I've figured out how to use Kato  extending track to facilitate working with cassettes on smaller layouts  to take the place of a fiddle yard. Hopefully these pics will explain  "how to"
The layout is 4'6"x2'6; cassettes are cut from plastic cable  trunking, from Homebase 25mmx16mmx 2M, fasten track with pieces of  double sided tape, or glue of your choice.



I  use a fixed piece of Kato track with Kato joiners on both rails, the  Peco track in the cassette slides easily into them (the thickness of the  plastic cassette raises the track to the same level as the Kato joiner)  at first the Kato joiner sometimes stayed on the cassette when  disconnecting so I now solder them on to the Kato track and hot melt  glue the kato track to the cork surface. (but not the insert for short  cassettes) I use pieces of plastic angle glued down to align the  cassette



At the other end of the cassette I use the Kato extending track, this can extend from 3" to 4.25"



To  cope with different length cassettes I can insert one or more pieces of  Kato track at the "fixed end"  the lengths of Kato straights  10", 5"  and 2.5", the extender can open by 1.25" so a full straight approximates  to 2 coaches (Maunsell 59 footers)

Great idea Mike  :thumbs


Ed

Well it's working -after a fashion, a few dodgy joints need attention, the cassettes and associated bits are fine a Langley E4 o-6-2T ({Poole Farish 0-6-0T chassis)  is usually my first test unit, if that one stalls or derails then the joint is really bad; fix those then run the Dapol M7, that's really fussy, tight curves don't help!
If both eyes were working it would make things easier but with the left eye a bit dodgy close up work is not as easy as it was.
A few more hours testing then I'll think about power wiring , and wire in tube for the 6 points, as the furthest from the edge of the board is less than 8"  that should be no problem. Once that is all sorted then comes the dreaded ballasting, I've still got some genuine Meldon quarry N gauge ballast so as it's 1930s SR that will be prototypical.

Just noticed Mike, you don't seem to have included a crossover between the up and down lines.


Ed

That pic was taken before I decided to fit a crossover, since then I've fitted one, I did contemplate using a scissors but decided a small station and yard would not realy need one so just a trailing crossover.
With all 6 points being fairly close to the edge I'll use wire in tube for all of them, my usual way of doing it is to cut a slot in the cork covering the baseboard to hide the  tube, and use small slider switches to operate things and do any frog switching needed, drill a hole through the "knob" bend the end of the wire and feed through said hole, the throw of the switch is about the same as needed to throw trhe point plades (N gauge)


This is from a previous layout