Here are my videos of my operating and animated accessories and Rolling Stock.
I added lateral movement to my Lionel Magnetic Gantry Crane. A how to article on how I did it appears in the November 2009 CTT Classic Toy Trains Magazine. Lionel Operating Gantry Crane
I designed and built an inexpensive Transfer Table to hold 9 of my Lionel Postwar engines. Detailed instructions on how to build this transfer table appear in the October 2009 “CLASSIC TOY TRAINS” magazine. Homemade Operating Transfer Table
2308 Lionel Newsstand
154 Crossing Light & 252 Crossing Gate. A homemade electronic circuit is used to alternately flash the crossing lights.
140 Banjo Crossing Signal
445 Switch Tower
145 Operating Gateman
1045 Crossing Guard
Texaco Rotating Sign (homemade)
1022 Manual 027 Switch (motor added for remote operation)
Neither, I used an insulated track section that operates a timed relay. It works great 100% of the time. If you are handy with basic electricity, I can explain it further.
Thank you for sharing your great ideas. I enjoyed the articles in last month and this months CTT and the youtube videos are a pleasure to watch. You have really captured the great feeling of postwar lionel in your layout and the home grown animations you have created with the crane and the transfer table just make a great layout even better. I enjoy seeing all the great layouts, but really enjoy the ones like yours that are done in a size and space that is more common to what most people have available to work with. I noticed that you have also animated a manual barrel loader and have added lights to the Lionel 520. It would be interesting to know what techniques you used on these also. What type of camera did you use to shoot your youtube videos? Looks like you had a camera ride around your layout in one of the videos.
Thanks again for sharing and to CTT for publishing great articles like these.