We have finally gotten around the elephant in the room for many
modellers – The Revell London bus – or the RML Routemaster in 1/24th scale. I say elephant because the box is so big – and the fact that it is a
really tempting subject to model for not
just bus enthusiasts – but most modellers – whether you are British or not have
seen this box and though “I’d like to make that”. Lets have a look at it before
we start to build it…
A mountain of plastic awaits you on opening this box 
The "Leyland" engine - really a AEC AV590
I am going to disregard the Scania unit as it was not used
in either of these busses and probably not many RMLs – this is a shame and it
should have been noted earlier in production of this kit – unless someone needs
this engine it’s a throw away unfortunately.The Scannia Engine
The main parts that stand out at you when you open the box
are the rounded body front pieces and the rear of the bus. These do strike a chord
when you see them – the shape is recognizable but a slight bit different
especially at the front of the bus – in the pictures below you can see the
differences – not all RM’s stayed stock I know – but the shape out his bus
seems a little too squat at the top – there is a very slight point at the top
of the Routemaster and it is just a little flat here. Working down the picture
we can see some little inconsistencies - where the destination number separates
from the place names is a little too think, the bracket detail is a little too pronounced
– as is all of the rivet detail – an easy fix with a quick light sanding.
The detail is here - it is basic but at the same time it's not too complicated - a compromise - you can always add more if you like 
Review:
Revell Kit No: 07651 London Bus Pt I.
Scale: 1/24
Material: Styrene
Sprues: 20 + (incl 3 clear)
+ 3 body shell[arts
No. of parts: 390
Decals for
two RML Routemasters
Length 305 mm
Wingspan 417 mm
Skill Level: 5
Available from: www.revell.eu
I first saw this bus in the flesh at Scale ModelWorld in
Telford last November – and I knew I wanted to make it - so I waited for the release – it was only a
week or do ago that I got it – and I can say that the postman nearly bust a gut
getting up my stairs – it is BIG! At 52cm wide x 42cm High x 11.5cm deep) the
box is as big as or slightly bigger than the 1/32 He-111 Revell released last
year.
The box is piled full with plastic - twenty sprues of light and
medium grey styrene which also includes three sprues of clear plastic transparencies
(plus three rounded body shell parts), six rubber tyres and an A3 sized decal
sheet - all coming in at a price tag of £35 in England I don’t know how many
people COULD resist. There is a fair bit of flash on some of the larger sprues and some injection marks in places where you tend not to see them - and on most pieces there is a mould seam. This takes a little cleaning up but as long as you don't mind a bit of clean-up the plastic is in good shape.
I do get suspicious at lots of plastic at a low price – maybe it is the pessimist in me – Let’s see what we can make of the instructions… 
I do get suspicious at lots of plastic at a low price – maybe it is the pessimist in me – Let’s see what we can make of the instructions…
In the usual comic book style the Revell instructions are on
black and white paper and include all the usuals - the sprue layout, colours in
Revell paints, and then the construction process. Twenty eight pages of lots of
repetition I can see already – lots of chairs and windows gave me pause – but the
prospect of the shiny red bus was too great!
Sprue A and Sprue Q are the two engines for the bus – Sprue A
is labelled “Leyland Engine” - Well in reality this is an AEC AV590 engine – I looked
for ages for the Leyland version but the AEC is what a majority of these RML’s
used – some were later converted to Cummings or Iveco engines but maybe only a
few were Scania powered (they were used on the regular shorter RM buses instead) – and certainly not the two buses depicted here!
This Leyland engine looks very much like the pictures of Leyland’s
I have seen and although you will have to add your own wiring and a fair bit of
hydraulic plumbing it looks fair enough to pass for my eyes. I made sure when I
built my engine I did include the major wiring and plumbing that was common to
the AEC’s I had pictures of.
Revell's biggest fan....
You can see the shape here as i temporarily fastened these two front halves together
The main problem I have with this front end is the front
window for the driver is too small and not wide enough. Also the front wings
are not the right shape along with the front guards on each side that need to
be tapered at the front a little more. The front fender wings do not extend low
enough – they resemble more the RM type fender without the two grille faces
either side and do not in this form cover the bottom of the radiator like they
should - Phew-
..Having said that – this picture may be skewed – the image
is taken with another different lens etc. To me it looks close enough to build
and enjoy. There will be people who just cannot except that but I think that
even though they will know more than I ever will on the Routemaster I will not
really care and just build the thing! I will let you make up your mind on this
one – Whether you can live with it or not. At least you know - to me I am happy
with what I a can make out of this one.
