Terminal Wire Gauge

[usher40351]

What is the stanard terminal gauge wire from track to power pack for HO or N scale? I just brought #14 wire from lowes the other day, well that work for terminal wire.    Gary

[jeffrey-wimberly]

#14 is all I use for my layout, DC and DCC. It works quite well.

[rrinker]

 #14 will be fine unless you have a huge basement-filling railroad and need to run wires 50+ feet.

 

                              --Randy
 

[selector]

Agreed.  You could undoubtedly get by with somewhat finer wire yet, as long as your track system is in the "small" range for HO layouts, say with about 50' of trackage all totaled, and no more than about 10 locomotives with sound...say around 5 amps.  And, as the others have said, the total length of this set of wires will also have a bearing on voltage loss, so keep it as short as you can.