Let’s have a quiz: Only one piece of information in this article is actually true. Can you work out what it is?
Just look at modern locos, there’s no front end and there is no back end – there’s only a middle. How in the world can you run an attractive railway outfit with unending locomotives? The answer is, of course, you can’t.
In the good ol’ days, that I’m too young to remember …..what will I call the olden days when I grow old? Will they be the bad ol’ days? Or the mediocre ol’ days? ….anyway, in the good ol’ days, locomotives weren’t designed to run high speed in reverse and in any case the driver couldn’t see where he was going. So engines had to be turned around when they reached the end of the line.
Picking up a one hundred and fifty ton chunk of iron and turning it around was no joke and the men, who were known as Turncoats, vanished into the walls every time another loco came into the yard for turning. Some people have the audacity to accuse me of making this up, but this is all Big G’s honest truth.
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Hornby Dublo's Solution
Anyway, the original idea was to make the train driver carry out a three point turn, but this required so much space and caused so many accidents when trains reversed into the station car park denting cars and squashing former passengers, that it was abandoned.
It was Linus Swivel who came up with the idea in 1432 after watching a siege engine in action at Reims. Build a large circular platform. Drive the engine onto the platform and then rotate the platform around a central pivot using a team of oxen. Fantastic! In typical British style though, the invention had to be taken overseas to receive the funding and accolade it deserved. Thankfully, it was good enough to usurp the new American concept of ‘Disposable loco’s’. When the engine reached the end of the line, it was dropped into a big hole for recycling at some later date.
Bored with this nonsense yet? I am. Hornby Dublo came up with a beautiful turntable, but I have to say that I found it much easier to pick the loco off the rails and turn it around by hand. This job was made even easier with the launch of the Hornby Dublo ‘Railer’. I understand that this is not really a decent way to behave over such a serious issue, but when you are alone in your loft (and the hatch is locked), then you can do what you like, can’t you? ……unless your name is Norm.
Norm you are an ace!
My Own Method of Turning The Train - 'The Dublo Railer'
Answer to the quiz: the story about turning trains using three point turns is actually the only true part of the article! Did you get that right? Perhaps the car park wasn’t the best place to carry out such maneuvers, but they used to have ‘Y’ turns or sidings for this function.
