April 2012 Announcements

Norfolk & Western Transfer Cabooses. N&W built 63 transfer cabooses for themselves at their Roanoke Shops between 1966 and 1968. Cars repainted after 1971 received this paint scheme. Note the placement of the road numbers varied from car to car and we are replicating this detail. 23010 Norfolk & Western #518711 $36.95; 23011 Norfolk & Western #518741 $36.95.

Monon Transfer Cabooses. Monon built a trio of transfer cabooses in their Lafayette Shops in 1959. The Monon system map was X-shaped with Chicago and Michigan City legs in the north and Louisville and Indianapolis in the south. The four legs met in Monon, Indiana. Monon served as a bridge carrier for Southern and L&N between Chicago and Louisville. 23020 Monon #81551 $36.95. 23021 Monon #81552 $36.95.

Illinois Central Gulf Transfer Cabooses. ICG inherited 16 steel transfer cabooses from Gulf Mobile & Ohio in the 1972 merger. For the next six years, cars due for repainting received orange paint and the dotted-rail logo. Placement of the lettering varied from car to car and two of these variations are presented in this run. At its peak, ICG was enormous with 9,500 route miles - 60 more than Union Pacific during the same period. Their multiple, parallel routes cut a swath from Chicago to the Gulf of Mexico and Chicago west to the Iowa-Nebraska border. After years of selling off many of these parallel routes, ICG dropped the “Gulf” from their name in 1988 and abandoned orange for a medium gray. 23030 Illinois Central Gulf #199081 $36.95; 23031 Illinois Central Gulf #199085 $36.95.

Chicago & Eastern Illinois Transfer Cabooses. C&EI built six transfer cabooses beginning in 1966 using the frames from old gondolas as a base. C&EI ran south out of Chicago, then split into a trio of mainlines, The eastern-most ran to Evansville, Indiana and a major connection with the L&N and points south. This route hosted a number of important Chicago-to-Florida passenger trains. The western-most route headed southwest to St. Louis. Much of that route was shared with NYC’s Big Four line. The third mainline ran down the middle of Illinois to points on the southern tip of the state. This route generated C&EI’s considerable coal traffic. When the C&EI was later split between Missouri Pacific and Louisville & Nashville (in a deal not unlike the splitting of Conrail between NS and CSX decades later) four of these cars (517-520) went to L&N and two (515-516) went to Missouri Pacific. 23050 Chicago & Eastern Illinois #515 $36.95; 23051 Chicago & Eastern Illinois #520 $36.95.

Pre-Orders are now open. Due for delivery in 2nd Quarter, 2013. All items are N scale. Transfer cabooses were used for cross-town hops between yards. All Bluford Shops cabooses come ready-to-run with magnetically operating knuckle style couplers, metal detail parts and appropriate trucks for the road name.First draft artwork shown, subject to improvement by Bluford's crack development team!

Erie Lackawanna Transfer Cabooses. EL built 25 transfer cabooses in their Meadville Shops in 1969. EL’s road service cabooses received “C” prefixes on their road numbers so it seems appropriate that these cars received “T” prefixes instead. Erie Lackawanna was born in 1960 with the merger of Erie and Delaware Lackawanna & Western. They became part of Conrail on April 1, 1976. 23040 Erie Lackawanna #T-24 $36.95; 23041 Erie Lackawanna #T-30 $36.95.

Chessie - B&O Transfer Caboose. In 1975, B&O 903051 rolled out of B&O’s Du Bois Shops and into history as the final caboose built at that august facility. It was built with components from a retired boxcar. Eventually, B&O assigned it Class C-28 and it would remain the only member of that class to the end of caboose operations. Since it was one of a kind, we are producing just one road number. 23070 Chessie - B&O #903051 $36.95.

Green Bay & Western Transfer Cabooses. Beginning in the Summer of 1967, Green Bay & Western began rebuilding several wood body cabooses that were well past their prime into new steel bodied transfer cabooses. The GB&W bisected Wisconsin with their mainline from the ports of Kewaunee and Green Bay on Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River at Winona (on the west bank in Minnesota.) GB&W was merged into a Wisconsin Central subsidiary in 1993 and is now part of Canadian National. 23060 Green Bay & Western #102 $36.95; 23061 Green Bay & Western #104 $36.95.