My sounds, a single snare for instance, at the track, never hits red, then I send it to a bus I've labeled "drums" and it cracks red at that bus, that bus is sending to the Master, and the volume peaks there. That's with all sliders and gain at 0. Should I expect volume to increase each time I send to a bus? Or should the volume at the bus be equal to track?

All things being equal, there should be no difference between the levels seen on the original track and any bus that the track is routed to. Make sure there are no FX added anywhere in either the track or bus FX bin. Make sure the Pro Channel is set to "off". Any addition of any sort will likely change the volume level.
In the digital world there are no cables or distortion fields to act upon the signal during its path from track to bus so no change to the signal is expected.
 

The faders are at zero but 1-could you possibly be in offset mode and 2-could the gain knob in the Inspector accidentally be something other than zero?
 
I assume you have no other signal than the snare (and no effects) going to this bus that could be affecting the metering.

that bus is sending to the Master, and the volume peaks there. That's with all sliders and gain at 0. Should I expect volume to increase each time I send to a bus? Or should the volume at the bus be equal to track?

This is simple math. The sum of 20 tracks at equal volume is greater than the sum of 4 tracks at equal volume.
 
That means - The more tracks you have in a song, the lower each track fader needs to be or you will clip.
so if you have everything at 0dB ,you will be clipping when you add enough tracks and effects to the signal chain
 
Your Welcome,
CJ

Sorry, been away... yes, or course, 20 tracks of sounds is going to up the volume, not what I'm asking... as I said, I'm talking about one track, using a snare still as an example, I am sending the snare alone to a bus, no EQ or FX, then sending that bus to the master, all faders at zero... from the track to the bus, the volume increase is minimal, but then to the master it's peaking hard. So my cumulative volume increase, when I start adding multiple tracks, is always a struggle. Just wondering if that's normal, or am I missing something?

Definitely not normal, and you are likely missing something. As Konrad suggested, check for gain/volume changes that might have been made in Offset mode (click the Envelope/Offset button in the Mix Module). Also check for a send on the bus that would create a parallel signal path to Master.

As the guys have already said, with a single track you should be seeing exactly the same levels at track, bus & master
 
You need to track this down and eliminate the source of the problem

Unexpected ProChannel compressors on track or bus? Track or bus gain (not fader level!) not at zero? (do buses even have the gain control?)

Is this a soft synth snare sound?
If so, check that there's not 2 or more instances of the synth on the same channel output to the same bus.

Thanks, I'll check these ideas out... yes, it's a SoftSynth snare, but I only use that as example.