Staging Yard Sector Plate.

One HO modeler in California has a 'super transfer table' 8 tracks wide and 5 meters long.  Don't know how he indexes the tracks to the one entrance/exit track at each end, but apparently the system works.

I considered using a similar system, but gave it up in favor of normal yard throats (with custom geometry.)  Issues were a need to drop one car from a train in staging, no side clearance and a need to have semi-automatic arrival, frequently into two different tracks from opposite ends at the same time.

You might consider building your own specialwork from raw rail.  In hidden staging, it need not be a thing of beauty as long as it operates dependably.  I have found my own hand-laid specialwork to be more reliable than any commercial product.  As a bonus, you don't have to compromise a nice, compact track plan to accept commercial product geometry.  The big benefit is cost - much less than commercial products.  The big downer is time - several hours per turnout early on, shortening to about 30-40 minutes per as you get more comfortable with the process.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with flex track and hand-laid specialwork)

 Your idea is not an unusual one - in fact, it is a very common practice in the UK. My own layout will have a "traverser" or transfer table as a fiddle yard. It will be built with drawer slides, an aluminum frame to ensure squareness of the construction and small spring-loaded ball door traps for the indexing. To ensure that the rails stay within in gauge, I suggest you to solder the rail ends to small screws before cutting the rail.

QRNational4101

I know most of you would cringe at this idea, but let me know if you think it might be worth while trying: using a sliding sector plate in a staging yard to save money on points. I have thought about this idea for a while, instead of bying 25 or 30 sets of points [on average $20-30 Aud] for a staging yard, using a sector plate to route trains into yard storage tracks and save on points. I see derailments being a big possibility, but if there is a way to build it so that tracks line up perfecty, I think it might just work. Anyone think it may work, or should i just buy points for it? Any ideas will help.

Why not use a "transfer table" or traverser type staging yard, one that slides in and out like a drawer. Something like this: http://www.3fengel.de/en_layout-Dateien/Page429.htm . One of these can be used either for double or single ended staging. There was an article by John Signor on building a traverser style staging yard in the December, 2000, MR. Similar article should be easy to find in the British model railway press.

There's even a video about one built by the Silicon Valley Lines club in San Jose, CA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RBAFRT6V_Y , however, the SVL traverser is considerably more complicated than the one built by John Signor.

Hope this helps.

Andre

 I use one on my On30 layout. It is 6'-0 long or and mine pivots on one end. I used two  4" dolly wheels avaiable at Home Depot  and a stiff frame with 1/2" plywood top.

It works! Most visitors are intreagued by it. You save not only the cost of turnouts but gain all that track length usually taken up by them.

Plan head carefully.

Dave

I am strongly considering the various British alternatives to the far end of a fiddle yard: sector plate, transversor or cassettes of the sort Peco sells ready made.  Both my staging yards will be fiddle yards

Another alternative is the lazy susan style large turntable -- not a prototype model turntable -- as was featured in Mel Johnson's article in the May 2002 RailModel Journal, p. 26.  He used knife style circuit breakers both to align the turntable and to provide current. 

Still another alternative -- forget the turnouts and forget the sector plate/transversor -- instead a true fiddle yard where you actually pick up the trains.  Atlas re-railers got a new lease on life as a product when the modular layouts became popular. 

Dave Nelson

Since you are talking 25-30 switches, that implies 25-30 single ended tracks or 12-15 double ended tracks.

If you use a sector plate (rotating) or traverser (sliding) and want "double ended" staging that means you have to index/align on both ends of the yard, definitely doubling the degree of difficulty. 

That also means that the the yard will be effectively double the width of the tracks.  So if its a 15 track yard, that means it will be effectively 30 tracks wide.  On 2" centers that's a 60" wide yard.

I had traverser staging on my previous layout - here's how I built the traverser.

Hope this helps,

tbdanny