Dear N Scale Customers;

Bluford Shops' Pullman Standard 86 ft Double Door Auto Parts Boxcars have arrived and are now in stock! We have a few extra we are putting on our shelves so if you want one don't hesitate and order today!

Bluford Shops is introducing a new run of our N scale Pullman Standard 86’ Double Door Auto Parts Boxcars. This new set of releases will feature a new draft gear design that accommodates 1015 and compatible couplers (included,) our latest 70 ton roller bearing trucks and Fox Valley Models metal wheels. The minimum radius is 11” (note the old “lift kit” for even tighter curves has been discontinued.) They also include separate wire grab irons and etched metal platforms on the ends. The draft gear is mounted to the body but has a spring centered swing action that both resists string-lining the train pulling through curves and resists the trucks climbing the rail during shoving moves.

Canadian Pacific took delivery of these cars in 1967 in a rather somber boxcar red without logos (possibly due to a short term lease arrangement.) They were intended for cross-border auto parts traffic and carried CPAA reporting marks. This traffic proved to be long-term and with the lease arrangements updated, the fleet began to receive Action Red paint and the CP Rail name.

CSX inherited these cars from both Chesapeake & Ohio and Louisville & Nashville (B&O had similar cars as well.) By this time they were entering their third decade of service and many were in dire need of new paint. The red and yellow squares behind the ladders remind crews to “ease up! Handle Car With CARE!” The four road numbers in this run have variations in road number placement spread across three, two, two and two and a half panels respectively

In 1982, Norfolk Southern was formed with the merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern. But that was just the merger of the holding companies. N&W and Southern remained separate railroads under the NS umbrella. It wasn’t until October of 1983 that NS logos began to appear on rolling stock. It would be another seven years before Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway and control of N&W was transferred from the holding company to the new Norfolk Southern Railway. During that seven years, equipment receiving NS logos still received either SOU or NW reporting marks.

Norfolk & Western adopted this black paint scheme with the conjoined NW logo in 1971. N&W’s place in the auto parts network was primarily the result of their 1964 lease of Wabash which ran from plants in Buffalo, across southern Ontario, Michigan and west to Chicago, St.Louis and Kansas City. Note the second two road numbers in this run have the NW logo, numbers and data placed higher and to the left when compared to the first road number.

Shortly after the 1968 Penn Central merger, the new company adopted a version of their “mating worms” logo in which the P was red and the C was white. This version was applied for just 5 weeks before the P was changed to white. It seems the red had a severe problem with fading. The logos on boxcars were particularly susceptible with the fading noticable whithin a week. In most instances the red was completely gone, faded to a dull silvery-grey in a month. The red P fared better on locomotives where it could still be found 3 years later. This run of Penn Central boxcars depicts these cars after their first month with the silver-grey P.

These super-size boxcars were originally built to carry high-value low-density automobile parts such as body panels and window glass to final assembly plants. Cars were purchased in pools that included several railroads (based on mileage) and several auto plants. For instance, a pool could include plants in California, Michigan, Georgia and New York and include boxcars from more than half a dozen railroads. Cars could be assigned to any destination in the pool whether or not it was on the home road. This led to situations where some cars from Western Pacific for instance would be running from Buffalo to Atlanta and back without ever seeing home rails. As a result, you would see a wider range of road names in a block of auto parts cars than you would with other types of cars. In later years, these cars could be found carrying other low-density loads such as turbine fans, paper pulp, breakfast cereal and even peat moss used in landscaping.

Placement of road numbers, some data elements and even logos may vary by road number based on the prototype. Due to the tooling changes we are making to this car, we will have some extra lead time to collect pre-orders for this group. Pre-Orders will remain open at least through September 15 with release planned sometime in the second half of 2022.

Order Due Date: September 15, 2021

Anticipated Delivery Date: June 2022

Looking for more Bluford Shops N Scale Boxcars? Click here!

Looking for more Bluford Shops N Scale Products? Click here!