What is this?

could it be a ramp for putting cars on the track easier. N and HO have similar items made of plastic. just a guess

Well...it took me just about 10 seconds to find what this is on Google by putting in "General Machining Works model 5402".  Rick is correct...it is a re-railer and in fact the image that you will see when you search Google as I did is a picture of 3 "Electric Train Re-railers" that were apparently offered on ebay some time ago. 

@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:

Well...it took me just about 10 seconds to find what this is on Google by putting in "General Machining Works model 5402".  Rick is correct...it is a re-railer and in fact the image that you will see when you search Google as I did is a picture of 3 "Electric Train Re-railers" that were apparently offered on ebay some time ago. 

Well that's odd, because I pasted in "General Machining Works model 5402" and got nothing except a link to this page. Taking off the quotes and adding Marx and Lionel did nothing either. How is that possible? Did you possibly type in something else, or do you have some Google trick I am not aware of?

Edit: Okay, did image search again- no quotes and there is a photo. About 20 images from the top in the midst of photos of machinery. Good eye Alan.

@Will posted:

Well that's odd, because I pasted in "General Machining Works model 5402" and got nothing except a link to this page. Taking off the quotes and adding Marx and Lionel did nothing either. How is that possible? Did you possibly type in something else, or do you have some Google trick I am not aware of?

 

Edit: Okay, did image search again- no quotes and there is a photo. About 20 images from the top in the midst of photos of machinery. Good eye Alan.

Yep....there it is....can't understand why the OP could not find it?  Anyway, glad we were able to help!

I initially had the same experience as Will, was wondering how Alan found it so quickly.  though I need to admit I use Startpage rather than Google when I can help it.

I saw nothing when I looked this morning (lots of machinery like Will said).  When I just double checked now, it did come up but it was all the way on the third page of images, I probably didn't look that far this morning.

-Dave

Thanks for the help in identifying this.  And yes, I did run several Google searches and it just didn't come up.  However, I didn't think to run an image search.  I knew re-railers were used in HO and S but I had never seen one in O.  

First of all, if you typed General Machine Works in your search, you were erroneous. As the picture shows, the company was called General Machining Works, as the photo indicates. Be precise in searches of proper names.

Second, quote marks in a search should only be used to produce results for an exact phrase. So if you type “General Machining Works Model 5402” you would only get returns for documents carrying that whole phrase contiguously. That’s not the way to search for something like this. Leave the quote marks off.

Finally, on Google searches, start with the overall search and then click on images if you don’t immediately find what you are looking for as a text document.

To learn more about using Google searches, try typing Google search strategies in the search field and read on.

The same company made them in S gauge also.

It's amazing how many companies made accessories for toy trains, besides the big three back in the day.