Welcome back Bob. You're
Welcome back Bob.
You're track and the loco wheels may be dirty. A few questions:
1) is the track a silverish color? Or is it brass colored?
If it's brass colored, do yourself a favor and get some nickel -silver track instead. Brass oxidizes like crazy and brass oxide is more of an insulator than a conductor.
If it's siverish, then it's nickel-silver rail which is good. Nickel-silver oxidizes too, not as badly or quickly as brass, and the oxide is a much better conductor than brass-oxide, but it's still not good. Have you tried to clean the track? You can get a track cleaner from a hobby shop that looks like a large pencil eraser but has some abrasive in it. Brite-Boy is one of the names for cleaners like this. Brite-Boys are generally thought to be back for track because they leave lots of scratches on the tops of the rails. Alternatively you might try using some 400 or 600 grit emery paper to polish the rail tops.
2) if the trains still won't run, look at the locomotive wheel treads. If they look dirty, they may need cleaning. I often clean my wheels by putting a strip of paper towel across the rails, soak it with alcohol, then set the locomotive on it so the wheels of one truck are on the paper, but the other wheels are not (so they can pick up power). Turn the power pack up to high -- as the wheels spin on the paper, the gunk on them will be wiped away. Move the paper towel frequently so the wheels are in a clean spot. Repeat with the other wheelset.
3) if the trains still won't run, you probably have rail-joiner problems. Rail joiners -- the metal strips holding the ends of the rails in alignment, don't always do a good job of conducting electricity. If you apply power to a loop of track at one place, you're depending on lots of rail joiners to carry the power from rail to rail when the locomotive is on the other side of the track loop from the power connection. Intermittant or poorly conducting rail joiners can cause there to be no power or greatly reduced power.
The best solution for this is to either wire each piece of rail to the power pack. But since you want to avoid plywood and do this directly on the kitchen counter that's not practical. Another solution would be to buy some "unit-track" at your hobby store. Uni-track (and it can be called by lots of other names -- in fact uni-trak might be N scale, I'm not really up on the names) has the track mounted on top of plastic roadbed that simulates the ballast underneath the track on a real railroad. The end of each piece of track has some clips to lock the two pieces together as well as a more robust electrical connection. You should see immediate benefits using this over regular sectional track both in electrical conductivity and in track alignment -- bumping the track won't cause the tracks to come apart.
If you have brass snap (sometimes called sectional) track (see my first question), the "uni-track" may be what you want to use.
Later on, if this flirtation with the model-railroads of your (or at least your kid's) youth, develops into the desire to build a larger, more permanent layout I'd recommend not using sectional track -- but for the kitchen counter the sectional or uni-track is fine.
4) If the train still won't run around your loop, there's probably something wrong in the locomotive. Try taking the shell off and connect the power pack directly to the motor. Hold the loco off the track and see if everything spins smoothly. If not look at the gears. If they're buried in 30 year old grease, clean 'em an relube 'em with some lubricants for miniature gears. Don't use automotive oil or WD40. LaBelle makes good model railroad lubricants. Nano-oil.com, a new model railroad hobbyist advertiser also sells oils for model trains that are supposed to be very good but I've not used them personally (yet). Maybe some other of the forum folks here can comment on nano-oil.
If the loco still runs with a goodly hiccup, it's probably time to bit the bullet and get a replacement. Hopefully it won't come to that.
Cheers,
Charlie Comstock