Medicine Hat Turntable

The large steel structure seen here is a railway turntable. It would be used to turn locomotives around and would be located, often along with a roundhouse, at strategic railway divisional points and most major yards. Typically associated with smoke belching steam locomotives, there used to be hundreds of these scattered across the county. Some lasted into the diesel era and and a few in fact, here and there, are still in use.

This particular example once sat in Medicine Hat Alberta. Built sometime in the early 1900s (exact date unconfirmed), in Ontario, it was used up until the 1970s. Later, in the ’80s, it was moved to the Oldman Dam construction site, west of Lethbridge, where it was used a road bridge for a number of years and supported, trucks moving materials about the site. This was something it was easily adapted and perfectly suited to do. It was in sense a bridge anyway.

Around 2000 it was moved to the Galt Railway Park in Stirling Alberta (south of Lethbridge) where it’s hoped it’ll eventually be put on display.

Another railway turntable, part of a roundhouse complex, seen a few years ago…
Hanna Roundhouse and Turntable

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Date of adventure: November, 2015.
Location: Stirling, AB.

This railway turntable once sat in Medicine Hat Alberta.

Today, it’s located at the Galt Railway Park, Stirling Alberta.