Bluford Shops - 73712 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Offset - Boston & Albany - 25372, 25405

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 B&A was the result of two mergers accomplished in phases between 1867 and 1870. The merged lines included the Hudson & Boston Railroad, the Albany & West Stockbridge, the Western Railroad (by that time a paper railroad operated by the A&WS), the Hudson & Berkshire and the Boston & Worcester. Construction continued until late in the century. The result was a line running from Boston, Massachusetts west to Worcester, Springfield, Pittsfield and on to Albany, New York, plus a number of branches. In 1900 the B&A was leased for 99 years by the New York Central & Hudson River, In 1914, the lease passed to New York Central Railroad. As during the NYC&HR period, Boston & Albany retained their own corporate identity during NYC’s lease although locomotive and rolling stock design practices followed those of parent NYC. Lima Locomotive Works worked with Boston & Albany to develop the 2-8-4 wheel arrangement for locomotives in fast, heavy freight service. This wheel arrangement was named the Berkshire in honor of B&A’s route through the Berkshire Mountains. Commuter traffic on the Boston end was extensive with a 4 or more track mainline required from the city as far as Riverside and triple track all the way to Framingham. For many years, tank engines were used for commuter operations so the power could run in reverse at speed to return to their home terminal. The largest of these were 4-6-6T’s. Around 1951, New York Central lettering began to replace Boston & Albany lettering on locomotives and cars. The B&A was officially merged into NYC in 1961 but many freight cars assigned to specific services continued to receive B&A reporting marks for many more years.

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.