Bluford Shops - BLU-SRM-01 - Open Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel - Alabama & Gulf Coast - 2-Pack

Specific Item Information: Numbers 13012 & 13030
ALABAMA GULF 8 Panel, 2-bay hopper, 2-PACK - Special Run By Bluford Shops - Freelanced Model Series 2-bay open Hopper with Gravel Load. This car represents a car serviced, re-weighed, and patched in 1988, originally lettered for the Birmingham Southern, whose logo is now faded, the new owner, the Alabama Gulf's reporting marks of ALGF are printed in white over a black patch. The ALGF ships gravel in these to customers throughout North America, and also for track rehab projects, so they are sometimes seen in work trains on other railroads.

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: This 348 mile line runs from Amory, Mississippi (just northwest of Columbus in the northeast part of the state), through Columbus and into Alabama. At Kimborough the line splits with one route heading for the gulf port of Mobile, Alabama and the other heading for the port of Pensacola, Florida (on the panhandle.) The company was launched by shortline group StatesRail (the successor to Kyle Railways) in 1997 from a spinoff of the Kimbrough to Pensacola segment. A spinoff of whom, you might ask. Norfolk Southern? No. Surely then, CSX? No. This was a spinoff of BNSF. This is Frisco country and Pensacola marked the southeast corner of the Frisco system, acquired by BN in 1980 and BNSF in '95. In 2003, Alabama & Gulf Coast expanded to their current size thanks to more BNSF spinoffs. The Kimbrough to Mobile segment is actually on trackage rights of NS which BN had secured years before permitting them to downgrade (or abandon) their parallel, lightly built ex-Frisco nee-Alabama Tennessee & Northern line. The north end of the AGR at Amory, Mississippi connects with BNSF's mainline to Birmingham, Alabama. Traffic on the AGR is typically between 1,100 and 1,200 cars per week. States Rail was sold to RailAmerica in 2002 and today the Alabama & Gulf Coast is yet another member of the Genesee & Wyoming shortline group.

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.