Is there any way you can use cables (model aircraft etc) to transfer the movement from remotely positioned machines?
Then there are also "liquid levers" where one could use a syringe on either end with a plastic tube between to do a push/pull hydraulic arrangement. The nice thing about that arrangement is that one actuator could control multiple (in this case two) rams, one for each gate.In line with Toot'ns thinking, there could be a way to make this work, despite the frame work. What I am thinking works on a "push/pull" wire like an old style "Choke" in a car. You could install "Push/Pull" switches in the facade of your bench work or a separate panel for them and run heavy weight wires through the frame work to where your gates and or turnouts are located. You'd need to fabricate a linkage system from the actuating wire to the cross bar for the gates and or turnouts.
Come to think about it, you don't need to have your slow motion machines directly beneath what it is you want to use them for - they too can be located away from the gates or the turnouts and use them in the same manner as the "Push/Pull" manual choke method.