The rear section of
the bus is pretty nice but I do not like the shape of the top rear window as
much as I would like too – it seems too wide at the bottom. Again the surface
detail is nice but a bit on the strong side. Otherwise it looks pretty nice to
me.
The comparison with the real thing
The underside of the bus is pretty plain in the way that there
is mostly the required detail – but not a lot of it and what there is is basic.
The kit has no real detail for the suspension and the two part chassis is
represented by two frames that the rest of the bus is bolted on to. The front
wheels turn left and right together in tandem with a very basic version of the front axle represented here holding them
together. The whole structure goes together really easily and as long as you
give a sideways glance to the instructions you can’t go wrong.
The rear section of the axle is attached directly to the under-floor
of the vehicle – this allows you to secure most of the parts invisibly by
applying the glue on the “roof” of the floor. As long as you follow the instructions
it is actually as easy as you want it to be this section. (Make sure you don’t put the mudguards on
backwards like they want you too in step 13) I suppose most people leave this
the bare silver colours without dressing it up – I would like to grime mine up at least a little if it is a
London bus.
A simple rear axle and drive shaft glues straight into the floor
You can easily secure the chassis and running gear from the "roof" of the floor plan
Sprue B contains the back axle and the large chassis from the font of the bus - there wasnt the expected mould seam on the chassis so i was quite happy. This sprue also houses the fan-blade which is a little thick but well detailed. The exhaust which does have a mould seam on it and the inside front guard from the engine bay.
Sprue C is the bottom deck of the bus which sits directly on
top of the floor pan of the bus. It is well detailed with the corrugated floor
which you should check your references before painting – the materials and
colours changed a lot depending on what bus you want to make You would do well to check your references on the colours on the insides of this bus as revell say to make it grey - its in fact a dark red/purple colour
Included on sprue B is the roof of the lower deck
The lower deck of the bus at the London Transport Museum
Some skilful weathering and this can be turned in to some nice wooden or for a later rubber/vinyl flooring -
Sprue E contains three of the inside walls of the interior of which the seats slot into to and that the outside frame attaches to. This sprue has the bottom and one of the top frames - the fourth is on sprue F.
The top floor of the top deck resembles the bottom in texture and like the bottom deck has the same non slip surface and the rear entrance section stairwell on it Included on the sprue is the wall frame that the seats slot into
Sprue J contains the insides of the rear of the bus ceiling and the front inside part of the lower level - both look in good shape to me and are well detailed.
Again like the outside the inside rear window is a poor shape at the bottom -
Sprue P is a dinky little sprue compared to the rest - so dinky it got lost in the box and I didn't take a shot before I painted the sprue silver - hope you don't mind ! It contains all of the hand rails for the rear and the stairwell of the bus entryway. These poles should be silver/brass on the older RLM with Yellow for the current "health and safety" variant.
Also here is the all important radiator grille cover - i am not 100% sure of the shape but ill keep my judgement until it is all together on the build. I can foresee me trying to get some mesh grille to put behind this so you can see the radiator.
The seats are set apart on the sprue and although this looks like a lot of repetitive modelling they come off and trim up pretty easily. The seats have a tartan decal on them so you don't have to paint them yourself (more on this later) and are separate to the seat frames which makes them all easy to paint. The colours are again slated wrongly in the instructions for these seats - they should be the maroon almost red-purple on the side of the seats.
The top floor of the top deck resembles the bottom in texture and like the bottom deck has the same non slip surface and the rear entrance section stairwell on it Included on the sprue is the wall frame that the seats slot into
Sprue J contains the insides of the rear of the bus ceiling and the front inside part of the lower level - both look in good shape to me and are well detailed.
Again like the outside the inside rear window is a poor shape at the bottom -
Also here is the all important radiator grille cover - i am not 100% sure of the shape but ill keep my judgement until it is all together on the build. I can foresee me trying to get some mesh grille to put behind this so you can see the radiator.
Sprue I contains the seats and the wheels plus the side advertisement frames.
The wheels are a multi- part affair and there are six of them spread over two different sprues. Having put these together i can say that they are a pain and that you should first dry fit them yourself before finding the right order - after that they are easy - just practice before you glue. The wheels themselves are a good representation of the real thing and look great on. They fit on the rubber tyres quite snugly so no saggy probs there.
Sprue G and Sprue H come as two each and contain the frames of the chairs - these are easy to paint separate from the seats and as long as you clean the seams of them up before you paint this is a time consuming but pleasantly surprising result when you are finished.
The larger sprues left are the two side wall sprues K and L -
Sprue K first - this is dominated by the side wall panels of the bus, and like the rest of the bus it is a little heavy on rivets but looks great once your coat of red is on it!
