As we're fond of saying in the Program Mangement world: "Cost, Schedule, Quality -- Pick any 2".
It's all about tradeoffs, and ultimately anyone's track will work for you, subject to the following:
1) Use nickel silver track. Steel and brass are available, and usually cheaper, but they tarnish easily amd thus require more frequent and deeper radius.
2) Track with pre-installed roadbed is the easiest to lay down without hiccups, but it csn be costly and very limiting in the geometry of the available pieces. The roadbed pieces are too perfect for some, although you can use paint and additional ballast to doctor this. Also, you're usually stuck using the switch machines that dome with this stuff.
3) Sectional track without roadbed is a little cheaper and often less limiting in the availability of pieces, but requires a little more work to get it right, and of course you have to add your own ballast and roadbed. Still, usually the cheapest option.
4) Flextrack and commercial turnouts. Still more fiddly to get right, but allows almost unlimited geometry.
5) Handlaid track. Not recommended for beginners, but the most realistic and ultimately the most versatile.
Really, though, if you use nickel silver track and make sure all the pieces you need are available, anyones track will work just fine. You can mix manufacturers, but that often involves adapters and shimming to get the track perfectly aligned. Availability is probably your best guide, suject to the above restrictions.
Connecticut Valley Railroad A Branch of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford
"If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." -- Henry Ford
I'm in HO, but most of the same rules apply.
I use mostly Atlas flex track. Along with that, I've got Atlas, Peco and Walthers turnouts. Each of these was chosen to fit the geometry I needed, and some (like curved turnouts) are not available from Atlas. I'm not sure if you can mate Kato track to other brands easily, but it's something to consider.
Careful tracklaying is very important, so you'd might as well start learning to do it right away.
Be aware, though, that Atlas has had supply-chain issues over the last few years. I'm not too up on the latest developments, as I've got all the track I need for a while, but there was a long time when no Atlas track was available. I hope they resolve these problems, as their products are just fine when you can get them.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
CTValleyRR "Cost, Schedule, Quality -- Pick any 2".
On route of LION it is COST, COST, and COST.
Him used Model Power Flex Track from Trainland. They (if they still have it what with the demise of Model Power now a part of MRC) sell it only in 100 peice boxes, so unless you are planing to lay the track by the mile, it is no bargain, but if your are, then the expensive stuff becomes a moot point.
You can use any brand of switches, but you must decide if you are going to run code 83 or code 100 track. If you will be using the Kato or other brands of track systems, that is already decided for you.
LION recommends code 100 flex track and code 100 switches, Him tends to use Atlas, but does use other brands to get the geometry him requires. Depending on what you are building you may want to use a cork roadbed. I did not use that as a beginner, I did use it on my previous two layouts, but on my current layout, I did not use it. Subways generally do not have built up roadbeds like that. And neither do freight yards, industrial area and so on. And even that is not always true, The ethanol plant here in town has nicely built up roadbeds, but then that is a new plant, older things, the grain elevators for instance do not have built up roadbed.
Here is a picture of me, (the LION as a little cub) standing by the LIRR tracks in Merrick long before they were elevated (call it the 1960, maybe earlier, I joined the Navy in '66) Not much in the way of roadbed vissible here.
If this is your first layout, maybe you can and should do without the cork roadbed since then it will be easy to move things around to you liking as the project grows.
LION uses cat litter for the ballast of him, With 14 miles of track, little packages become expensive, and him does not glue it down. If gravity works for the BNSF, I see no reason why it would not work on my railroad. But if you use that cork roadbed, then you will need to glue it against the vibrations of the trains, making the repositioning of a track far more complicated that it is for the real raliroads.
Here is train of LION. Flex Track, painted rails disguize the fact that it is code 100 track, sifted cat litter for ballast held in place by gravity. And no, I do NOT wear blue suits.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
There is no question road bed track is more expensive than non road bed track. Plus IMHO you really won't get out of ballasting, if you want the most realistic appearance. Unbalanced unitrack ez track looks like sectional plastic and lacks that unified look that road bed should have.
Joe Staten Island West
I model in HO scale and used Atlas code 83 flex track throughout. All turnouts are Walthers and I had no dificulty with the transition from one rail profile to the other.
Based upon my general knowledge gleaned from N scale modeling friends I would say the Atlas code 80 flex track should work well for you and is probably the most economical. (I just checked web sites of M B Klein and Hiawatha Hobbies, both online and brick & mortar firms from whom I have bought in the past and both show the Atlas code 80 flex track in stock.)
Using flex track is, in some ways trickier than sectional track, but should be well withing the grasp of a careful beginner. The good thing about flex track is, well, its flexibility. I curve does not have to be exactly "X" inch radius nor does it have to be constant radius. But it is easy, if you are not paying attention, to wind up with kinks in curves and to not have the transition from flex to turnout to flex just right.
I am not sufficiently familiar with N scale turnouts to give you any recommendations or cautions.
Good luck.
I prefer PECO55 switches. They are code 80 but because of the design resemble code 55 in appearence. They are more robust than other brands of switches including PECO80 switches. They work with PECO55 track, PECO80 track, Atlas code 80 and other brands of code 80 track.
Not all prototype track is the same. One can use code 80 for main lines and PECO55 track to represent the lighter rail on sidings and spurs.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Best Practice is using nickel silver flex track. With flex track you can make the curves more gentle and more realistic. You can also fit it into tighter spaces better than sectional track because any degree angle is possible instead of just 45.
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Kato Unitrack is not limited to 45 degree angles, there are 15 degree sesctions.
http://www.katousa.com/PDF/N-Unitrack.pdf
Six Atlas code 80 sectional track full curved sections make a half circle (180 degrees) Each section is 30 degrees. There are also 1/2 sections, 15 degrees.
Atlas sectional track can be easily cut to shorter lengths to make other angles.
It is often handy to mix sectional track and flex track. I have found that for short curves (up to about 60 degrees) it is often easier to use sectional track, because it is rigid, if the desired curve radius is available. For longer curves and most straight sections flex track is better.
It is also possible to modify Kato Unitrack sections.
With a little effort Kato Unitrack can be used with other brands. Years ago I visited a N scale layout where most of the track was Kato. There were several open deck bridges and a trestle where Atlas track was used.