Bluford Shops - 14283 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Ribside - Pittsburg & Shawmut - 3-Pack

Prototype History: 70 ton 3-bay rib side hoppers were a common sight on most railroads in the 20th century, These cars were built by most of the major railcar manufacturers as well as by many of the Class I railroads themselves. They were used for non weather sensitive matrial such as coal and were designed to take a beating.

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.