I know the answer is in here somewhere but I can't locate it. Today I was worhing on a new pike, under construction, and the Buss wiring is 14ga with 22ga drops. HO Gage... The entire length of the layout is just over 450 feet with some locations where there are a 6, 8, 10 track parallel in staging yards, and turntables. A lot of talk about the proper gage for the buss wiring.

QUESTION: Can this be done with 14ga buss wiring???

If not where to go for GOOD INFORMATION???

We have abour two hundred feet of 14 Ga buss wwiring already in place.

We're confused, to say the least,about this wiring delema.

ANY HELP or good sound advise on this matter would certainly be appreciated. We want to do this wiring correctly!!!

Please respond to my email address so I can find the info.

THANKS, JW

-- John Wright (jwright@columbus.rr.com), May 08, 2002

Answers

On a layout this big, I assume you will have so many locomotives running that you will need to break up your main bus in to a few smaller pieces and use several boosters - one for each section.

But even if you only run a couple of locomotives on all this track and use one booster to drive it, you will probably find that you will be okay with the 14 AWG wire. Try it.

Here's how to know if it is okay to do:

Go the track that is farthest from your booster. With the booster on, short the track at this far point. If the booster immediately shuts down, then your wiring is probably adequately heavy. If the booster does not shut down right away, only does sometimes or not at all, then somewhere, your 14 AWG, your feeders, or something else I don't know about, is in adequate.

-- Allan Gartner (bigboy@WiringForDCC.com), May 08, 2002.