Sector plates

My friend Peter Ulvestad had given me this link  MRH sector plates. We had been talking about how I was going to make the limited space in staging work when I didn't really have room for a ladder. Here are some pictures of the sector plates that I use in my staging area.

This is the sector plate for the bottom level of my staging. It serves 6 tracks plus the main. The hole in the wall goes out to the layout. This one works really well as it is flat. The only critical part is drilling the hole for the pin to go in to to hold the track  in place. The hose in the background is the vent for my paint booth.

The next 3 pictures are of the sector plate on the 2nd level. Same basic design but was much harder because of the 2% grade involved. This one seems to be more prone to changes in temperature and humidity which might be because it goes around the furnace.

The little white stick in the foreground with the skid plate on the bottom of it. This is used to assist in lining up the tracks. The little wood post is a support for the end of the shelf.

The wood block was needed to make the transition from the Woodland Scenics risers and a pivot point. That little block took a lot of thought.

That 1/2" tube mounted on the wall is a string of LED lights that runs under the bottom of the 2nd shelf and lights up the bottom shelf and the back side of the loop. It is about 5 years old now and is sort of old tech already, as you can now get flat ones that are only 1/4" thick.


 They work great and save a lot of space. That said the one on the top shelf is a bit fussier to correctly line up because of the grade to that shelf. I use the little white tool to line line up the rails and then lock the track in place with the little stick. If you are going to use the little stick to hold the track make sure you give enough room for the cars to get by and not touch it. I am not completely convinced that using the Atlas re-railer is necessary. The one thing I did find was that once it was cut the rails came out of guage and had to be shimmed back into guage. As you can see it is only used on the bottom shelf when the track is lined up to the main line, the other 6 tracks work fine without it. The one on the bottom shelf has been installed for 6 years now and has needed no maintenance.
It is tough to get quality pictures due to the fact that there is incandescent and LED lighting used in this area. Again the lighting between the levels is an LED rope that I bought 5 years ago. It works well but the newer ones are thinner and brighter and you have choice over what colour of white you would like. If you have any questions contact me by email.