Jim,

On the JL&T lift out bridge I have not installed the guard rails since I made the cuts in the track.  I have been running over both sections of cuts for over 6 months now and had no issues to date.

I did have to do some fine tuning when it was installed initially, but since then all has been fine.

Jas...

Have both a swing bridge and a liftout section that my father and I built for his layout.  As Jas also stated, only fine tuning is needed to get everything to track right and you will see the obvious flaws immediately.  Also, may I suggest, solder the rails to a PCB tie or two where the track meets the edge of the layout.  This will prevent any misalignments later on and will also prevent any "natural disasters" like a shirt getting caught on the rail and ripping it from its molded spikes... that is coming from first-hand experience ; )

Another modification we made (especially to the swing bridge) was to file the inside of the railhead on either side of the gap to a slight taper to prevent flanges from picking the sharp edges of the rail.  This will allow for greater forgiveness when trains are traversing the swing bridge.

Thank you gentlemen. I appreciate your input. Glad to hear it should be fine. I didn't think about soldering the rails until after my glue had dried Johnny. And I didn't think about something catching the rails (shirt) etc. But I did taper the rails and that made the train cross over the cuts much much better. If anything more comes up please post as will I.

Again thank you very much.

Jim Lowery

Jim,

In regards to securing the rail near the edges of your swing bridge here is another method you can use, I actually soldered some rail joiners to some drywall screws to lock them in place.

Has worked a treat and even allows for adjustment if needed, here is the link to our lift our bridge thread...

http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/5909?page=2

Jas...