Home Racing World

I'm in the process of tearing down my Carrera home track and expanding and setting it up in another location.
I have plenty of track, but every time I put sectional track together and try different layouts one thing always stands out. Why don't the manufacturers make straight sectional track in 4 or 6 or 8 foot lengths? Carrera in particular already offers 9 different curve tracks, 6-8 different straights, 10-15 different aprons. All that is missing are straight tracks about 6 foot long. I think it would be a nice addition to their line.

That would be nice, but probably not practical for them to produce. I would think 2 or 3 ft sections would be more practical.


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Wood :music-rockout:

Minimal tools needed to make straights,probably get your local lumber yard to cut the strips and the slots for ya.

Actually, it would be cheaper for the straight track sections to be produced in longer lengths. But that might cut into profit margins since you would only buy two or three of the longer pieces for any given track instead of 35 pieces of short track. But, it would also cost more to ship. Just like you can't go to the store and buy good heirloom tomatoes. (yes wood guys, I know you can grow your own) The heavily engineered "hot-house" type of tomatoes are sold because of their uniform shape; they can be shipped more economically than their better tasting cousins. Much of what is sold anywhere is determined by factors that have nothing to do with what the customer wants. Decisions about what is convenient and maximizes profit for the manufacturer drives almost all of these decisions.

As I said it is my "wish". It would be no problem to cut a straight in half and mate the ends to a routed wood straight section. If I wanted to do that, I'd just go ahead and rout another track, not bother with plastic. Cost would be a minor factor. If it cost the same as 3-4 regular straights, that would be fine.

Keep in mind that most "sets" are not aimed at the hobbyist but at the "toy" market. It would probably not be cost effective to produce them for such a minority. Also the retail "real estate" they would take up would be very off-putting to most vendors. Having said that, yes it would be great if maybe some cottage hobbyist would make something aimed at this niche.

I look at this the same as 30"' lengths of railroad track... :)
For the longest time there wasn't anything available beyond the standard 10" long, set length pieces. A number of years ago, one of the manufactures offered the 30" lengths as a non-set accessory. As can be noted, by multiple manufactures now offer this length, it appears to have been well received.
Would the same happen with slot car track? Tough to say... but it never hurts to ask! :)

I think with the intro of digital, "sets" are aimed at the hobbyist crowd. I doubt if most toy buyers would even know the difference between analog and digital. I would tend to think that Artin battery powered 1/43 is aimed at the toy crowd, but 1/24 Carrera is as much for the hobbyist as the toy buyer, if not more. There are a lot of hobbyist/race groups that actually use Carrera. I see lots of pix of 4/6 lane tracks that easily have several thousand dollars worth of track. Actually space wouldn't be much of an issue to stock a package 8X1X36. Imagine a yardstick standing on end. Probably economics of production and sales profit would be more of a factor to Carrera than anything else. Just a thought!

second try...
I just scanned this thread. I hope I am not duplicating someone else thought.
If each manufacturer would make adapters. The adapters would mate with their existing tracks. When you need a specific section of track you would install the adapter to a section of MDF. Line up the adapter for the slot and route away. You could even create a squeeze section.
As an after thought, you could use adapters from several different makers and add them all together.