SCARM provides various turntables in many track libraries that you can use in your track plans. But there are no roundhouses as standalone structures, because they can also vary by many properties.

However, you can create your own roundhouse for a given track plan by use of the figures in SCARM. This tutorial will show you step by step how to proceed.

Tip	Before you begin, take a look on How to work with figures FAQ topic in the documentation, if you are not familiar with them.

Lets start with a simple track plan, that has a turntable in it. I will use Roco Line tracks and turntable for this example, but you can use any others in your favorite scale.

Roco 42615 turntable has 40 positions and uses special transition tracks 42616.

Tip	To see how many positions has a given turntable in SCARM, move the mouse over its button in the selection panel or select it if already placed on the drawing plot and see the info in the status bar.

The positions are at 9 degree steps, but our sample spurs are placed on each second position, so the roundhouse stalls should be spaced at 18 degrees.

I will use the Rectangle figure to draw each stall. As I want short gabled roof for the roundhouse, I will start with one vertical rectangle next to the turntable.

Leave the Properties as is – just press OK button. Now select the rectangle and rotate it at 90 degrees, using “Objects” > “Rotate” menu command. Move the rectangle over the horizontal spur of the turntable by right click over it and using “Move” command from context menu. Adjust its corners so the track to be in the center and the upper left corner to be visually at equal space from the two spurs. It should look close to the image below.

Now copy and paste the rectangle. While still selected, rotate it at 18 degrees and then move it over the second spur so the track to be in the center and the bottom left corner to overlap the top left corner of the first rectangle.

Now copy and paste the second rectangle, rotate it at 18 degrees and place it in the same way over the third track. Do the same for the last rectangle. Now the turntable should look like the one below.

When making a roundhouse for your own layout, rotate each stall rectangle at angle according to your turntable tracks spacing. If you already have a roundhouse that will be placed on the real layout, try to make the long side of the rectangles to be equal to the long side of the roundhouse’s stall.

Tip	You can see the dimensions of the selected rectangle in the status bar.

The most real roundhouses are with trapezium-shaped stalls, but there is no way to set a gabled roof over Polygon figure in SCARM. That’s why I am using an overlapped rectangles for the stalls in the plan.

The first and the last stalls are too wide, so their rectangles needs to be slightly adjusted – their outer long sides needs to get closer to the tracks. Edit each of them by adjusting the corner which is at the side of the turntable and keep an eye on the other (inner) long side to stay with the same length.

Tip	Alternatively, you can copy and paste the first rectangle and adjust the copy using the original rectangle as a shape for the other sides. Do that also for the last rectangle and then delete the wider originals.

Now we are ready to set the properties for the rectangles. Select all the stalls (by holding Shift and click on each rectangle) and use “Edit” > “Properties…” menu command. Set the Height of the figures to 63mm (~2.5″) which is about 5.5m (18ft) in the real world and then choose some color (I will leave the white shade for the example). Now, the roundhouse should look like this.

Finally, select the first rectangle and then place a gabled roof over it, using the same name figure button. Place gabled roofs also over the rest of the stalls and the result should look like the pictures below.

You can also add more figures to represent doors and windows or other details such as chimneys. The picture below shows our roundhouse with doors and side windows.

Download the example project from the links below to see and practice with in on your own PC.

Sample layout
Turntable-with-Roundhouse-HO.scarm

See also
How to work with figures