Please, which type of rail is better, brass or silver?? Whats the difference? Thanks.
“Better” and “best” are words that don’t go very well with this hobby. Just about everything is a matter of personal preference. Nickle-silver track is the current standard that just about everyone makes these days, although brass track is still widely available, especially on e-Bay and at train shows. Most of us use nickel-silver for that reason.
Nickel-silver rails are stiffer than bronze ones, but brass is a better conductor of electricity. The flip side is that brass oxide doesn’t conduct electricity, whereas nickel oxide does, so brass track users have to be more scrupulous about cleaning track.
There are, however, die hard advocates of brass track out there, especially people who hand-lay their own.I
The only thing I’d avoid if I were you is the cheap, steel rails. They’re just a cheap alternative to something that’s not that expensive anyway.
Welcome to the forums.
You may get quite a few responses. Nickel silver is easier to keep clean according to most posters. Actually brass is a better conductor of electricity, but it does tend to tarnish with a non-conductive surface rather quickly. If you are buying, I would suggest nickel silver as it is the “newer/better” type of track. However, if you have or are offered brass at a very reasonable price, there are a number of folks here that are still using it successfully. It seems those that run trains more, have less cleaning problems (nickel or brass). The one to stay away from is steel track, it rusts quite easily according to other posters. What little I have came in a “junk” box, already rusty. It will be used for scrap loads and junk piles in rr yards. I have heard that brass is a little easier to solder than NS, steel is very difficult. I’m not great at soldering and haven’t done track yet, so only am relying on other posters.
Good luck,
Richrd
Nickle silver is closer to the color of the prototype steel rail. Painted weathered nickel silver with just the railhead cleaned can look very realistic. Some modelers use nickle silver for visible track and brass for hidden track either because they have a lot of old brass or the brass is less expensive.
Stay away from brass rail. Nickel-silver is the hobby standard as it has fewer rail/wheel conductivity problems. Run electrical feeder wires every three to six feet to avoid voltage drop (if not every rail section to avoid connectivity issues at rail joints.).
If your trains are battery or livesteam-powered, steel is fine.
As an electrical engineer, Clean brass conducts slightly better than nickel-silver. (which is not nickel silver, by the way)
As already noted, brass tarnishes rather rapidly especially inside a home where cooking and other airbourne vapors will rapidly tranish the rail drastically reducing its conductivity advantage unless you spend a good deal of time cleaning your track.
Likewise, so many of todays model rails run DCC and have a very heavy gauge feeder running along with the mainline and through yards. This is typically connected every 24 to 36 inches to the track. This constant shunting or paralleling of whatever type of rail is used, with pure copper feeder means that the old resistance issues with most any rail are now moot as you are effectively pure copper connected to you engine with never more than 12-18-inches of rail between your engine’s wheels and a pure, heavy gauge, copper conductor.
Nickel- silver is far more prototypical looking and is probably the sole reason it has virtually completely displaced the old brass rail standard of 60 years ago. Just like plastic ties displaced fiber ties on 3 foot flex track 50 years ago. Side note: Really, really old Brass rail will tarnish to an amazingly prototypical patina or it can also be chemically tarnished to get there, but its top surface to wheel cleaning issues still remain more severe than N.S.
Regardless of rail choice and regardless of DC analog or DCC operation, all modern layouts should run the heavy gauge feeders under the table with frequent connections to the main line and spurs. This will reduce the need for scrupulous cleaning to a marked degree for the reason stated above.
Finally, even in DC analog operation most such model roads, save for simple loop sets with a toy transformer, use a modern DC power pack with “pulse width modulated pure DC”. This form helps trains run smoother in low speed operation as full voltage was always a part of th