Sector Plates : A Space Saving Tip for All Scales

It doesn't matter what scale or gauge you look at, there are always people who have a limited mount of space and who come up with great solutions, and the sector plate is such a solution.


It's a space saving alternative to several kinds of standard track layout techniques, such as the run-around, which usually requires at least two opposing points.


What Does a Sector Plate Look Like?


A sector plate is essentially a piece of hinged track that can swing around to line up with one of several pieces of track.

Sector Plate Based Layout

In the diagram here, the sector plate is the piece of track in gray, which has a green cross where the pivot should be. In this diagram, it is serving as a run-around, as well as track selection to the top sidings.


The advantage of this approach over a turntable is twofold:

• cost - a decent turntable is very expensive;
• space - the sector plate can lie at the edge of the layout.

Of course, the sector plate cannot be easily automated, so will likely remain a small-to-micro layout, manually operated device.


For examples of actual layouts using sector plates, Carl Arendt's site has a whole section dedicated to them.


An alternative to this, and somewhat more prototypical, is the horizontal shuttle; it's a platform which moves side to side, horizontally, and provides much the same functionality, but at the expense of a bit more space.

Another source for layouts that use sector plates is Nigel Adams' excellent book - don't be put off by the negative comments on Amazon, they merely point out that this edition is not as updated as they would have liked. Having said that, don't buy it if you already have it, as it isn't a lot different from the old edition. What it does have, however, is a wealth of inspiration for modelers working in a limited space. (Disclaimer - yes, that's a paid link, but I wouldn't recommend the book if I didn't think it was useful!)