I blew it.
This was supposed to be an introductory thread on dead rails, and it turns out that we have people here who know more than I do. Oh well...
Most dead rails fall into one of three classes. The most common are large plastic trains designed as dead rails. They are relatively cheap; cover a wide, inconsistent range of sizes; have couplings that are incompatible with regular rolling stock and with each other; and use plastic tracks that cannot support rolling stock from regular trains.
After reading a short article on dead rails last year, I bought a dead rail Christmas train. It ran great, and a few weeks ago I bought a Lego dead rail that also runs great. However, they are incompatible with each other and everything else I own.
The situation is improving, however. Lionel is selling two O gauge dead rails that are compatible with each other. Lego has begun making their dead rails compatible. And as this thread shows, the growing popularity of dead rails is producing better products.
