Jeff,
You can try the various facebook pages. I like gscale.net and G garden trains. Forums can be rough but largescalecentral seems to have an active group, too.
To answer your question about track: brass track indoors is easy to maintain. You might have to clean it once in a while, but not all the time. I have stainless steel for outside which has worked well for me. I believe Davy is using peco's nickel silver. Bachmann's plain steel track is hollow and to be avoided. Piko, USATrains, LGB and Bachmann all make lines of brass track and are readily available. Get the widest curves your space allows. The 4' diameter starter set curves are to be avoided, if possible. Battery power is an option and simplifies things for wiring. But for a railroad like what you describe, I'd stick with track power. The trick is to mechanically connect all the track. Old Aristocraft, USAtrains and bachmann track have screws to hold the track sections together. For Piko and LGB you might want to consider rail clamps. Also, you can get track on the secondary market for about 2/3 the cost of brand new track, if that's a consideration.
The shay has a long and storied history. Early ones had some issues with split gears. Not sure if yours will have those concerns. A great resource from the late 90s is: http://www.girr.org/girr/
