An old fashioned spiraled rope throw rug supports track and heavy trains nicely while protecting the floor or nice carpet under it, and can even be thrown up onto a dining room table.
Small loops to piddle with are great inspiration for a larger set up, and give you some breaktime fun, and motivation to finish a layout when you do actually begin the dream layout.
You realize those folks pictures are a mental push to get you building, right? 😜
Great Gramps and Gramps both collected but I don't have anything of theirs. I have Grandma's General (though not tin)
On the other side of the family, Grandma had a Marx Commadore Vanderbilt that got buried by dirt in a carriage house floor left behind after she married my Grandfather who's mother was killed by a Detroit Trolley; a Christmas sore spot I didn't know about until my 20's when my rake in the dirt found the box and Grandma told the tale. I bathed it in the sink, oiled it, wiped it, oiled it, wiped it, (repeat quarterly for 25years) and ran it on my Lionel track right away. Later it got a repaint and is still going.(the wheels have been loose on the axles enough to fall off sometimes when lifted for over 25 of me running it.
Get some new track and I bet that it improves the running over what you recall last too. I put it off because I had so much decent old track, but new is so much better I have at lest raised the bar for tossing useable old track away.
