In truth we probably have - had friends staying this weekend and it took almost all week to get the house into a decent state - but that is not what this is about! Top of my list to sort out for the next outing is the traverser fiddle yard and have mad a bit of a start here. Have decided to look at a rather more low tech solution and as an experiment I knocked up a test slider from some laminate shelving.

Actually seems to work pretty well now but will it with loads of weight on it and a fair helping of dust and other grot? The advantage of this over my previous attempt is that the rail height should be identical between the two pieces. I do have to make a couple of decisions though - do I leave the profile of the lower piece as is and use a traverser table again or omit the lower (locking) piece and just drop in several cassettes ? My worry about the cassette idea is that they will be pretty heavy and unwieldy. Problem with the traverser is that, as I intend to try and fit everything back into the existing baseboard frames is that I might only be able to manage three roads rather than the five I have at present. Possible answer to this though is that three roads that all work have to be better than five roads of which only one works!

Another dilemma is do I use plain track or aluminum angle as seems popular. Am thinking that the angle might add anti warping strength to the fairly long boards and possible make re-railing wagons easier.

Oh and yet another - do I use a run off at the other end for locos? I do have this on the current one and intended it to be used for running around trains but in practice it was easier to just pick the loco up and plonk it back at the other end. If I only end up with three roads I would then have to leave one clear for the run around. A thought has literally just occurred to me - could I have a cassette at the end just for the loco which would then be inserted at the other end?

Yet another thing that I have been pondering is if I could get it to run on a length of M10 studding which I could turn with a handle.

Will have to think all this through a bit but suggestions on any of the above would be most welcome!