Bluford Shops - 73971 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Offset - Delaware-Lackawanna - 84950

Prototype History: 70 ton 3-bay offset side hoppers first appeared in the late 20s and by the late 30s had become an AAR standard design with cars being delivered from a number of builders in large quantities to railroads across the country. The last of these cars were delivered in the mid-'60s and many remained in service through the 80s.

Road Name History: This busy 88 mile line was launched in 1993 by the Genesee Valley Transportation shortline group (not to be confused with Genesee & Wyoming.) The D-L consists of three routes radiating from Scranton, Pennsylvania. One is a former Delaware & Hudson line, one a former Delaware Lackawanna & Western line and the third is a former Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley route. Their locomotive fleet is a rolling museum of Alcos including RS32, RS11, C420, RS3 (in both long hood forward and short hood forward arrangements,) C424, C425, M630, and C636 models. The GVT group paint scheme is gray white and black but many D-L locomotives are in “heritage colors” including Erie Lackawanna colors (with D-L name) on some of the Centuries and D&H black and yellow (with D-L lettering) on several RS3’s. There are also at least two units with the full heritage treatment, a Lehigh Valley C420 and Jersey Central RS3.

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.