I have the upper part of my layout in nickel, but I have a good bit of brass for the bottom. I was going to do the bottom in nickel, but is brass just as good? Does it honestly matter that they get mixed in together? I just don’t want to waste money incase the brass is better or just as good.
I thought about using the brass for now until I can get it all nickel.
Nickle silver looks more like steel and is less prone to oxidizing so badly that electrical conductivity is lessened. Brass needs to be cleaned more often and, obviously, looks like brass not steel. Both are easy to solder although brass may be a bit easier (for wiring). In theory brass might conduct electricity a bit better than N/S but not enough to really matter on a layout.
If you have a substantial investment in brass track I’d say that plenty of modelers have used it for years. But whereever the brass meets the N/S the difference might be jarring.
What I might suggest is that in difficult to access/clean track, such as inside tunnels, use N/S. My own bias would be to use N/S, and if you must mix the two, use n/s where it is most prominently seen. If you must use your brass track, how about in yards or other areas where it can be removed without damaging too much scenery.
Dave Nelson
Hey Rob-you can use the brass now, but eventually replace it with the nickel when you can-the brass oxidizes & needs an awful lot more cleaning than nickel.
Thanks guys. I was going to use it to start off. Then later switch piece by piece. Plus I don’t want something I have to clean, most of the time.
I just always wondered if it really made a difference.
R:
Nickel silver is the best, and I’d stick with that when buying new track, but brass and steel are also usable if you already have them, or can pick up cheap used track. My own railroad has a mixture of all three, but is mostly brass. I treated all of it with the “Gleam” method of smoothing and burnishing. I don’t seem to get any oxidation, just dirt, and all the track gets that. I did have to clean some off the track after buying it…some of it was probably 30 years old or more.
If you do use brass, don’t touch it with coarse abrasives; it’s easier to scratch than other materials, and I think this is actually why people have had problems with it. I don’t touch mine with anything coarser than 1200 grit.
Yeah, the need for more frequent cleaning is the big problem, followed by appearance.
Another thing to consider is that most brass track is old. If it’s been used and taken up, the track may not be as securely mounted to the ties as new rails would be. Make sure it’s not wobbly, or you’ll just be installing trouble.
I would not use any brass turnouts, particularly power-routing ones. The oxidation problem makes it very hard for them to maintain electrical contact between the points and stock rails, or even between the points and whatever they pivot on. So, you’re going to have dead spots which will seriously impact your ability to run trains over them.
If your plan is to mount the brass track now, and then take it up later and replace it with NS, I’d suggest doing it right the first time. The extra work involved to remove and re-lay track, particularly if you’ve got scenery down, is just not worth it.
I’ve said this before - brass track is a collectors’ item. In our neighborhood, if you put it out by the curb on Wednesday, they’ll come by with a truck and collect it.
For small layouts where you have easy access to all the track for cleaning, brass will work. My first 2 layouts were all brass. When it’s all brass the color is not as much of an issue.
Enjoy
Paul
The year is 2008, and brass track still exists?
I use brass rail at the back ends of single-ended staging tracks where locomotives will never run. It is also good for the parts of industrial spurs where cars may roll, but locos won’t. (In the latter, the brass color is close to the appearance of sometimes-used rail that has a slight amount of surface rust.)
Brass sectional track or flex can be cut into 39 (scale) foot lengths and stacked in your Maintenance of Way storage area - the prototype uses it for quick and dirty repairs. The rail, removed from the ties, can be cut and placed on racks, suitably colored for spare rail. It has a myriad of other uses, from wheel stops in the employees’ parking lot to re-lay rail stretched along the right-of-way.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
My [2c]? If you haven’t laid it yet, Don’t…
I have both brass and nickel track in my inventory. Nickel looks more realistic and isn’t prone to rusting as easily, therefore all of my brass track is in a box and probably will never be used for anything other than probably swapping for another railroad item in the future.
I hate the “better” questions because “better” has no real meaning.
???In Theory??? Brass is a much better conductor of electricity. This is one reason DCC systems need copper electrical buses on layouts.
