I've soldered to the "Alien metal" of the Atlas switch, I just scrape all the blackening off it. I always thought it was the same as the rails. We had a bunch of older Atlas switches that the flimsy thread burned out and we had to jumper. Since I didn't want to lift them, I just run a wire under the table between the two points. I use a heavy enough wire so I only have to do it once.
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