Bluford Shops - 73412 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Offset - Canada Southern - 3374, 3251

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: The CSR was established in 1868 under the name Erie & Niagara Extension Railway Company with the goal of building a line from Fort Erie (just across the border from Buffalo, New York) to St. Thomas and Windsor in southern Ontario. The name was changed to Canada Southern the following year and the first locomotives were delivered in 1871. They then took over the Erie & Niagara Railway and a bit later the Fort Erie Railway. By 1883, CSR was running a short segment on the Fort Erie end of the planned route and the Essex to Windsor segment on the western end of the planned route. At this point, Michigan Central leased the property for 21 years. The CSR was subsequently completed from Windsor to Fort Erie, giving the Michigan Central (which was controlled by the New York Central) a line from the Detroit area to Buffalo through southern Ontario. Michigan Central extended their lease another 99 years and in 1929, sub-leased it to their parent New York Central. Most rolling stock on the CSR during this period carried NYC lettering as the CSR straddled the line between operating and paper railroad. NYC began to de-emphasize the route in the 1960s and it subsequently passed to Penn Central, then Conrail. In 1977, CSR’s “CASO” freight car reporting marks were retired. Conrail sold the line to Canadian National and Canadian Pacific in 1985.

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.