Bluford Shops products are not intended for children under 14.
Bluford Shops began in 2007 as a side project of two model railroad industry veterans, Craig Ross and Steve Rodgers. We saw a gap between road names available on N scale locomotives but not available on cabooses. We comissioned special runs of Atlas cabooses in Atlantic Coast Line, Central of Georgia, Monon, Boston & Maine and Southern plus runs of Grand Trunk Western and Central Vermont on the MDC wooden cabooses. While these were in process, we began to develop our 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 our own tooling for new cabooses, we have brought our own caboose line to HO scale. We also have our popular Cornfields in both HO and N. Steve Rodgers passed away in January of 2018. Steve, who was in charge of dealer and distributor sales and assisted with research for new product development, had retired in November of 2017. Bluford Shops has continued on, developing new products for your railroad.
The abandoned ice plant in Bluford. Icing ended in the mid-60s when a fire destroyed the ice deck.
Walthers is one of our distributors. Check out their Bluford Shops listing here:
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.
Please note, our old phone number has been discontinued. If you have a question, order or comment, please email Craig at the address above. Or you can message us through Facebook. Just click below:
Retailers can also order Bluford Shops items from Heartland Hobby Wholesale: