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Bluford Shops - 65235 - Open Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel - Conrail - 401973

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N Scale - Bluford Shops - 65235 - Open Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel - Conrail - 401973 Image Courtesy of Bluford Shops
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Stock Number65235
Original Retail Price$27.95
BrandBluford Shops
ManufacturerBluford
Body StyleBluford Open Hopper 2-Bay Ribside 8-Panel
Image Provider's WebsiteLink
Prototype VehicleOpen Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel (Details)
Road or Company NameConrail (Details)
Reporting MarksCR
Road or Reporting Number401973
Paint Color(s)Black
Print Color(s)White
Coupler TypeGeneric Magnetic Knuckle
Coupler MountBody-Mount
Wheel TypeChemically Blackened Metal
Wheel ProfileSmall Flange (Low Profile)
Announcement Date2020-08-01
Release Date2021-04-01
Item CategoryRolling Stock (Freight)
Model TypeOpen Hopper
Model Subtype2-Bay
Model Variety8-Panel
Prototype RegionNorth America
Prototype EraNA Era IV: 2nd Gen Diesel (1958 - 1978)
Scale1/160



Specific Item Information: Conrail inherited most of their 8-panel hoppers from Penn Central who had inherited them from New York Central. On Conrail’s startup day, April 1, 1976, it had been 8 years since the rebuild so they still had some life in them although not enough to warrant a full repaint job. As they ran through the car shops for routine repairs, the old road numbers were patched out and new Conrail numbers applied. This paint scheme will be available in 4 road numbers.
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:
The Consolidated Rail Corporation, commonly known as Conrail (reporting mark CR), was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeast U.S. between 1976 and 1999. Conrail is a portmanteau of "consolidated" and "rail" from the name of the company.

The U.S. federal government created Conrail to take over the potentially profitable lines of multiple bankrupt carriers, including the Penn Central Transportation Company and Erie Lackawanna Railway. With the benefit of industry-wide regulatory requirements being reduced (via the 4R Act and the Staggers Act), Conrail began to turn a profit in the 1980s and was turned over to private investors in 1987. The two remaining Class I railroads in the East, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), agreed in 1997 to split the system approximately equally, returning rail freight competition to the Northeast by essentially undoing the 1968 merger of the Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central Railroad that created Penn Central. Following Surface Transportation Board approval, CSX and NS took control in August 1998, and on June 1, 1999, began operating their portions of Conrail.
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.
Item created by: CNW400 on 2020-08-23 23:27:14

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