After two months of dedicated building, OcTRAINber 2022 saw a somewhat smaller but very high quality set of entries. This year’s challenge was quite a big one, and it’s safe to say that everyone who participated rose to the occasion quite well. Today, I’m quite proud to announce the winners of this year’s OcTRAINber: Rebuilds & Retrofits challenge. 

Last weekend, Cale Leiphart, Matt Csenge, and myself were joined in judging by a staple competitor and many-time OcTRAINber winner: Alexander, also known online as “narrow_gauge”. Together, the four of us reviewed these great entries and picked out the winners. Alexander’s got a keen eye for the LEGO train modeling hobby and his contributions, both to the judging and the hobby, are stellar. Many thanks, Alexander, for participating in the judging this year!

Before I get to the winners, let’s take a quick review of what they’ve won this year, shall we?

The Prizes

BrickTracks has contributed several sets of switches for the winners. Each winner of the four main categories will receive one R104 Switch Track Set, while the Grand Prize winner will be getting three!

BMR Gift Card

Each of the four category winners will receive a $30 Gift Card for the BMR shop, and the Grand Prize winner will receive a BMR Gift Card worth $40!

Without further ado, let’s get to the announcements!

This Year’s Winners:

Winner: Buildings and Structures

Gilles Lessard has brought us the story of a flatcar that was eventually repurposed into a pedestrian bridge at a Golf Course, and has built both an excellent model of the flatcar in its rolling stock days as well as its later life ‘photo stock’ days after being converted into a bridge; including two seasons in his diorama to represent both the wintry weather in which he skied under it as well as a wedding photoshoot he found in his searches for more reference material.

This is both an excellent pair of models, and a great fit into this year’s theme. Congratulations, Gilles!

Winner: Steam Locomotive

Ts__ certainly seems to have been hit heavy with inspiration and drive this year, having built two physical models and digitally designing a third. This odd duck of a locomotive was initially built as a streamlined cab-forward steam locomotive that burned, of all things, coal dust, before later being rebuilt as a more traditional engine to make something useful out of it after its performance proved unsatisfactory.

Ts__ has captured all three time periods of this locomotive in great detail, but furthermore has managed the impressive task of making them actually run; a feat I was quite honestly not expecting from the streamlined engine. It’s crazy to see just how big of a change this steam engine went through!

Winner: Rolling Stock

Denis Garnier’s curious little snowplow started life as both a tender and an unrelated electric locomotive, before the railroad essentially kit-bashed them together into this 3-axle rotary snowplow. Denis has modeled both the tender that provided the frame as well as the snowplow created from it, both with an excellent level of detail and a system to motorize the snowplow’s blower. The shapes and textures of both models are exemplary, and do a great job of representing two pieces of rolling stock that look entirely different at a glance – but have their common components clearly represented to those who give it a closer look.

Winner: Other Locomotive

Scruffulous’s Rail Tractor is an incredibly well-realized set of models depicting a very interesting transformation of its constituent parts. Apparently a fan of repurposing the frames of their I Wagons, the Victorian Railways solved a motive power need by installing a tractor onto one of these frames to power it via chain drive, and then built a cab around it.

Scruffulous’ models are all amazingly detailed, the Rail Tractor is motorized, and the 3D printed parts he’s created for the handrails really feel like they add to the model. The detailing of the springs and the bearing boxes is inspired, and the shape of the tractor on the front of the locomotive is unmistakable. Fantastic work!

Winner: Grand Prize

Through both his builds and the WIP story, Hod Carrier has shown an incredibly fine example of what serious LEGO model railroading is all about. Two trains, three units each, and an amazing amount of work to faithfully recreate a multitude of complex and subtle curves and shapes. Not content with that, the models are motorized and the passenger version includes an interior; in addition to the fantastic new method of close-coupled articulation he’s developed to keep the space between the cars to a minimum.

The amount of design work and research put into this somewhat obscure bit of rail history is impressive, and the final product seems well-worth the time put into it. Great builds, Hod!

Final Words

As always, thanks to everybody who participated in OcTRAINber this year; be it competitors or those who took the time to encourage the participants. This year’s theme was perhaps a bit daunting, but you all met the challenge well and produced some great models with fascinating histories. 

I’d also like to once again thank Narrow_Gauge for joining us in judging these models. I’ve always loved seeing his amazing entries, and it was really cool to have his perspective involved in our review this year.

And, finally, once more, congratulations to all the winners of OcTRAINber 2022!