Is this a poor idea and am I asking for trouble?
probably just run my subway sets on it.
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No practical experience other than laying a 30” piece of a RealTrax across an opening and seeing how much it flexed with just a scrap piece of 6“x8”x1” particle board on it. I don’t know how heavy your subway engine is, but I wouldn’t trust it with my MTH SD70 diesel without a support in the middle.
I agree with Dave. If it was me, I'd be adding another trestle in the middle of that span before running anything across it. Not worth the risk.
If you were using wood to support the track, I’d say support the underside with a thin strip of wood and have at it. I wouldn’t trust my trains to the 2 plastic trestles. That said, there’s 20” of unsupported Atlas O in this picture. I’ve had no problem running the RTR Polar Express on it. 
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I have a o48 loop elevated in the middle of this but moved the switches
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After thinking about it, I decided the engine wouldn't put all it's weight in one spot like I did with my hand, so I decided to run a test. I got my SD70, TIU and some 30" RealTrax out of storage. I put 3 tracks together along with a terminal track. One of the tracks spanned a 30" section between my workbenches. I ran the engine back and forth several times and while there was a little flex, it wasn't any more than you'd see running on a carpet. I'm still a little concerned about running at speed around O36 curves on the rather scrawny plastic trestles, but that wasn't the question. My video of the test was a little too large to post here, so if you want to see it, here's the YouTube link.
NOTE: I just noticed your post said O48 loop, so you must have changed the design from the version I have.
Ha awesome thank you for going above and beyond.
DoubleDAZ posted:No practical experience other than laying a 30” piece of a RealTrax across an opening and seeing how much it flexed with just a scrap piece of 6“x8”x1” particle board on it. I don’t know how heavy your subway engine is, but I wouldn’t trust it with my MTH SD70 diesel without a support in the middle.
Dave I posted new topic on my layout, do I have enough juice?
Also get anything from the new catalog?
