Hornby Trains: Going Digital - Advice Please?

[generationx]

Hi experts,

I recently bought this Hornby Flying Scotsman set as something to dabble with on wet Sunday afternoons:

https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/the-flying-scotsman-t...

Together with some of the track extension packs which will extend the layout to twin oval.

The next step will be to go Digital so I can run more than one train at a time. I have questions:

Is it better to stick with Hornby stuff or are there better alternatives for the Digital hardware?

Is the easiest way to buy one of the Hornby Digital train sets (effectively gaining a controller and a Digital train in the process) or to buy a more sophisticated controller and the required Digital chips?

On a twin-oval do I need a power lead to each one or does the one supply cover the whole layout?

I'm only a casual user (so far) so nothing needs to be too sophisticated!

Thanks in advance...

[StephenP]

Spec says it's DCC ready so should be fine with any of the various brands of DCC digital kit. The decoders just plug in to a socket in the loco/tender.

I use NCE kit for my N-gauge but there are quite a few brands to choose from and you can usually mix and match when it comes to decoders, digital sound, etc.

Good place to start might be ....
http://www.digitrains.co.uk/dcc-guide/
https://www.hornby.com/uk-en/support/hornby-digita...

DCC can seem daunting to some but it's pretty simple really!

[W124Bob]

Talk to these guys http://www.digitrains.co.uk very helpful and well worth a visit if you're near Lincoln. Register on one of the railway forums ,RMweb is as good as any and checkout the dcc section. One big advantage of dcc is decoders allow you to tune a loco motor , the better quality decoders are worth buying rather than generic Hornby or Bachmann ones. Lenz, Zimo and ESU are the names to watch out for. All three make a variety of systems and decoders , even their budget decoders(Lenz and Zimo) are technically superior to Hornby and Bachmann.