Thoroughbred Ready To Run Electric Train Set - HO Scale

[furstukin]

I have always wanted to get into model trains and with my son now 6 y/o this Christmas seemed like a great time to jump in, so I did a little searching and found the Thoroughbred RTR set that looked like a nice starting point, especially at the price. But I wanted to know if i ever wanted to upgrade is this loco something that is DCC compatible and with sound? If not is that something that can be added or is that where you need to step up to the more expensive locomotives that have the DCC, and sound advertised? Any help is appreciated.

[jward]

You'd have a nice running locomotive to begin with. If you later decided to run DCC, you'd need to add a decoder. That's not that hard to do with this locomotive. Worst case you'd have to hard wire it in place of the circuit board in the locomotive. That would give you a DCC locomotive. DCC with sound is a bit more difficult, and for that you'd probably want to get a locomotive already equipped.

[trainman203]

I agree when you decide to go DCC/sound you should buy a locomotive already equipped, instead of struggling with all the unknowns involved with decoder and the speaker installation when you're just starting out in the hobby ..... stuff that gives fits to even more advanced modelers. You can then run your train, and work on the other engine at your leisure. 

[Terry Toenges]

If you are contemplating going with DCC sometime, you might be better off just buying a set that is already DCC because then you have the DCC controller as well as the DCC loco.

[furstukin]

If you are contemplating going with DCC sometime, you might be better off just buying a set that is already DCC because then you have the DCC controller as well as the DCC loco.

Yeah, I seriously considered that, but I opted to spend the extra money on extra rolling stock, more track, and some accessories like a truss bridge as all that should be fully compatible with DCC if I do upgrade to a DCC model later. Plus, there were not a lot of RTR DCC sets I really liked; I am likely going to have to buy a separate DCC loco that speaks to me ascetically.