It's been a foregone conclusion that running Lionel cars with shoe couplers
will not work well with modern day switches. ( couplers open )
Same with Marx Engines. That gear on the wheel just does not agree with
modern day switches....
Enter Rube Goldberg Engineering. A little tubular track, a little bending
and some wood insulators. TADA! problem solved...
Step aside Ross Custom switches....
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I don't quite know what to say! 
I don't quite know what to say!
Nether did I when I saw it.
It was hard not to laugh while taking the video.
You have to admit though... It works.
Yeh - it's astounding that those Marx locos go up and over the rise without reversing!
Yeh - it's astounding that those Marx locos go up and over the rise without reversing!
The only problem he had was with the draw bar on the steamer...
A little bend took care of it...
I guess you could make the end pieces a little longer so as not to have to
much of a rise.
Bottom line is that the guy in the club is happy because he can now
run his Marx stuff...
A good idea. Very innovative. While it might look craxy - you never know 'til you try it, do you?
On my layout, I changed out the guts (internal running gear/chassis of the two Marx locos I wanted to run, for modern Lionel stuff. They now go through switches, etc, and run much better, too.
I thought you would get a kick out of this one Lee....
Kind of a cheap version of stacking the track like you were doing.
This also solved the problem with the show pickups opening
when crossing the switch.
Do you know who Rube Goldberg is ? The auto guy's in our group
all seem to know who he is. The say his name and laugh..
I assume he is the Earl Shibe of engineering.
Rube Goldberg did cartoons wwwwwaaaaaaaayyyy back when about ridiculous "machines" that often involved scaring a mouse that would run inside abottle and it would weigh more and fall over and trigger a swtich - etc., etc. etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg
I loved his cartoons even though most of the best were before my time. The term "rube goldberg" means anything over complicated, depending on a series of nearly impossible steps to work, and just plain crazy - something that works only on paper, etc.
This actually works. Nifty idea!
At the California state train museum in Sacramento, they have done exactly the same thing for years when they had to cross the UP main line to move something to the shops. They put a temporary track over the top of the UP mainline. Now they have finally installed some diamonds, at least they were planning to a few months ago.
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