Builder: Nick Dombi
Region: Americas
Category entered:
Year entered: 2023
Brand of building bricks used:
LEGO
Since 2026, the Brick Train Awards have accepted models created with other LEGO®-compatible construction brick systems.
About Nickel Plate Road 97000-series 36ft Single Sheath Boxcar by Nick Dombi
Contrary to the popular notion of calling single sheath boxcars "Fowler's," the Toledo St. Louis & Western (The Clover Leaf Route) ordered their 36ft single sheaths from Haskell & Barker in 1914. 500 Cars were built in Michigan City Indiana and numbered numbered 7000-7499 for the Clover Leaf Route, and later changed to the 97000 series by the Nickel Plate Road in 1922. These boxcars were mostly phased out by the start of World War II by modern 40ft steel designs, but a few had their roofs removed to be converted to Coke haulers. After the war the remaining Clover Cars went from west Toledo to the east side to end their days at Interlake Iron on the Wheeling & Lake Erie Division. None survived past the mid-1950s or into preservation, making this a tricky build. Thankfully Accurail made a model of this car in both the Nickel Plate and Clover Leaf versions, which helped serve as a physical reference while trying to piece together other small details.
Single Sheath boxcars with their outer bracing present their own unique challenge to build in Lego. Peering over diagrams from the Nickel Plate Road Historical and Technical society, my HO scale models, and what little photos do exist of those cars *probably* in the shot by chance, I concluded that the main body needed to be 7 studs wide, which the roof and bracing would be the traditional 8 studs wide for size of the boxcar. This created a very intricate design somehow does not show any stability issues in Stud.io, and the images submitted only lack the threads that would hold the cross braces in. The underframe reflects the correct steel frame with Triple K Brake Rigging in between the bogies.
Should this car be physically built, it would use BMR Kadee Knuckle Couplers, Roller Bearings, Studly Trains double clips, brown flex hoses, and brown thread to hold the cross braces in. The rest of the given elements would be 100% genuine lego parts.