Pilgrim is an exciting project under development.

I remember many years ago seeing a film of the late Bob Symes' Gauge 1 (or larger?) class 47 diesel electric loco and being totally fascinated by it. Following early development by the late Barry Reeves, his Pilgrim concept was taken over by David Clarke. When the chance came to take over the name and development of a production model I just couldn't resist.

The prototype I bought had it's limitations (to say the least) as a railway locomotive and I have completely redesigned it and the result can be seen in the photos. The idea was to make it practical to use and to keep the overall height and width suitable for use in a 16mm locomotive.

When fully developed Pilgrim will be available as a complete ready-to-run locomotive, a running chassis or as a drop-in power unit to fit in the chassis of your choice. It is perfectly suitable for 16mm but, being relatively bulky, it is also suitable for Gauges 1 & 3.

As can be seen in the photos, it uses a four stroke glow-plug engine to drive a generator. The output from the generator is used to drive a traction motor. Two channel radio control controls the speed of the four stroke engine and the output from the generator. Before the loco is running, the generator is used as a starter motor using a remote motorcycle type battery for power.

The unit works. It runs, it's very controllable, it's very heavy and very powerful. Make no mistake, this is a chunky beast!

A little more development work needs to be done before it can be released into the wild from safe captivity here and I have decided that I really must do some regular development work on it and get it ready. After a lot of early development work, Pilgrim has languished in this state for too long.

The development unit is sitting on a simple 4 wheel test chassis and I haven't yet decided what a production modl will consist of but it will inevitably be larger than Salem.

I hope shortly to post a video of Pilgrim running.