Bluford Announces a NEW Model: 2-Bay Offset Side Hoppers

Bluford Shops announced they will be producing a new N Scale model: 2-Bay Offset Side Hoppers. The announcement was on May 15th and Bluford declared the delivery date would be early 2018. Bluford provided June 26th as a deadline for pre-orders. Craig Ross is usually pretty good at delivering when he says he will so we expect to see these new cars by March of 2018.

Paint schemes & Road Numbers
These cars will be available in 8 different paint schemes. They will be priced at $24.95 each for singles, $49.90 for two-packs and $74.85 for three-packs. As is typical for Bluford, if you want one each of the available road numbers you need to buy the single AND the two-pack (and three pack also if it is offered). The road number on the single is different than the numbers on the 2-packs which in turn are different than the numbers on the 3-packs. Three-packs will only be offered for certain road names: C&O, D&H, Frisco and Reading. The other road names will only have singles and 2-packs.

Features
This new model features a die cast slope sheet-hopper bay-center sill assembly; injection molded plastic sides, ends and hopper doors; fully molded brake tank, valve and air lines; body mounted brake hose detail; body mounted magnetically operating knuckle couplers; and Fox Valley chemically-blackened metal wheels. The model will also come with a load (coal presumably).

Our Two Cents
At TroveStar we love to see the body-mounted couplers and high-quality wheels. Trucks designed for metal wheels always seem to work better than when you add metal wheels to trucks that were designed for plastic wheels. Our only gripe is that for us folks that like to run trains, we handle them a lot and those air lines in the Bluford models tend to break (no pun intended) off easily.

Here's a link to the Bluford Shops product description.

Thank you Craig for another fine model.