Railways have only had a few ways to turn locomotives and cars around. One of the ways is by using a turntable. Unlike steam engines, diesel locomotives rarely need to be turned, but the need arises at times… and so there are still a few turntables around.
This post will show the CN turntable at the Fairview Yard in Halifax, Nova Scotia (here).
This 100′ diameter turntable is one of the last relics of the steam era facilities that served the Canadian National Railways for many years. The roundhouse – gone. The coaling tower – gone. Water tower? Gone. Yet the turntable remains.
The roundhouse was still present in 1975, as you can see from the photo below. It looks like CN 2024 has just emerged from the roundhouse, and the hostler is closing the doors.
At yards, people called “hostlers” move locomotives around. They aren’t engineers, so they can’t take a train on the road, or even sort cars in the yard, but they can move out of service equipment.
The roundhouse is still visible in the 1978 slide below (it was demolished in 1991). VIA RDC 6100 is half on and half off the turntable, with another RDC visible at right and one peeking at the photographer from within the roundhouse. RDCs were bidirectional, so there was no need to turn them, but the turntable also provided access to individual stalls in the roundhouse.
Did you spot the steam engine tender at the right side of the photo? What the heck is that doing at Fairview in 1978? Well, let me tell you.
CN converted several former steam engine tenders to carry water for firefighting purposes. These tenders were positioned at major terminals – like Halifax or Edmundston – and were intended to be taken to remote locations to provide water to fight fires.
One of these still exists, at the New Brunswick Railway Museum in Hillsborough, New Brunswick.
Now let’s move on to my own photos of this turntable…
Naturally CN’s Fairview shops are off limits to the public, but they are fairly visible from nearby streets. There’s an apartment building on a hill “behind” me that offers a good overlook of the yard.
The Fairview Lawn Cemetery is adjacent to this property. It is (in)famous for having the largest collection of graves from Titanic victims.
You’ll note there is one “stall” remaining from the roundhouse at far left. I imagine this is used for light maintenance, since it is outdoors, but it is only accessible via the turntable.
The amount of rust and grass on the other rails indicates that they don’t get much use.
Steve –
Fire Tender EX CNR 52147 was stationed in Edmundston NB and was the orginial water tender for EX CNR Steam Engine 6173. – The tender is now located in Hillsborough NB,
Regards
Richard
Thanks for the details, Richard!
Thanks for the memory, Steve. As a child I frequently visited the CN station in Dartmouth, and there was a turntable there as well. You could stand on a little platform and turn a crank to make it revolve – probably very slowly, but I don’t recall that detail.
I never saw the turntable in Dartmouth! Hand cranked… fun! Was the “roundhouse” still there?
Nice post on something I didn’t know existed. The only time I ever encountered a functional roundtable was at CP’s Windsor yard, where engines would be positioned in and out of the remains of the roundhouse, where mechanical staff repaired the diesels. I have a shot of an old MLW unit on that roundtable. It’s one of my favourite shots. I wonder if it’s still there. This setup in Halifax screams of another era. I love modern railway shots that can double as mid-century shots. The timelessness of these images intrigues me.
Hi Michael, it looks like the turntable is still there in Windsor although I don’t think it is connected to anything. GPS coordinates: 42.29967, -83.03868
Railways will squeeze every last bit of life out of equipment. It’s fun to see the really old stuff – rolling stock, roundhouses or turntables – still being used decades after they were made obsolete.