Bluford Shops - 65061 - Open Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel - Pittsburg & Shawmut - 8652

Specific Item Information: Pittsburg & Shawmut was another in the pantheon of pocket sized coal haulers loading trainload after trainload of Pennsylvania's finest black diamonds to market. Where is the “h” in Pittsburg, you might ask? The railroad adopted the P&S name in 1909. The city added an h to the end of “Pittsburg” four years later but the railroad refused to change it. P&S joined the Genesee & Wyoming shortline group in 1996.

Model Information: 2016 - Bluford Shops is proud to announce an all new body style for your N scale freight car fleet. These 8-Panel 2-Bay Hoppers have never been available before in N. These ready-to-run cars feature: 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; load; body mounted magnetically operating knuckle couplers; close coupling; and Fox Valley Models metal wheels.

Prototype History: In the 1960s, Chesapeake & Ohio’s earliest offset side hoppers were coming due for rebuilding. Rather than fabricating new offset sides, C&O’s Raceland Shops opted for new sides with 8 full length panels joined with external ribs. This made the cars cheaper to rebuild and maintain. It also extended the service lives of the cars into the 1980s. C&O would go on to rebuild over 15,000 cars into 8-panel hoppers. Baltimore & Ohio sent many of their offset side hoppers over to the Raceland Shops of their sister road C&O for rebuilding into 8-panel hoppers. By this time, B&O had adopted C&O’s Futura demi-bold lettering for reporting marks and road numbers but B&O’s capitol dome logo persisted. These cars also operated well into the 1980s.

Road Name History: The Pittsburg and Shawmut Railroad (reporting mark PSR), also known as the Shawmut Line, was a short line railroad company operating passenger and freight service on standard gauge track in central and southwestern Pennsylvania. Since 2004, it has been operated as part of the Buffalo and Pittsburgh Railroad, which is owned by Genesee & Wyoming Inc.

The Pittsburg and Shawmut Railroad Company began life on July 21, 1903 as the Brookville and Mahoning Railroad, leased by the Pittsburg, Shawmut and Northern Railroad. When the PS&N declared bankruptcy in 1905, the B&M was spun off into a separate entity and was renamed in 1909 due to confusion with the Boston and Maine Railroad's initials. Like its parent, the P&S was also financially troubled in its early years. The company struggled until corporate fortunes improved with the war mobilization of the 1940s. Coal was the principle commodity for the line for its entire existence. Doodlebugs and passenger trains ran on the route in the early years but had all been eliminated by 1939.

The spelling of Pittsburgh as Pittsburg derives from the company's origins in the Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern Railroad. That company was chartered in 1899 when the official spelling of the name of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was without the "h". The city name was spelled Pittsburg from 1891 to 1911 due to an effort by the United States government to standardize the spelling of place names in the United States.

Brand/Importer Information: Bluford Shops began in 2007 as a side project of two model railroad industry veterans, Craig Ross and Steve Rodgers. They saw a gap between road names available on N scale locomotives but not available on cabooses. They commissioned special runs of Atlas cabooses in Atlantic Coast Line, Central of Georgia, Monon, Boston & Maine and Southern plus runs on Grand Trunk Western and Central Vermont on the MDC wooden cabooses. While these were in process, they began to develop their first all new tooling project, 86' Auto Parts Boxcars in double door and quad door editions in N scale. By January of 2008, Bluford Shops became a full time venture. Along with additional N scale freight cars and their own tooling for new cabooses, they have brought their own caboose line to HO scale. They also have their popular Cornfields in both HO and N. The future looks bright as they continue to develop new products for your railroad.

The town of Bluford in southern Illinois featured a small yard on Illinois Central's Edgewood Cutoff (currently part of CN.) The yard included a roundhouse, concrete coaling tower (which still stands) and large ice house. Reefer trains running between the Gulf Coast and Chicago were re-iced in Bluford. Things are more quiet now in Bluford with the remaining tracks in the yard used to stage hoppers for mines to the south and store covered hoppers. Intersecting the IC line in Bluford is Southern Railway's (currently NS) line between Louisville and St. Louis. Traffic on this single track line remains relatively heavy.