The NCE website says that switch is for stall motors, and the Atlas is a twin coil so my guess to your original question is no. If that's true maybe the guy thought he was saving you money.
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Won't mention the name of the hobby shop (Mineola,NY) but went to this place to pick up some switch tracks for my son's shelf layout recently and was asking if basic Atlas switch motor voltages were low enough for the NCE 8switch.
One of the older gentlemen that was helping me got an annoyed look on his face and said to me he doesn't understand why I was using DCC to control my switches and not 'push buttons.' And this was after I showed them pics of the 7 foot high shelf layout!
Right there I just put down $70 worth of tracks and walked out. That was the shortest amount of time I've ever spent in a hobby shop. My wife was even confused why I was out so fast. Went online and got them elsewhere.
I get that some people are old school, but don't disrespect someone else's layout design methods.
Edit after replies:1. I stated my intentions for asking about an Atlas switch motor 2. I stated I was already using tortoise motors on current layout with the NCE 8 switch3. I showed pics of said layout on smartphone 4. After employee made said comment I stated my son was using JMRI
That being said, when I go into a hobby shop asking specific questions, I am asking questions that are quite appropriate and I also make it a purpose to give as much info as possible. So if some of you want to come to the conclusion that the problem was on my end, the only thing I didn't do was drive this man to my house to show him my layout design.
Edit part 2: The Atlas part, incompatible or not, had nothing to do with my complaint. The complaint was the employee was irritated that I was using DCC to control my switch tracks.