10-12-2011, 04:50 PM
jwb Wrote:I think the question was about the D&RGW narrow gauge in the late 1920s. The turntables I'm aware of at that time were at Durango, Gunnison, Salida, Alamosa, Ouray, Marshall Pass, and Embudo. There was one more at Ridgway on the RGS, which for part of that time was opereated as a division of the D&RGW. The one at Chama had been removed by then, I think. Terminals at Farmington, Silverton, Pagosa Springs, Monarch, Montrose, Lake City, Villa Grove, Baldwin, Crested Butte, and Santa Fe had wyes. Floresta had a turntable that had been taken out of service, and locos ran in reverse from the terminal there. Same goes for important midpoints at Cumbres, Sargents, Cimarron, Cerro Summit, and Sapinero. Same goes for Telluride, Rico, Dolores, and Pandora on the RGS. Some of these points had turntables earlier, but not by the late 1920s, since the D&RGW had been replacing 2-8-0s with larger 2-8-2s that didn't fit. Turntables are expensive. Land is cheap. Wyes are cheap. I believe my post was accurate -- and it goes just as much for other narrow gauges, which were intended to be cheap.
You left out Colorado Springs, major terminus for the mountain railways from the north, which had a large turntable and roundhouse. Denver and Pueblo did as well, and all three of these major cities handled narrow gauge traffic as well as standard gauge during their heyday, as did Florence, Cripple Creek, Victor, Canon City, Rockvale, Chandler, Williamsburg, Radiant, Buena Vista, Leadville, Westcliffe, Silvercliffe and a number of other towns and cities.
Wyes were not, in fact, "cheap" at all. In mountain mining towns, they took up a great deal of prime real estate, and as locos and their trains got larger and longer, enlarging the existing wyes to handle them became problematic within already existing, often growing towns. A good example of a non-expandable wye is still in existence at Anaconda, between Cripple Creek and Victor.
What it comes down to in the end is always the same - it's up to modeler to decide what he wants to portray.