The boys dream came true. The main requirements: space, time to build, and money, at last made it possible. And I hereafter I wouldn't dream of building a layout without a turntable.

The turntable is remotely controlled and the traffic pattern around it is enjoyable. The turntable makes it possible to turn the steamers in the right direction. The space required, including for the roundhouse, is significant, but it also gives you lot's of small tracks to put your locos, when not in service. On my current layout I have only space for a roundhouse with two tracks! But there are four other small tracks around it with coal, water and sand (not prototypically arranged, but I don't care), and this makes it a very good place to show your beauties for your friends, I think.

The turntable reviewed here is Märklin's, in the current program. ROCO distributes a similar but smaller, and in my age we all know about the existence also of the old Märklin M-track turntable.

This one is for K-track connection, and you must make a large hole for it, and have space below it. Nothing for a floor layout of course. As I prefer C-track, and there wasn't space enough for the straight conversion tracks, I made my own curved transition track. It was very easy, see below. Tracks can be set every 7.5 degrees, in all 48 connections! Normally you don't set two tracks at two subsequent slots; there won't be space enough for two trains to be near the TT at the same time. Did you wonder about the "blind" connection in the track extension pack? I did, and they really don't have much purpose except for the looks.

The bridge of the track is fed by cable, and the track connected to the bridge in each moment, gets power through this. If you operate your trains digitally you may want to get power all the time, but you don't have to connect all tracks; I didn't and it's good enough for me.

Bridge length: 310 mm

Radius below surface: 167 mm

Hole radius to fit: 170 mm

Outer radius: 193 mm

Radius of connected track ends: 232 mm

Outer radius of roundhouse (Märklin, Vollmer ...): 600 mm

Recommended tracks for roundhouse: two 2206.

Easy. Get some extra fish-plates. Take one K-track (full length to overcome the height difference) and C-track. For the K-track you remove the connection contacts below the rails, and for the C-track you take a sharp knife and remove some plastic below the rail, to make space for the fishplates. One is with the K-track, the other is attached and the tracks stick together. The C-track can be used unlimited later with other C-track, the K-track's electrical connection is destroyed.

In this simple way you don't get electrical connection between the tracks; the K-track is fed from the bridge when the bridge is at this track, so you only have to feed the C-track. Which is easy and cheap, and probably done already.

Enclosed is a simple control panel, and a connection device at the turntable. The control panel is fed by yellow and brown from the transformer, and three cables from the control panel to the connection device at the turntable control it's movement. Additionally you have three connections at the connection device to feed the bridge with track power, one separate for each rail, and one for the middle "red". Normally the rails are connected together, but you may use this to indicate presence of a loco. The reason for this connection is of course that it should be useable for DC operation too.

The operation is simple enough. To the right is a knob: in the middle there is no movement, to the right the bridge always turns clockwise, to the left counterclockwise. It's starts and move 7.5 degrees if you press the left switch (lower position), or set it at the upper position (continuous movement). The bridge always proceeds until comes to 7.5 degrees slot, but it stops here regardless if there is any track connected.

This is inconvenient, but doesn't bother me much. Even if I run my layout digitally, I have no plans to replace this operation by:

This is the convenient way to operate the turntable. It gives opportunity to select a track, and let the electronics decide when to stop. Instead of the simple enclosed connection device you buy a special decoder, it's fed by the digital signal of course. The tracks may optionally be fed by digital or conventional power as in conventional operation. The operation is here done from a digital keyboard, or from a computer via an interface. You may select each track with a single key stroke. 180 degrees turns is also available. There is also three feedback output sockets, which can be used to lit control lights, or to give info to a s88.

It's a DC motor, which is rather silent and has the right speed. For a Märklinist it's a bit unusual with the DC-motor feeling, moving faster and faster and that. But I like it. I first though that I should have a second hand M-track turntable, but this was too noisy even for me.

I don't understand why not connection pieces for C-track is directly available, but this doesn't matter.