I also have a large room-perimeter O-gauge floor layout on carpet, which avoids the problem entirely!
That was my dad's approach as well, but minus the carpet. The result is his (now mine) seriously busted up 1928 Ives 1134. But it was his toy, and he could roll it off the corners if he wanted to... which he was still doing a year before he died at age 90.
If you have scenery that slopes downward toward the layout edge, drainage ditches along the tracks, plus bushes tend to catch derailing trains. Couple that with broader curves and realistic speeds and you should be fine. With a curved trestle, you're pretty much at the mercy of physics -- proper speed, proper weight balancing of the train and well-synchronized helpers on longer trains.
I also have a large room-perimeter O-gauge floor layout on carpet, which avoids the problem entirely!
That was my dad's approach as well, but minus the carpet. The result is his (now mine) seriously busted up 1928 Ives 1134. But it was his toy, and he could roll it off the corners if he wanted to... which he was still doing a year before he died at age 90.
This is what my Marx tin plate train is for. Not only is it the 1st toy train I ever got, it's also my must run, and I love running it to roll just as much as my young boys do. Sometimes we see how many cars we can get to roll with the locomotive. Fun times.
Doesn't plexiglas age and "cloud", as well as scratch fairly easily? I see it used in
layout displays at shows, thought. I guess I will use some sort of wooden barrier,
although the padded floor sounds good.
I say no pain no gain!
Take this one at speed....
At the young age of 4 or 5, I sat up in the middle of Dad's layout and watched as he gave the SF 2343's a little goose coming down some trestles. It got to the corner....and well, diesels don't fly.
Maybe an option is to identify the most vulnerable locations and utilize signage or scenery to block a direct over-the-edge path?
This pic shows a home-made "guardrail" at the front edge of a temporary layout, made of heavy-gauge wire as I described previously. It's effective, and the appearance is fairly unobstrusive.
The horizontal part is covered with black tape so it shouldn't scratch any errant trains. The vertical ends are threaded for attaching it to the table.
what do you do for clumsy people I dropped my chessie tender today. cracked the shell and the rear coupler off 
Ace that does look good
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