Flying Pig

I confidently expect that the motion on Eric Treacy will be the usual bright nickel silver plating. It doesn't represent steel that well, but it will be no worse on this model than on any of the previous ones.

Yes, of course. Just as mineral working on the steam age railway was shaped by outside factors. My point in this instance was that long trains and large locos are not per se impossible within the confines of Britain.

Model the fiddle yard as the inner end of a set of exchange sidings and you have the full branch, with the added bonus of shunting at both ends.

As others have pointed out, it's more nuanced than that. Block trains of high capacity wagons hauled by 3000+hp locos have become the norm in recent decades and Britain hasn't grown in the meantime. What has changed utterly is the traffic and the operations and infrastructure that support it.

Ah, sorry. If you look at the main Black Five thread there are recent photos which show it in this livery with polished smokebox hinges and motion, so I guess the answer is still yes - the model depicts the current condition.

The loco was named in preservation, so yes.

Seems to be correct according to @zr2498's photos above as this is of course a model of the loco in preserved condition. Rods and smokebox door will probably look like 5200 on the actual model.

The 'For Sale' video popped up on my Youtube feed this morning for some reason. I hadn't been paying attention to this thread and it's always a bit of an 'oh no' moment when a layout you like is put up for sale. Glad to hear it had a good outcome.

Compared to the Hornby system (below) that steam generator seems quite a bit more convincing. For a start, the exhaust emerges at a higher speed which results in a realistic transition from a laminar column to a turbulent cloud just above the chimney top (all to do with Reynolds numbers I think). Also the cloud stays aloft longer whereas the Hornby one looks like a portable rain shower - finer droplets from the TRS unit?

Quite a number of people have used the Electrotren chassis which as you day can look very good indeed. I'd completely forgotten about this item. The working signal impressed me at the time: I guess it was a very simple mechanical linkage, but it still looks like fun.

I get rather tired of the Waah! that Flying Scotsman attracts. It's the only A3 that made it into preservation and without it we'd have none of Gresley's original Pacifics (insert arguments about it's not an A1 here).

Fortunately this one was sold out or I might have been tempted.

You might be interested in this old thread:

I've read claims by Hunter pilots that they used that effect to fake supersonic overflight of US bases. The Hunter would go supersonic in a dive, but was firmly subsonic in level flight.

I'm not sure Hornby understand it either. This (below) looks ominously like they're looking at new rabbit holes to dart down. They really should have learned that lesson by now. From the reactions it has attracted, the Black Five is clearly a mess - if they'd just designed it like the Princess Royal it would have been fine and probably cheaper to develop and produce. I don't know why they feel they need to chase novelty.