Golden Eagle

Can be searched, found and pre-ordered at both Rails and Kernow, if that’s of any use?

Oh well…thought they might due Union of South Africa in its original Garter Blue as an easy win to complement the forthcoming Coronation carriages…guess I shall have to acquire then muster the courage to renumber Empire of India…

Four for me… my childhood Silver Fox in original livery and my sister’s Mallard in blue. Golden Eagle in lined green and Silver King in the original silver grey. Would like to add a Coronation A4, preferably Union of South Africa in steel-lettered coronation blue livery. For purely sentimental reasons, I could imagine one or other Dominion being added to that…

Likewise, hoping for a “Union of South Africa” in original “Coronation” livery to match the coaches for which I finally gave in and preordered! Either that or I’m going to have to give in and progress from being a “cheque-book” modeller to actually building and painting one myself…

Written a mere 298 years after the Union of the Crowns or 194 years after the Union of Parliaments, I fear you may be conflating “English” and “British”. By all means adopt “Jerusalem”…of which the first verse asks fours questions, for each of which the answer is an unequivocal “No!”. (That said, I’d be delighted if Scotland replaced “Flower of Scotland” with the far more positive (and tuneful!) “Scotland the Brave”.)

Have to confess that, on seeing the tape, I did have a "But I haven't ordered anything!" moment...until I actually got into the box! A very welcome surprise!

Fantastic news! Might get my early Xmas present to myself before Xmas after all! 😀

I saw that too and raised an eyebrow. The British Police History website has an (undated) picture of Devon Constabulary officers parading with fixed bayonets (fourth page of the album here so it appears not to be a unique occurrence. The only other reference I have found simply states that: The First World War saw the increased arming of virtually every police branch across the UK, with the main aim being to discourage sabotage by infiltrated foreign agents and in case of enemy invasion. War, once again, in 1939 saw rifles issued in limited numbers to the police for the first time for the defence of key police stations against acts of sabotage. These rifles were largely outdated Ross rifles, demonstrating the perceived low importance of armed police by the Home Office even at a time of war. Following the end of the war virtually all the rifles, as well as significant numbers of pistols and revolvers, were withdrawn from police service.

Then you need two Reed switches. If your locomotive turns around, PaulRhB and KevinLMS’ suggestion of putting a magnet at the side of the locomotive and positioning one Reed switch on either side of the track and triggering your effects depending on which switch activates. If your train shuttles back and forward without turning, you need to watch the order in which the Reed switches close. The former is straightforward. The latter is not complex, but would require some basic electronic design and construction skills (or use of something like an Arduino microcontroller…though that would (IMO) be using a sledgehammer to crack a nut).

Prompted by Hornby’s Cornonation set and it’s beavertail observation car: How was the observation car turned between journeys? Was it taken off to the nearest turntable?

Sorry! There are two types of magnetic switch (that I know of!). One is the Reed switch. As you know, this simply closes a mechanical connection in the presence of a magnetic field. It responds best to a parallel magnetic field and cannot distinguish between north and south poles of a magnet, so you can’t use one Reed switch to tell you which way a train is running. With a small number of extra components you could set up two Reed switches and trigger your effects depending on whether switch A closes before Switch B (travel is in one direction) or Switch B closes before Switch A (travel is in the other direction). The other type of magnetic switch is a “Hall-effect sensor”. These usually respond to the presence of a “south pole”, but you can get sensors which activate in the presence of a north pole. That would allow you to set up the locomotives as you describe, with a magnet oriented according to the direction of travel. Another way which might work (if you use analogue controls without an HF track cleaner) would be to measure the voltage across the rails. Positive is one direction, negative the other. A single Reed switch then triggers the relevant effect. Again, this comes down to how confident you feel about designing and building electronic circuits.

Reed switches are not pole-specific, however Hall-effect sensors are (and come in both “south-sensing” and (less commonly) “north-sensing” versions). Depending on how good you are with electronics, you could try those, or (possibly easier) place a pair of Reed switches separated by a short distance and observe in which order they operate (which would also have the advantage that you’re not committed to running the same loco in the same direction every time.

Not... quite...too late...Baseboards are sealed, built and mounted on frames, all the track is laid out and I glued down the cork for the links between between shed, terminus and (future) main lines...this afternoon. (Glued cork shown below in blue). I adopted the advice above and have simply used the main lines between shed and station. I don't think I've got the length to be able to bring the carriage headshunt back into the main lines without doing something odd in the tunnel in the top left corner. However, I could move the connection into the pilot siding into the headshunt/carriage sidings (green) to get rid of the specific facing point which you highlighted. End-loading platforms can be added "south" of platform 3 (I've shown two, but suspect one would be sufficient(?). Alternatively maybe a second end-loading platform would provide somewhere for the station pilot without the need for a dedicated siding? The loco coal trains I plan to run into and out of the shed will be 12x 20t wagons but my thoughts are to deliver them directly into the shed from the Down line (empties heading Up) without needing to shunt them via the terminus. While I might be able to change the point at the end of platform one for a double-slip onto platform two and thus provide access from both platforms to a "right-shifted" coach headshunt and sidings, I can't see a way (within the available space and geometry) of giving platform 3 that access without the need for ECS shunts along the departure mainline, then back into platform 2, which feels "clunky"...

A fair point. If I had not made it clear above, this is one "module" of a larger layout. So far, the MPD exists and has been built. This is the next module. Ultimately this terminus will feed into (at least) a circuit/out-and-back, probably with a through station and (hopefully) with some other areas of interest as space/time allow.

So...24h later than planned, courtesy of work... Terminal flipped around the N-S axis, dedicated roads to MPD scrapped and carriage sidings moved to the north. Engines will simply run down the main line to a turnout to the MPD (not shown). Slip allows access from carriage sidings to any platform and (I think) is the fastest way to clear the platforms and keep the Up and Down mainlines clear. The alternative would be to use the "Down" mainline as the carriage headshunt, reverse the slip, join Up and Down lines somewhere else...and it probably could be done, but the pointwork gets quite messy. In short, I'm back to almost the original Minories track plan, with some carriage sidings bolted on... One thing I have left off iis the headshunt which Minories had coming off the track to Platform 3 (the short one). Was there a prototypical purpose for that? Or was it to add operating interest?