I would like to mention a new toy that plays mechanical music, even
though the sounds seem to be electronic (I haven't yet dissected it).
I suspect this becomes a bit of a gray area because of the tone source,
but it is nevertheless mechanical music.

I recently bought a really marvelous little train with a long oval
track.  The little engine has 8 buttons on the bottom (micro switches,
I suspect) that are activated by bumps on the track.  The clever
device for activating these switches is sliding "bumps" which have been
placed at regular intervals along the entire track.  With that device,
the possibilities for tunes is completely unlimited by anything other
than the eight available notes.  The slides in the track have a silent
position and so rests and rhythm can be adjusted by either silence or
duplicating notes.  There is no possibility for holding a note.

I found this little train in a clearance store and so far haven't
found out much about it.  But since I'm particularly fascinated with
"programmable" musical toys, this one caught my eye.  Besides, it was
really cheap!

I'll take some photos and Robbie can put them on the web site.

Beatrice Robertson