Pilgrimbus

Wow. Well done Bachmann! This is going to be a very expensive quarter.

45118 is sat in front of me as I write this, complete with its chunky grey plastic “cradle”. It doesn’t look right, there’s no avoiding that, but it is not as bad in the flesh as appears in the photos. That’s probably an eyesight thing. It is a shame though as there are so many features that are very pleasing and I find myself wishing that the Bachmann model had. The bogie detail and pipe work is superb, as are the factory applied ETH jumpers and cables. The roof fan is exquisite, though my example has some brown tape and wires immediately underneath. What is less good are the white plastic handrails. I’ve no problem with them being plastic, but all eight have varying degrees of moulding flash which will be difficult to clean up without actually removing them from the body. Also strange that the long bodyside grilles have representation of the body frame under the louvres but the rectangular grille does not. Or rather, it does, but very faintly. The cab interior is a thing of beauty, maybe not quite up there with the Bachmann 47 or Accurascale models, but a big step forward for model Peaks.

The seat moulding for the toilet vehicle on both NSE and Thameslink liveries has just one toilet (not to the accessible toilet profile) where there should be two, one on each side. This is hard to spot on the NSE version because that has the correct bodyshell with small toilet window on both sides. The TL bodyshell would be accurate for the last couple of years of service where accessible toilets had been fitted. However, the only liveries suitable for this bodyshell are the basic light grey or Northern.