Purpose of contacts on sides of FasTrack Operating track?

I am curious too, let's bump this. Must be for accessories but guessing!

Is there anyone here who might know someone at Lionel who they could ask about the mysterious electrical contacts on the sides of the Operating Fastrack?

Well @Dave Olson probably knows.

I'm not familiar with those new track products. How does the controller attach to the track section? Does it plug onto it somehow, or is it hard-wired?  Is it possible the controller gets attached to those contacts for some special application?

@MartyE posted:

Well @Dave Olson probably knows.

These were designed and made before Dave was out of high school.  

@Steims posted:

These were designed and made before Dave was out of high school.  

I bet he still knows.

There's a guy at Trainworx who probably knows.

Arthur,

Thank you for your question and suggestion.

The included Lionel 2 button controller has 4 small spade connectors which connect to the underside of the Operating track section and provide power to the auxiliary (Operating/Unloading) rails or its electro-magnetic coil (Decouple).  The side contacts however seem to be designed to make connections with accessories that would snap in place of the removable roadbed sides, making compression electrical connections with these hypothetical accessories' mating contacts.

You may be onto something with your question about the controller.  As electricity often flows in more than one direction, these contacts might also provide the ability for a side attached accessory to control some of the Operating Track's functionality.

But at this point it's just speculation...

My money is with Arthur.  Removing the road beds and snapping this down into a roadside accessory would have been slick for any accessory to control the car unloading/operation.  Just seems like those accessories never came to fruition.