Bluford Shops - 73521 - Open Hopper, 3-Bay, 70 Ton Offset - Jersey Central - 69105

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 Central Railroad of New Jersey, also known as the Jersey Central or Jersey Central Lines (reporting mark CNJ), was a Class I railroad with origins in the 1830s. It was absorbed into Conrail in April 1976 along with several other prominent bankrupt railroads of the northeastern United States.

The Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad was chartered on February 9, 1831, to build from Elizabeth on the Newark Bay (with a steamboat transfer to New York City) west to Somerville. The line to Plainfield was completed in March 1839, connecting to the New Jersey Rail Road in Elizabeth. Extensions took it west to Dunellen in 1840, just east of Bound Brook in 1841 and to Somerville in 1842.

The Somerville and Easton Railroad was chartered on February 26, 1847, to continue the line west to Easton, Pennsylvania. The first extension, to Whitehouse, opened in 1848 and was leased to the Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad. On February 11, 1849, the Elizabethtown and Somerville Railroad bought the Somerville and Easton Railroad, and on February 26 the two companies were consolidated as the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

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.