Thanks for the info Mike!  I will clean it off and see if I get better results.  I can understand the closed circuit now.  For some reason I was thinking that a ring could not be engergized with a positive or negative charge.

Hello all!  I have recently dug out my old train set.  Can't find any model numbers, but the engine is a Chessie System C&O 4127.  The box says HO scale on it.  When I connect the track together and crank the power pack dial all the way to the right or the left, I am getting 19 Volts all the way around the track.  However, the engine only moves over 3 sections of track.  It is a 2 track system.  What seems odd to me is how it ever worked.  From the power supply, there is one wire that goes to the inner track and one wire that goes to the outer track.  This is not a closed circuit as near as I can tell.  The positive voltage goes to a ring and the negative voltage goes to a ring.  What am I missing?