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14 Responses to Track Selection – Nickel Silver or Steel Track?
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C&L give a guide on this. I have a dehumidifier in my railway shed which maintains the humidity to 50-55%. With this set up it is a no brainer. Steel is best. Tarnishing of the rail requiring frequent cleaning is a thing of the past.
Many years ago, regular track was steel, tinned to prevent rust. Unfortunately, track rubbers were invented, which removed the tin plating, so it all went rusty.
Modern nickel-silver track does not suffer corrosion problems indoors, and once clean, only needs the occasional wipe to deal with any dust – paper towel is good. Only if there is grease or oil, wet it slightly with meths or lighter fluid (warning: no smoking !).
I totally avoid track rubbers, they just leave bits of grit and rubber on the track, causing further problems.
We have used both at the club. My preference is for nickel silver as it is easier to keep clean. The down side is that it costs a lot more in O scale.
Steel will rust. The oxidation on nickle silver does not interfere with electrical flow as the oxidation on brass track does.
I have had a lot of experience with brass rail and nickel silver. The brass will collect dirt twice as fast as the nickel silver I have a portable layout I take to shows abd it has a track of each on it. I demon-straight the dirt by wiping my finger on the brass rail and then the other finger on the nickel silver and there will almost always be twice as much grime on the brass over the nickel silver.
The steel tends to rust. I am hand laying a switch right now and I am using I believe is steel rail. But we will see how that rail does. I was using this rail because it was free and this is my first switch to try. So we will see. from Newman
Conductivity of the metal(s) should also be a main consideration when selecting track. As an example, brass is a whole lot more conductive than stainless steal as is mickle silver. Although, stainless steal wears better than the rest…
I like the EZ track. But there are times when you have difficulty laying track because you just cannot bend it like flex track. But I have not had any problems keeping it clean.
I’m use chemical Clean gasolin work fine. Don’t use regular gasolin it will harm your plastic ties.
Please stop using gasoline for track cleaning as it was designed to explode and NOT as a cleaning agent.
Jim
Nickel-silver conducts electricity much better than steel, also it does not corrode like steel does and is easier to clean. It is more expensive but, in the long run, well worth the additional cost. When you do clean it, use a tarnish remover- but no abrasives. Once any type of track becomes abraded,. it tends to collect dirt faster. Hope this helped.
With regard to Nickel-Silver and Bronze, I just got back, since July, in trains, but I Have used Bachmann track and it works Ideally, however sometimes it can be difficult getting it together. N scale is hard to work with in feeling it and seeing it. I prefer HO Nickel-Silver due to the electrical conductor. I am using bronze switches on my new HO layout due to lower costs initially. Later replacing with Nickel-silver and reducing the amount of wires on my bus as the Nickel-Silver is the best conductor of electricity of all three and it is also easier to keep clean with paper towels and some plain old “rubbing alcohol”. Good railroading to you all. GUY
Our club has done excessive testing on these types of rail. Brass, Steel, Nickel/Silver, Stainless Steel, and nickel/Bronze.. We have run trains on each for 6 months configured in an oval. We also had ovals that we ran outdoors in the open elements.(high humidity and direct heat) We also just left sections lay around for a year. The Brass and Bronze/Nickel, turned black and tarnished excessively. The stainless also built up a crust on the top of the rail head. The nickel/Silver track, though it had a slight coating on the rail head, it wiped off with a towel and glass cleaner. So for anyone wanting to purchase rail, go with the nickel/Silver. The price will be consumed with the years of faultless running. Also we found that locos with traction tires had to have the treads replaced running on Brass rails. It seems there is a chemical reaction produced from the oxidation caused by the electrolysis.
I got a Bachmann train set 5 years ago I put up with our Christmas town, for the last couple of years I’ve had to replace different track pieces, mainly straights, to get it to run the entire circuit. Any ideas of what the problem might be?
Randy, make sure the rail connectors are fitted to each other properly, and the rails are clean at the connection points
Also check for any breaks.
We have used EZ track for years with no problems.
Be careful when disassembling the track sections. They do not like being disconnected and reconnected often.