This is my new Hornby 2P, renumbered for 40601, one of the Bath allocation (although I've yet to do the smokebox number, not having any of the right numbers in stock). There's a nice photo in one of Ivo Peters' books showing this loco in lined black with "British Railways" on the tender. The Hornby one came out of the box as 40610 so I decided to see if I could get away with just changing the last two digits.

Other than weathering, adding crew and lamp irons, about all I've done to it is shorten the loco/tender drawbar. I've got another one in S&D blue to ring the changes and now I quite fancy an LMS example.

Whether you can live with the Airfix-style tender-drive is a matter of taste, I suppose, but for general layout running, rather than ultra-slow shunting or start/stops, I've always found it perfectly OK and the two examples I have do run quite nicely, especially given the good pick-up arrangement on the 2P, whereby the bogie is also wired.