How to renew a child's interest in a toy

I've known this one a while, but sometimes it takes me a while to remember it. My kids have had a Thomas train table for a few years. My mom worked at a toy store and bought their display table for a discount. The display table had all the track tacked on with either screws or with finish nails. Thus the track could not be changed. For a while my kids have complained that they can't change it out. After a while, they stopped.

About a month ago, the table fell apart. We disassembled what was left of the support for the play base. I put it all in the garage just before we got carpet. I brought the play base back in today and sat down and started pulling some of the tacked down track off. I didn't even damage too many pieces. :)

Anyway, after disassembling one section, I started playing with some of the spare track to see what I could do with it. My son wasn't home yet and my daughter was busy doing her own thing. When my son got home, he came in and asked what I was doing. When I said 'playing with your trains', he and his sister immediately took over. They played with it up until I made my son head to soccer practice. :)