Your time zone and favorite RR suggest you live in the Northeast. Brass track oxidizes much quicker in higher humidity climates. OTOH, if the house and room with the layout are kept air conditioned during the summer, the humidity will be held to a lower level - turning on the air conditioner once every few days doesn't impact the humidity much.
I did live in Northern Virginia without air conditioning in the '60s. If I ran the trains twice a week, brass oxidation gave me no problems. If I let the time between running trains stretch to over a week, I would have to clean the track before the trains would run. Note that this also applies to brass wheels and truck bolsters on steam engine tenders.
Conversely, here at altitude in Colorado, it takes months for brass to oxidize. Most rain evaporates before it reaches the ground. I have to attach a humidifier to keep the household humidity up to a comfortable level.
The Midwest (upstate NY, western PA, Ohio, Indiana) in the Eastern time zone doesn't suffer quite the summer humidity of the East Coast and South, so it is somewhere in between when it comes to brass track.
A sparing application of No-Ox, Wahl's Clipper Oil, or CRC 2-26 after cleaning will significantly retard the rate of brass oxidation to the point of weeks or months instead of days.
just my experiences
Fred W
Nickel-silver rail for the smaller scales has been de rigueur for the last 50 years. I can't imagine someone still having a layout with brass rail unless one uses something like G-gauge track.
Mark
Few months ago I added around 40 feet of track to my layout. For the heck of it (long story) I added a couple of sections of brass track. They have not been cleaned, not ran over often and have yet had a engine stall where the are.
I do like the looks of Nicker track better.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
I agree. Just as long as it is clean it should work fine.
The above answer is correct and the standard answer BUT:::
I opperate occassionally on a large old layout with a lot of brass track including some of the old Truscale roadbed. He uses DCC and it works flawlessly. He runs trains alot and keeps the track clean. I asked him about the brass track and if he planned to change it and he said, "Why should I, this works just fine."
Yes, but you'd have to keep the track extra clean. Brass tarnishes and gets dirty quicker than nickel-silver, so you would have to clean it pretty frequently to keep your DCC trains working right.
Do you have a large amount of brass track on hand? If you do, you can use it for a while. But if you're going to run DCC, I would suggest replacing the brass with nickel-silver. It looks better and works better. If you're short on funds for a complete track upgrade, you can get a few pieces at a time until you have enough to replace all of the brass track.
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Chris