NKP 16103

This Nickel Plate Road 40' Boxcar is a Branchline Yardmaster kit, now sold under the Atlas marque, like the Bowser kit it is a good robust model. I like these kits having built a few over time and they first turned me on to hardware for weighting purposes, they come with two M12 hexnuts to use as weights! An ingenious use of a readily available and cheap resource.

The builder has the option of modeling the doors as working or fixed shut. The ends and roof a separate parts so it makes for easier modeling of cars with different end or roof colours based on prototype. It was common in the 40s/50s for the ends and/or roofs to be black while the car sides boxcar brown. This batch of NKP cars had black roofs and ends and Branchline painted them accordingly. The only thing I had to correct was the brake wheel colour as that was brown in the kit and should be black to match the prototype.

Even the Yardmaster line of Branchline car kits came with RP25 metal wheels so no need to substitute. I drilled out the pins on the coupler covers in order to replace them with threaded screws and then fitted Kadee #158s. Again I fitted Kadee trainline hoses and Detail Associates cut lever bars. This time painted black and then weathered the whole car for 1953-56.