables at Fort William and Hither Green. The first of these came from Marylebone and the VCT entry says it was built in 1937. However, the turntable is Grade II listed, and the listing entry states that the turntable was actually installed by the GCR in 1898. The problem though is that according to OS maps from 1939 and 1954, there were two turntables at Marylebone, one of them adjacent to the road bridge and another located further north. So the question is then whether there is some confusion about this date (e.g. perhaps one of the turntables was moved from the more northerly position to the location just north of the bridge, replacing the one that was already there which may have been scrapped).

The Hither Green turntable was moved from London Cannon Street. VCT says it was built in 1926, but the problem with that is that Cannon Street was closed down by the SR in 1926 and the track layout altered (they built a signal box on the site of the filled in turntable pit). So, why would a railway company have a turntable manufactured in 1926 for a site they must have known they were about to close in that same year? Thus the turntable either must be older or the VCT date refers to the date of installation at Hither Green, not the date of manufacture, assuming it was the one moved from Cannon Street of course. And another thing is that there were two turntables at Cannon Street, either side of the main running lines. One serving the shed and the other serving some sidings. The former, and larger, of the two, was apparently built in 1892.

To be quite honest though, I am not really going to have much space to put all this in, in a general article about turntables, but the date of manufacture is probably quite an important bit to include though so I'd probably like to resolve questions like these if at all possible. I might have missed something here BTW, so please say if I have.

 

Robin,
Hopefully someone on here can answer your query but it would probably be worth emailing your question to the admin team who run the turntable database. Their email address is:

turntablesurvey@vintagecarriagestrust.org

It looks like there could be a discrepancy in their information and I'm sure they would be glad to hear. Alternatively they may be able to give the source of their dates.


Justin