From-era muscle power to modern-day preservation, the Railroad Turntable remains the mechanical heart of Folsom’s rail legacy
At the center of Wednesday’s 170th anniversary railroad celebration stood a massive circular structure that once determined the direction of locomotives and, in many ways, symbolized the direction of the city itself.
The Railroad Turntable at Historic Folsom Station Plaza was more than a backdrop for speeches and demonstrations. It was the literal pivot point of rail operations in Folsom for nearly six decades — and remains one of the most tangible mechanical links to the city’s steam-era past.
When the Sacramento Valley Railroad first reached Folsom in 1856, it established the eastern terminus of the first railroad west of the Mississippi River. But rails alone were not enough. Steam locomotives were primarily designed to travel forward. To send them back toward Sacramento, they had to be physically rotated.
That task fell to the turntable.
1856–1867: The first turntable arrives
The first of several turntables used in Folsom between 1856 and 1913 was one of two delivered to the Sacramento Valley Railroad via Cape Horn on the clipperDashing Wavein June 1855. Because construction of the railroad itself took precedence, assembly of the knocked-down turntables did not begin until December of that year.
Both were assembled at the company’s shops at the Foot of R Street in Sacramento. Once rails reached Folsom, the eastern terminus, the Folsom turntable was conveyed to the site and installed on Feb. 16, 1856. It was first used to turn a locomotive four days later.
Interestingly, although the Sacramento turntable had been ready for service three weeks earlier, contemporary accounts indicate that no Sacramento Valley Railroad locomotive was turned until the Folsom turntable was first placed into operation.
The original Folsom turntable was of the deck type, meaning the railroad track was laid directly on top of the rotating bridge structure. The bridge itself consisted of a forty-foot wooden truss pivoted on an eight-inch disc-type center bearing. Its weight was supported on six conical wheels — two at each end and two positioned at the ends of a lateral beam that stabilized and centered the rotating structure. These wheels rolled along a flat cast iron circle rail laid around the perimeter of the pit.
An 1857 account inHolley’s Railroad Advocatenoted that the turntable was operated by means of the “common gear at the side,” though the exact nature of that mechanism remains unclear. While some early turntables were equipped with geared hand-cranks, many relied on brute strength.
What is certain is that Folsom’s first turntable required manpower. A contemporary note in theFolsom Telegraphrecorded that four or five men were needed to rotate it.
A preliminary excavation of the site conducted by PAR Environmental Services, Inc., in April 1995 revealed that the original pit had an inside diameter of forty-feet ten-inches and was approximately six feet deep. The brick pit retaining wall measured seventeen inches thick. Several pieces of the granite foundation supporting the iron circle rail were found still in place.
Folsom’s first turntable was also provided with a grade-level wooden deck that rotated with the structure and covered the entire pit. Such covers were once fairly common and, like coverings on wooden bridges, protected turntables from the elements. Given the turntable’s location adjacent to the busy station plaza, the covering likely also served as a safety precaution to prevent people, animals or vehicles from falling into the six-foot-deep pit.
Excavation also uncovered a brick-lined trench extending about eight feet away from the 1856 pit. The trench likely provided workers access beneath the cover to maintain the mechanism, while allowing uninterrupted passage around the turntable’s edge.
1867–1882: A more efficient design
Folsom’s original turntable was replaced late in 1867. Unlike the first turntable — which required several men to operate — the new structure could reportedly be turned by a single individual, according to theTelegraphon Dec. 14, 1867.
This suggests the replacement was of the center-bearing style then coming into vogue. In a center-bearing design, resistance to rotation is concentrated near the pivot point, where leverage can be applied most effectively. As a result, these turntables were significantly easier to operate than earlier end-bearing models.
Center-bearing turntables could be constructed as either deck or through designs. However, they had to be longer than end-bearing tables to accommodate a locomotive and tender’s combined center-of-gravity directly over the pivot. Since only the top few feet of the original pit retaining wall were removed, the longer replacement structure at Folsom was likely of the through pattern, with much of its bridge structure extending above grade.
