Duknfish
You can easily make the pickup from a piece of tin can. Or if you want to get fancy and go to the trouble find a piece of brass shim stock at a auto shop or machine shop. It should be about the thickness of the other pickup.
From your picture I can see you have an older Marx engine driver wheel, one that has the gear teeth to the outside edge of the wheel flange. If you want get a switch you will have get older Marx switches that will pass that flange. Most Lionel and most ever yother switch will not pass that old Marx gear flange.
The best one I have found is the Marx 1590 switch. It does not have plastic frogs like some other Marx switches, is cheap and easy to find and very reliable.
Here is write up touting it.
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2013/0...iling-marx-switches/
and
http://dfarq.homeip.net/2004/0...nel-trains-together/
I have 27 of these switches on my layout, many in use for over 25 years. I never pay more than $5 a pair at train shows (TCA) and even had a guy at at show give me 10 of them. I have had to replaced only one or two in all those years.
Charlie
