Locomotive Roster: Piko 94207; Ille De France BB 25600

Another video review, this time of a locomotive I covered a bit last month in my post on the "Sad Tale of the Ille de France".    I don't have any new photographs of this locomotive to accompany the video, so it'll be just the presentation of this video review this time.  But I also thought I might use this post to share other thoughts.

Anyway, overall this locomotive from Piko gets a score of 4 out of 5.   There are still plenty available if your are interested.  As an extra bonus, if you are looking for the IDF color scheme these seem to be offered at blow out prices as well!

One thing I don't mention in the video, which I later discovered as I was editing it together, is that it seems that the "Ill de France" livery is being replaced by the "Transilien" brand and livery.  I'm not sure how to feel about that as the 'red, white and blue' are sort of iconic in my opinion (even if not particularly flashy) and having rode at least one line under this color scheme (RER line C from Champ de Mars to Versailles) in (I believe) a Z20500, it will have a special place for me.  The below photo is from 2010.

 

Any rail traveller (in fact, any visitor!) to Paris will likely notice this color scheme.  Here a couple of the BB 25600 'cousins' sit North of Gare du Nord which I shot coming in on the Eurostar from London back in 2004.

In 2011, my son and I had the unique chance to visit Europe to meet up with my parents (my Dad's life-long wish to visit Normandy and a chance for both of my parents to visit Europe [Rome, Venice, Brige, Frankfurt, Paris, and then Normandy] which they have never been to before.  Well, my son and I spent a few days doing some train-spotting in Paris, mostly at Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon, which is honestly a lot of train action for most Americans!  It was a pretty awesome day.  At Gare du Nord another BB17000 (cousin to the BB25600) was captured!