Adventures in T-Trak: Laying track

Laying track on my new T-Trak module was not a complicated job. Still, the process hit a minor snag, providing a learning experience.

My friend, Steven Cox is the owner of precisionmodelrailroad.com/. His new firm builds laser-cut model railroad benchwork parts. The company offers helix parts, straight benchwork sections and T-Trak modules. The T-Trak modules are an early product used to test the concept. T-Trak is a modular system that uses Kato N-scale Unitrack. The idea is that if you have limited space its possible to get modeling and participate in the hobby. The T-Trak concept is young, born in 2000. It has international interest. In part, that’s due to the partnership between the T-Trak standards group and Kato.

Steven sent me a pre-production T-Trak kit. It assembled into a 12-inch by 12-inch box. I’m not going to post a blog about building that kit because the current kit design is different. It took me a couple of hours to build the module. Most of the time was waiting for the glue to dry.

 

Today’s blog talks about how to lay track.

 

T-Trak uses Kato Unitrack. This is a modular track system. Each piece of track has built in track joiners. The pieces click together easily. The track piece has roadbed and ballast. Steven’s module has track guides engraved on the top, which is a huge help. The guides are based on the T-Trak standards. I compared the module to the standards. They match. I’m confident that I should be able to connect to other modules.

The T-trak module and Unitrack pieces. Note the power feeder pieces in the upper right. The little blue tool is to remove Unitrack rail joiners. Turns out I didn't need it.

The first thing that I did was gather the parts: the module, Kato Unitrack and a Unitrack rail joiner removal tool. 

The first question you need to address is whether to power the track on your module. You don’t have to, Unitrack joiners are good at conducting electricity and you can draw power from another wired module.

I decided to wire the module. That made my process a little more complicated, which I’ll explain in a minute.

If you decide to not install power feeds to the module’s track all. you need is: two pieces of Kato 20-010 (7 5/16” straight track) and two pieces of Kato 20-020 (4 ⅞” straight track). 

Since I planned to supply power to the module, I decided to use Kato’s feeder track (part 20-041). This 2 7/16” piece includes a special pre-wired piece of track with a wiring socket and a length of two-conductor blue and white wire which has a plug to the track on the one end and a plug to a Kato power pack on the other. 

I cut off the Kato power connector.

Stripping off the insulation so the feeder wires will connect to the power source of my choice.

I clipped off the plug to the power pack, because I will use a different power source. I also stripped off ½” of insulation from the ends of the wire for the future.

The wiring jack has been inserted into the bottom of the track. The plug is indexed to fit in one way. 

I then stuck the other plug into the bottom of the feeder track jack. It only fits one way. There’s a little “Kato” logo stamped on to the plug. Make sure you can see it facing up when you insert the plug.

Two smaller pieces = one larger piece.

Okay, the feeder track is set, but the track was too short. The gap needed to be filled. My bin of Unitrack parts contained two pieces of 2 7/16” track (part 20-040). Connecting one to the feeder track piece, created a 4 ⅞” piece replacement. I did this for each mainline on the T-Trak module.

Now it’s time to glue the track to the module. It’s common to use construction adhesive for this.

Ready to glue. If you use construction adhesive, you'll also need a caulking gun. 

Glue dots on the top of the module

I used “Liquid Nails for Projects” and put little glue dabs on the top of the module. That’s when a mistake revealed itself. Lo and behold, the track would not lay flat on the top of the module. The module’s top has holes for the feeder wires. Had the track been dry-fitted first I would have seen the need to expand the holes.

No problem, a little work with a razor saw and the holes were enlarged. The track snuggled down onto the module surface.

Whoops! The feeder wires prevent the track from lying flat on the module. I grabbed a razor saw and started hacking. 

Using vice-grips to make the wiring notch. You can see a completed notch on the left.

Installing the track. The track on the left now lays flat. 

I put some weights on the track hold it while the glue set.

The next day, everything was in good shape and ready for the next step.

Ready for the next step: starting scenery. This will be an urban Japan landscape. 
 

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