so, over the construction period, I have, like a lot of peeps before me, been both glad of and despairing of, the properties of insulfrog points, particularly the settrack variety.

My simple mind had taken me to a point of considering that really, the issue with running n gauge small locos is that there is simply too much dead track as they trundle their way around complex track arrangements.

To counter this, thought one was - why not run them with an attendant wagon with extra pickups and a connector to the loco?

Thought two was - why not make the plastic bit into a conductive bit, so the gaps are shorter?

Thought two won out and on Friday I emerged from Maplins with a small jar of conductive paint.

Later, after a wee drink or two, I opened it up and started blathering paint about the place. My assumption was that I would paint the frogs and then have to create a gap between each touching rail to ensure that I wasn't shorting things out. So I merrily made a mess everywhere and after about 2 minutes drying time, I ran a train or two - and everything worked! I've made no gaps and I'm very confused. The result doesn't look great either, but the experiment was about volts and amps, not appearance. My working assumption is that because I have everything running from one controller at present, with no cab wiring, then only one route is needed to be live at any point in time so shorts elsewhere don't matter. But I think I shall have to ask a proper question of the wider bretheren in the proper place!

Photo of typical set of points after blathering: