Bluford Shops - 65321 - Open Hopper, 2-Bay, Rib Side, 8-Panel - Union Railroad - 4029

Specific Item Information: Union Railroad ordered 500 of these 8-panel hoppers from Greenville Car. Unlike their rebuilt brethren, these cars had a capacity of 70 tons. This gave them the flexibility to be used for coal, coke, iron ore, limestone, and crushed slag. These models will include “coal/coke” loads. The Union serves the steel mills and related industries of the Monongahela River Valley south of Pittsburgh. At its height, it was the busiest freight railroad per mile of track in the world. 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 URR opened in 1896 to serve the steel producing Monongahela River Valley region south of Pittsburgh. In 1937, it merged two other local lines. The Union is just 31 miles long but very busy. In 1951, they hauled 74 million net tons making URR the busiest railroad per mile of track in the world. The line is owned by U.S. Steel (and its successor) and at its peak served eight mills plus a number of other customers. Until recently, the tangle of Union lines crossed the Monongahela River four times. Today, Union serves USS Edgar Thomson Works which includes blast furnaces, basic oxygen process producing molten steel and a continuous caster; USS Irvin Works which includes rolling mills and finishing lines and USS Clairton Works which converts coal into coke.

The Union is the smallest railroad to have a steam locomotive wheel arrangement named for them. The uber-switcher 0-10-2 is called the Union type.

The Union diesel fleet has always been dominated by switchers, originally from EMD, Alco, and Baldwin but in later years from EMD exclusively. Road power over the years has included RS-2’s, DRS-6-6-1500’s, AS616’s, and in later years SD9’s and SD38-2’s. The number of diesels on the active roster seems to have peaked around 126 units – astounding for a 31 mile line.

Beginning in 1959 the dozen Baldwin DRS-6-6-1500’s were rebuilt with EMD prime movers and long hoods. The short hoods were also lowered. The crews called these rebuilts “buffalos.” These units retained their long hood as the front despite the nose chop and could be found leading in either direction.

Today there are 33 diesels on the active roster, all EMD SW1500’s and MP15DC’s. You may notice that all-switcher consists always have the cabs facing outward (since virtually all end cab switchers have the hood end as the front, the URR consists are nose to nose.) This method is gospel on URR and has gained favor on other lines due to improved sight lines when shoving with no loss when running with the cab end leading.

The Union connects with CSX, Norfolk Southern, CN (formerly Bessemer & Lake Erie), and Wheeling & Lake Erie at seven points along the route. Today's collection of photos takes us from the delivery of the 0-10-2's in 1936 to 1999. We will have the rest of URR collection with tomorrow's RRotD. It's worth noting that URR was known for having an aggressive security force during the transition era which explains the dearth of photos from that time.

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.