Bluford Shops - 14272 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Ribside - Montour - 2-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 Montour was established in 1877 to connect a large coal mine in Imperial to a connection with the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie in Coraopolis, in southwestern Pennsylvania. As mining in the area increased, so did the railroad. During the Depression, Montour served 27 mines along its 50-something miles of line. In 1946, Montour was jointly purchased by Pittsburgh & Lake Erie and Pennsylvania Railroad. P&LE picked up full control in 1975. For much of its history, Montour used only the letter “M” as its official reporting mark. Later this was changed to MTR when the Association of American Railroads began to frown upon single letter reporting marks. In 1984, the last coal mine closed and the remaining 23 miles of the Montour Railroad was abandoned.

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.