I have a central operating pit surrounded by my wooden benchwork. Wood moves around....period. It lifts, it settles, it expands, it shrinks, it shifts left, it shifts right. And then, just when you think it is settled finally, it twists.
Running diagonally across the operating pit is a swing up bridge. I used two 2" brass cabinet hinges on the one end, and two brass barrel locks on the other end. They work remarkable well. Not perfect, but well enough that I only occasionally have to do a bit of tweaking at the barrel locked end.
What I did first was to lay the tracks to the two edges of the gap, and I beveled the heck out of the flange faces of all four ends. Then I mounted the diagonal bridge, but only as a light wooden frame. Once it was securely in place, I terraformed it by stacking and carving extruded foam blocks. The idea was to use a Micro Engineering 160' Combination Deck and Through Girder bridge on this, uh, bridge. So, I had to get the grade and sub-roadbed right and that meant scenicking the structure and fitting the bridge to meet the grade at each end...one is higher by nearly an inch.
Then, it was just a matter of laying lengths of track to meet the Micro-Engineering Code 70 provided for their bridge kit. I cut and beveled these new four ends of rail, and curved and shimmed as I needed to to make the ends meet level and aligned in all planes. Then I wired it.
A couple of times I have had to force two ends over to one side by a half mm or so, and the same for vertical alignment...I just force thin plastic shims into slices in the foam under the ties to lift the whole. Generally, though, it is a stable and reliable structure. Just last night I ran a Trix Mikado over it for its first use as a bridge in a couple of weeks, and even though my basement is alternately quite warm and then cooler at night due to a wood stove right beside the layout, I had to do no adjusting. In fact, I smiled when the Mikado didn't even give a hitch.
So, long way of saying: build a sturdy, but light, structure, and mount it with good quality fittings in a simple way that is reliable. Good hinges and locks work well as long as they, in turn, are able to be mounted securely and fast on the structure and the adjacent bench.
I have both lift out and drop-out sections (throats to hidden storage yards) on my HOj layout. The rails simply abut - no little connector sections. I do use rail joiners, soldered to the side that comes up from below, opened out to accept the base of the rail that descends from above. Where the track is curved, I also use a gathering rail (can't really call it a guard rail, more like the working part of a rerailer) secured to the 'comes down from above' side.
I laid the track (Atlas flex) on templates with grey latex caulk, with the rails gapped at the ends of the removable sections. The actual rail end is 1/2 the length of a rail joiner out into the 'drop down' side, so the opened-out rail joiners won't catch on the 'raises up' side when the lift out or drop-out is removed.
My removable sections aren't moved very often - only for maintenance and (if necessary) emergency repair. So far, emergency repair hasn't been necessary.
Since my removable sections each support a puzzle palace of specialwork (multiple 3-way turnouts on curves...) the electricals are connected through computer cable plug-and-socket connectors, with the sockets mounted to the frames of the removable sections.
Hope this helps.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
In a spare bedroom I have an around three walls two-rail O-scale shelf switching layout under construction. I have a 48" x 12" lift out section across the bedroom door area and a 48" x 12" hinged drop leaf section in front of the closet door. I need some tips on how to keep the track in alignment.
For those of you with lift out or hinged sections did you lay the track as one piece across the gap and once secured simply cut the track at the gap with your motor tool? If so, does the track stay in aligment whenever you have your sections installed for operation? Or do you use small pieces of track at the gap to connect the track on the main layout with the track on the removable section like the modular layout guys all seem to use to connect sections together?
I'd like to keep this as simple as possible and really want to be able to just lift up the drop leaf or drop in the lift out section, latch and go rather than having to mess around with those small adapter pieces.
Bob