Bluford Shops - 73321 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Offset - Chicago Great Western - 59060

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: Chicago Great Western was the result of the 1892 reorganization of the Chicago St. Paul & Kansas City. By 1903, the CGW had grown to its maximum size. The CGW had a vaguely cross-shaped system map. The east-west leg started in Chicago and linked Dubuque, Fort Dodge (both in Iowa) and finally Omaha, Nebraska. The north-south line started in St. Paul, Minnesota and linked Waterloo and Des Moines, Iowa then St. Joseph and Kansas City, Missouri. Each axis consisted of a big arc which put CGW at a distance disadvantage to most other railroads servicing the same region – and there were a lot of railroads in the area.

Passenger service was never a major priority and many trains consisted of doodlebugs and trailers even before World War One. In the 1920s CGW did team up with Santa Fe to run through sleepers from the Twin Cities to Los Angeles.

Big mainline power in the 30s and 40s consisted of a fleet of 3 dozen 2-10-4s. In 1936, CGW launched piggyback service – one of the first in the nation. One piggyback customer was a truck line specializing in hauling steel. Since CGW charged by the trailer, the truck line would take the contents of 3 trailers which had maxed out on highway weight and reload all the steel into a single catastrophically heavy trailer that would ride the flat car. They didn’t tell CGW though. No one was the wiser until the landing gear on a trailer punched through the deck of the flat car and derailed a train at speed!

By 1950, CGW had completely dieselized with a mix of Alco, Baldwin and EMD switchers, Alco and EMD road switchers (the former running long hood forward and the latter equipped with dual controls,) and a sizable fleet of EMD F units. By this time, the Deramus family (who already controlled the Kansas City Southern) had gained control of the CGW. Over the years, they cut costs and services. CGW began holding trains until they reached maximum tonnage. Trains between 150 and 250 cars were a daily occurrance behind A-B-B-B-B-A sets of F units. What’s more, these monsters would stop and switch along the way!

Around 1951, they dropped “The Corn Belt Route” logo in favor of the Lucky Strike style logo. The first generation of diesels were delivered in ornate maroon, and red with yellow striping. This was replaced with a simplified solid maroon and then red with black roof (which was essentially the same as neighbor and fellow Deramus controlled Kansas City Southern.) The second generation of diesels consisted entirely of GP30’s and SD40’s.

Despite the iffy service and tremendous competition in the area, and thanks to the cost cutting and a dearth of money losing passenger operations that plagued their neighbors, CGW steadily made money through the 50s and 60s. But, in the age of mergers, it was clear they couldn’t make it on their own. CGW discussed merger with every possible connection but ultimately merged into Chicago & North Western in 1968. In their last full year, the CGW was a 1,411 mile line with 139 locomotives (for comparison, they were about the same size as Western Pacific.)

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.