hate the brightness of the sides of your brass track??? i used to too, until i found the laying the track on retaining wall blocks, or just crushed limestone in general, and watering both track and rock repeatedly, (make sure water can splash the rails from the rock/blocks) and somewhat consistently, that the side rails will ‘oxidize’ i guess is the term i would use, a nice dark brown color that, [to me] most closely resembles the real thing…if you are track powered, be prepared to have to constantly clean the rail head before running trains, as the whole rail will be affected by this oxidation…small price to play with your LGB TRACK CLEANING ENGINE, while at the same time enhancing the total appearence of the layout…