Conductivity
Copper 100% IACS
Brasses 25 to 50 % IACS
Nickel-Silver 5 to 15 % IACS
Resistivity
Brass 11-39 X ohms cmil/ft.
Nickel-Silver 173-207 X ohms cmil/ft.
There was a thread about two years ago that discussed this topic at length with some excellent information presented. If the search engine ever gets the thread catalog indexed back that far…
Even though brass is “better” for conductivity - I would not recommend using it. Nickel-silver is “better” for resisting oxidation. I actually like the color that brass weathers to for the side of the rails, it is just that shiny top that gets to me. Steel is “better” for color and realistic rust weathering. Stainless-steel is “better” for outside. etc. etc.
I used all 3 on my layout, NS, brass and steel and clean it every six months with flitz metal polish or maas metal polish.
On a side note I just finished laying 10 brand new pieces of Atlas flex track and I cleaned it with the polish, just as much black residue came off as any track that’s been used for 6 months. Now this was brand new, never had electric current going through it or locomotive run on it.
Brass track – Why???
Nooooo! – Never again!
[|(][:(][oops][%-)][banghead]
You’re kidding right? Is brass just as good as nickel-silver? No way. Nickel-silver beats brass by many miles. Down here brass track is collectible. It really is. Just set it out at the curb Monday night and Tuesday morning it will be collected.
Thanks for the input. I just really didn’t know. I agree…if its not down, don’t. I guess it will stay in the box. I’m not going to waste my time.
[:D]
MrB:
Hmm…I had some point-conductivity problems with some older Casadio switches, a while back, but the Atlas and Life-Like brass switches I’m using now tend to conduct fine. I don’t know if the problem with the Casadios was from oxidation or wear, and I can’t remember how they conducted power.
This is true, but with one exception. If one has a lot of brass snap track, it’s sometimes useful to use it as an analog track-plan computer - put the layout together and run it for a while, and make changes until you’re happy with it. It’s so much easier to understand how a plan works after you’ve played with it a little. This is how I designed my current layout, and I made a ton of changes before (literally) nailing it down.
With the wonders of n/s track can anyone tell the ratio of cleaning brass track to n/s? could it be 2 to 1, or 5 to1, or 40 to 1??? just what is the difference in cleaning, Am I to believe that this wonderful, perfect, gotta-have n/s rail is the ultimate in track? C’mon now, there must be thousands of MR’s out there using brass track with no problems, it’s just a non-entity to them.
A very good point. In fact, after designing my layout with Atlas RTS, I did the same thing with the old brass track I had lying around. It was more of a “lay it on the floor” thing, and I didn’t connect up sections to get a detailed sense of section-to-section fit, but I think the overall sense of “how does this look?” was very helpful. I did, in fact, make changes as a result of “seeing” the track rather than just “designing” the track plan. It also let me get a sense of where I could put roads and structures, which doesn’t show up as well on a computer screen, either.
Theory? There are a lot of mrr’s that will tell you that you have to clean brass more than ns. I believe if you use any abravise or abrasive compounds on it be it NS, brass or even steel, you will have problems. I’ve heard and read right on this forum about railroaders that seem to have to clean their ns track every time they run trains. Abrasives are the enemy to any track. There are fine scratch marks made by certain cleaning methods that will collect dirt dust, metal particles, bits of plastic, etc and this is what causes the problems. Wheels especially plastic that are worn out or have been abused, are another problem that will dirty your track real quick if you don’t clean them or replace them with metal. On both loco’s and rolling stock, even metal wheels that may have microscopic scratches are culprits. It’s important to clean the wheels when you clean the track. I used to be a wire drawer for a few years and it would not surprise me that I even drew the wire for model railroad track in nickle silver as well as brass and steel. We drew the wire for eyeglass frames too, ns. When I drew the wire through the dies I would check, with a microscope, for scratches or abrasions and if found I would reject the spool of wire, 500lb spools, and find and polish the die that was causing the problem, one of 5-7 dies that was causing the problem, or the wire was rubbing on something. I would assume the maker of the finished product of rail did likewise.
The best way to fix track that is scratched and causing problems frequently would be to&n