The 1867 turntable was most likely a wooden “A-frame” or “gallows” design. Such turntables were essentially center-bearing structures supported on a small circle rail laid on a central foundation. The gallows design required only a shallow pit, meaning installation would have required minimal alteration to the earlier excavation.
By 1867, the Sacramento Valley Railroad was closely associated with the Central Pacific, whose directors owned the line. The Central Pacific was then using gallows turntables exclusively. If Folsom followed that practice, the new turntable was likely similar to the fifty-one-foot gallows turntable installed at Rocklin earlier that year.
Just one year after the 1867 installation, another turntable was reportedly constructed near the Sacramento Valley Railroad carpenter shop. A newspaper report indicating that a roundhouse was to be built near the “main” turntable confirms that this was a distinct facility. For a time, Folsom appears to have operated two turntables simultaneously.
1882–1891: Adjusting to changing demands
In July 1882, the 1867 turntable was replaced after fifteen years of service. A newspaper reference to the new turntable’s “derrick” confirms it remained a gallows-style design.
While definitive documentation of its size is lacking, Sanborn fire insurance maps from the period suggest it measured closer to fifty-one feet than fifty-six feet. At the time, only relatively light locomotives built in the late 1860s were operating on the line to Folsom, making a fifty-one-foot turntable sufficient.
However, the introduction of larger locomotives on the Central Pacific–Southern Pacific system in the late 1880s likely rendered that capacity inadequate. The 1882 turntable lasted only nine years — a comparatively short lifespan — suggesting that evolving equipment demands prompted another replacement.
1891–1910: A Southern Pacific standard
In October 1891, yet another turntable was installed at Folsom, described by theTelegraphas a decided improvement over its predecessor. A photograph from that era shows the new turntable partially obscured by eucalyptus trees, but enough detail is visible to identify it as a Southern Pacific standard “Number 3” turntable.
A 1901 Folsom station plat lists its diameter as fifty-six feet — a dimension that aligns precisely with one of the pit retaining walls uncovered during the 1995 excavation.
The turntable was reconstructed in November 1908, though station plats through early 1910 show no change in its fifty-six-foot diameter. Within eighteen months, however, it was again deemed too short for the equipment being introduced.
1910–1913: The final enlargement
In May 1910, concurrent with the introduction of Southern Pacific’s seventy-foot McKeen motor cars to the Folsom-Placerville branch, the turntable was lengthened.
Physical evidence indicates that the upper courses of the fifty-six-foot pit wall were uniformly removed down to the level of the old forty-foot pit wall, allowing installation of a longer table. The enlarged structure, which appeared on a 1913 station plat as sixty-six feet in diameter, was apparently still of gallows design.
Folsom’s final turntable remained in service only three years.
In March 1913, a wye track was constructed just west of Folsom at the Placerville switch. A wye allowed locomotives to change direction without requiring a turntable. Once the wye was completed, the Folsom turntable was dismantled, ending nearly six decades of rotating rail operations at the eastern terminus.
A legacy that still turns and turns heads
Although the original turntables were dismantled more than a century ago, the reconstructed Railroad Turntable at Historic Folsom Station Plaza stands as a powerful symbol of the engineering, labor and infrastructure that defined Folsom’s early years.
During Wednesday’s anniversary celebration, elected officials and community leaders helped rotate the turntable in a symbolic reenactment of steam-era operations — a reminder that before electric signals and automated switches, railroading required coordination, calculation and physical effort.
The turntable may no longer spin locomotives, but it continues to pivot memory — anchoring Folsom’s railroad story in steel, brick and wood.
This article is one of several in an ongoing Folsom Times series covering the city’s 170th anniversary railroad celebration, exploring the people, infrastructure and enduring legacy that shaped Folsom’s rise as a rail hub.
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