Josh Murrah's T-TRAK buses

Josh Murrah's evolving mindset on buses, and a proposal to standardize T-TRAK buses (and related tabletop scales/formats) to better the format

TL;DR - I want to formalize / codify the bus recommendations in the T-TRAK recommendations, with the following exceptions - 1) strike blue/white and replace with red/black 2) rewrite to allow bundling circuits in general and allow but not require red and yellow be bundled (it's currently written so that it appears that bundling is required) 3) outline/describe three styles of bus/feeder build as the only options… a) Kato hardware for smallest layouts b) the T-KITS style red/yellow bundle w/ long sections and fixed feeders and c) the NVTT style modular bus/feeder sections but with distinct circuit colors, and show that all three types are generally compatible with each other. I've also attached my recommended bus style at the bottom.

I'm ordering these justifications in "easiest to justify", to "religious in nature". I will add some photos later but wanted to get this out there as-is right now.

CONNECTOR TYPE AND GAUGE
The connector type should be Powerpole due to it's historical use in N-TRAK and it's current wide popularity in T-TRAK. The gauge of bus should be 12 gauge all-copper (not CCA) stranded wire in a zip-cable configuration, such as a high quality speaker cable. The sizing and avoidance of CCA isn't for amperage needs, but instead minimizes voltage drops. The current T-TRAK specifications have a recommendation in place for this already, and it should become a hard standard.

COLOR CODING PER CIRCUIT IS REQUIRED
It should be readily apparent via the connector colors, which circuit is laying on the table ("red is DC pack #1, yellow is the Digitrax DCC" for example). Blue/white generic colors should be avoided as that promotes avoiding colored buses, and black should be the common color on all circuits. An adoption of N-TRAKs' colors are what's called out in the T-TRAK recommended bus standards already, but I would further move to strike blue/white as an option (connectors for a single circuit should be one of the colors with black, red/black for example).

CONSISTENT, REQUIRED GENDER OF CONNECTIONS
I do not support genderless connections, and the clubs that use it have to glue the powerpoles together, because the powerpole connectors themselves are keyed to prevent it. The current T-TRAK specifications have a recommendation in place for gendering already, and it should become a hard standard.

COLORS ON A BUS SEGMENT (and power supply units) SHOULD RELATE TO CIRCUITS NOT MODULE TRACK POSITION
Track on a module is typically referred to as red in the front, and yellow in the back and anything ambiguous shouldn't have feeders. These colors are inherited from N-TRAK, and is how the feeders at module back are colored. This is fine, and should remain, we have to denote them somehow, why not. However, T-TRAK has a lot of really cool layout plans and specialty modules, meaning we have to electrically feed power in interesting unique ways. In a classic "loop", yes the front would be the red bus and the rear would be the yellow bus in a two circuit system. But what do about a dogbone? What about a one-circuit DCC layout? A layout with figure 8s or crossings where the lines reverse? Branches? In these cases the bus circuits don't relate fully to track position, and/or maybe you only should run one circuit. The bundled red/yellow buses get around this by cross feeding the same circuit to two cables, or just leaving one of the two cables dead, and providing other adapter pieces that plug inline. I don't like this, but it does work. This section is weird, because I don't think it relates to a standard, but I think it needs to be here in some form as a look into the state of mind of a bus/layout organizer.

SO WHAT ABOUT T-KITS CABLING USERS? (bundled red/yellow)
These cables work just fine, they're just the first two circuits bundled. Do I think we should always always run a yellow bundled with a red, and use latching hoods and loom, and feeders hard-spliced into the bus? Nope, but it does work and falls within spec.

WHAT ABOUT NVTT and/or NTTT'S SPECS? THEY'RE LARGE CLUBS!
This is a religious battle, but blue/white generic bus doesn't promote colored circuits, and in NTTT's case I also don't believe in glued together genderless connections. See above. I *do* like the modular features and single-circuit runs of these system tho, I'll get to that in a minute.

WHAT ABOUT FEEDERS? THAT'S PART OF THE BUS
The only thing that I think should be a hard standard is the connector type mandated for your scale and which wire connects to black… HO & N use Kato connectors, blue to black, Z uses powerpole connectors, etc. Feeders can be T spliced into long bus segments, giving you generic "one size fits all" segments, or feeders can be separate (shorter) bus segments. I believe both flavors should be explicitly allowed.

SO BEYOND THE STANDARD, WHAT DO YOU RECOMMENDING JOSH?
I believe the "right" bus, and what I've been recently offering to build for the group, is a mix of T-KITS and NVTT's styles. I think there should be commonly gendered/sized/style circuits, in the various colors… obviously mostly red, with a fair amount of yellow typically, and other colors as you decide to power other distinct circuits. I've settled on 5' bus lengths, and 6" feeder sections. I don't believe in bundling of circuits or hard splicing feeders into bus lengths, for a multitude of reasons… the shorter feeder segments are easier to make and allow the bus lengths to work for any tabletop scale… and I believe that you should run a bus that visually represents your circuit in color and quantity at all times (meaning red only in some/lots of cases), and the separate feeder sections are also much more flexible in their placement, using only how many you need where you need them (remember the feeders are very expensive compared to the rest of the bus), and this segmenting allows for easier BWBW (matching polarity on both track pairs) by either reversing of yellow on individual feeders, or the whole circuit, by flipping cables around, no adapter sections required unlike the bundled red/yellow cables.

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