Slidding Shoe Acctivation and Atlas Track

Dick: I'll take a stab at this, although it's been years since I've used the set. Depending on the cars you want to activate with the control rails, generally one rail is connected to a "positive" source of AC voltage while the opposite is likely attached to a "ground" source. The "positive" rail would include a momentary button (like a doorbell or #90 Lionel button for activation purposes.

For instance, the operating Brakeman car had a car roller always connected to the center rail "positive"; the "activation" part of the circuit was a sliding shoe running over a "grounded" control rail that came with the car and popped into a typical "OS" straight section. Cars like the operating barrel car used both control rails at the same time to make them work (if I remember correctly).

Hope this helps.

thanks, I sorta knew that are there alternate ways to make it work?

The only way I'm aware of to make it work is run a wire for the "positive" rail direct to your transformer; the "negative" rail wire could just be run over to the adjacent outside rail for grounding. I suppose you could use an insulated outside rail section to power a relay to energize the control rails, but that seems like work for such an operation (IMO).

BTW, the control rails I had were supplied with a screw that screwed into a tab on the bottom of the rail for attaching the wire leads. You shouldn't have to solder a wire to the control rail as the screw was supplied for that.