The side wall in detail
The rest of this sprue has the back stairwell details, the stairs complete with kick-boards and the little cubbyhouse for the conductor. All of the detail of the driver's compartment is on this sprue pretty much with his cabin here
The driver's floor is begging for some paint wear weathering
Sprue L Has the other massive bus middle wall section as well as some more of the rear sections and driver's compartment.
The roof of the bus I thought I would leave to last - you can remove it to see the upper deck - what a lovely treat for modellers who want to show off - pretty much most of all of us!
Can anyone spell T.O.P.L.E.S.S?
There are six "love 'em or hate em" rubber tyres with this bus - i dont particularly like them - but as we will see in the build they go on easily and have no nasty seam around them, they do not sag on the wheel so fingers crossed well see in the build if they weather well, have a good feeling they will from what i have seen of them already.
The transparencies are covered here over four sheets - they are very clear and you won't have any trouble seeing the adverts you will place inside. There are full windows and half windows there. Interestingly there are several windows not used for this version - methinks there are other versions of this bus planned by Revell in the wings
You can see here the clarity of the transparencies by how easy it is too see thru this one
This leads us on neatly to the decals This sheet is nearly as big as the Revell Tornado decals - spanning the whole box pretty much - this A3 sheet says "printed by Revell in Italy - i was thinking maybe by a certain famous decal maker there - you make your own mind up on that one..
This sheet is large and the decals are printed very well on it - leaving a shiny finish and minimal carrier film needed for each i am pretty positive they will go on well - we will see in the build - but they look in register and the colours are not grainy and the whites are strong.
The seats have their own decals which should save quite a bit of frustration and make most people's models look ten times better
The driver's seat decal isn't necessarily needed - i have only seen one vehicle that did not have a plain black seat - i am sure there are variations everywhere though and so it is good to have this as an option. The new emergency exit signs are the newer EEC ones and not suitable of the older version of the Routemaster.
There are two versions catered for here in the decals - RML 2273 which is a plain London bus with no advertising on it.
Version 2 is an RML no:2757 which has lots of the newer advertising on it and the modern "L" shaped ad on the right side for the London aquarium, the left Jacob's crackers and a bit of advertising of "Rod Stewart the musical" on the front top wings -
Both of thee schemes do not really get me going - I think that there is a compromise again here and even the older version 1 couldn't be done with the current decal signs for the insides without disregarding a few issues. the season ticket sign has only one price - not the two you would need for both buses, the capacity doesn't add up to the right total (a schoolboy error? he he) and the measurements of the bus are given in metric and imperial.
This kit has a stack of possibilities for either re-tooling into other versions from Revell or conversions from the aftermarket and scratch building modellers - some of which are on line already - alternative decals are one change I would make - there are companies ou there doing this already or you could make them yourself. Front entrace buses, shortened RM's are easy to envisage now we have this great template. I don't mind cutting something up at the price this is!
I think this will be a winner from Revell - those who don't like the front shape will either have to fix it, leave it or buy a Sunstar diecast metal bus for more than twice as much - and miss out on the fun of building it - isn't that what its all about? I am in!
Adam Norenberg
The seats have their own decals which should save quite a bit of frustration and make most people's models look ten times better
The driver's seat decal isn't necessarily needed - i have only seen one vehicle that did not have a plain black seat - i am sure there are variations everywhere though and so it is good to have this as an option. The new emergency exit signs are the newer EEC ones and not suitable of the older version of the Routemaster.
How many passengers does that add up to?
There are two versions catered for here in the decals - RML 2273 which is a plain London bus with no advertising on it.
Version 2 is an RML no:2757 which has lots of the newer advertising on it and the modern "L" shaped ad on the right side for the London aquarium, the left Jacob's crackers and a bit of advertising of "Rod Stewart the musical" on the front top wings -
Both of thee schemes do not really get me going - I think that there is a compromise again here and even the older version 1 couldn't be done with the current decal signs for the insides without disregarding a few issues. the season ticket sign has only one price - not the two you would need for both buses, the capacity doesn't add up to the right total (a schoolboy error? he he) and the measurements of the bus are given in metric and imperial.
I can see the aftermarket guys making HEAPS of decals for this
This kit has a stack of possibilities for either re-tooling into other versions from Revell or conversions from the aftermarket and scratch building modellers - some of which are on line already - alternative decals are one change I would make - there are companies ou there doing this already or you could make them yourself. Front entrace buses, shortened RM's are easy to envisage now we have this great template. I don't mind cutting something up at the price this is!
I think this will be a winner from Revell - those who don't like the front shape will either have to fix it, leave it or buy a Sunstar diecast metal bus for more than twice as much - and miss out on the fun of building it - isn't that what its all about? I am in!
Adam Norenberg
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