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As with any material, the wire should be correctly matched to the requirement. While with copper wire, the resistance dminishes as the diameter increases (per dkelly's post above), not only cost but ease of working suggest that you are better off not doing "overkill" on your wire gauge. Crimping and soldering are harder with the larger diameters, larger and heavier wire management hardware is needed, etc. I use 18-gauge stranded wire for the main track-power buses on my conventional-DC layout with wire runs up to about 10 feet and have no problems. I use 24-gauge stranded for the track feeders which of course are only a few inches long.
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