How about this for running long long trains on a small layout? Make a power car (or two) out of a box or reefer and then adding cars until the end of the train couples up to the power cars. In effect an endless loop of freights cars going by and going by and going by and going by....
After a jokester's wise crack comment about their size(I ran the Auto-Max train at shows our club does for a while), I did this with 14 Athearn Auto-Max auto racks and 2 Kato CSX AC4400 as "Mid-train helpers" in a loop around the door layout I abandoned a few years back for giggles. It was the same track plan as Dave Vollmer's layout.
