Hornby Royal Train
The royal train was first modelled by Hornby in 1984 and consisted of a mixture of Mk2 BFKs and the shortened Mk3 coach models of the time. The latter included a Duke of Edinburgh's parlour car which used the standard Mk3 open first model and the Queen's car which was an adapted Mk3 tourist open which had double doors. Since the Mk3 coaches were retooled in 1999, the new open first was used for both the Queen's and Duke's parlour cars and two royal household cars. The Mk2 BFK remained in use as the royal household couchette.
Now Hornby have added four new cars to the train. These make use of the 1999 model of a buffet car and 1st class open and the ex-Lima model of a Mk3 sleeping car. All are in the royal train deep purple livery, the catering car being numbered 2917 (R4403) and the sleeping car 10734 (R4403). The Queen's (R4400) and Duke's (R4401) saloons are identical, except for their running number which is 2903 on the former and 2904 on the latter. Both have all the window curtains in the closed position.
