New Bluford Shops "Dented" Gondolas

[bbussey]

Or, the shop didn’t order enough to cover its demand. I jumped on the bandwagon late and first spoke with Craig about getting the two roads I wanted directly, and he was fully committed. He did say however that everyone and every dealer who pre-ordered was getting their full allocation. So it’s not Bluford’s fault. I secured my pair via an email to N Scale Supply.

[Maletrain]

Which seller shorted you on the pre-order?

[wcfn100]

Distributors can play a role in this too. If the cars come 24 to a case and the orders come in at 25, someone is getting shorted.

Jason

[nkalanaga]

I ordered four more, two GN and two CB&Q, to repaint.  Unlike my first four, all of the couplers work very nicely on these, with each other and with other brands.

Same run, same dealer, same roadnames, same numbers.  Very odd.

And, for anyone who does have coupler problems, it's very easy to cut the existing coupler off and replace it with a real 1015.  No need to disassemble the car, just remove the coupler screw, cut behind the box, and install the 1015 with the same screw.  The rear screw will hold the bolster in place.

[Mark5]

I ordered Erie Lackawanna but the place I ordered from called to inform me that some of their shipment arrived damaged (not all of it, but the E-L portion took it on the chin).

Luckily for me, I was able to get one elsewhere.

Mark

[basementcalling]

Nice cars. Cool new feature. No road names in the modern era, but relettering reporting marks is probably very doable and prototypical.

I guess these are a must weather, as they look strange all dented up with brand new paint schemes.  Glad Bluford has a hit on their hands.

[thomasjmdavis]

No road names in the modern era, but relettering reporting marks is probably very doable and prototypical.

It is interesting that the prototype (+/- various details) was in production at several car builders for something like 25 years.  I imagine that at some point, a variety of road names will be available in any number of post merger schemes, as many of these cars were long lived.  You could probably have a couple in a MOW consist today, rusty and piled with old rail or something.

Bluford is a company that produced C&EI hoppers in 4 different body styles, each with a different lettering scheme. They clearly do a lot of research, to find roads for every prototype they produce. So, if there is a modern prototype road that had these gondolas into the modern era (whatever cutoff date), I'd send photos to Bluford.  I'm sure they want to get as much mileage from this tooling as they can.  I just hope I see Bluford announce the 1941 Erie cars before too much longer (I have an order in for the early 1950s version that they announced for the second run).

For some of us, 'Erie-Lackawanna' is a 'modern', post merger scheme.  (I can remember when the definition of 'modern' in railroad magazines was a GP-20 pulling a mechanical reefer.)

[Mark5]

I guess these are a must weather, as they look strange all dented up with brand new paint schemes.  Glad Bluford has a hit on their hands.

Depends. For example, the N&W cars in the next batch are ex-NKP - so fresh paint and dents would be proto (near the repaint date, of course).

Mark

[chessie system fan]

This would be a great car for a weathering challenge.

[OldEastRR]

Bluford did learn a lesson from selling the hoppers -- don't put coupler hoses on their new releases because a lot of them break off while just being shipped. I wonder if ST will cut back on all the excess super-detailing on its next loco (probably not).

As for these gons, it appears the end bulkheads are separate parts. Further, the drop-end on the gons so equipped also appear to be separate pieces. So I guess if somebody wants to have the drop ends folded down it's possible to do w/o tearing the car apart. And if the gate or the frame for it get somewhat mangled -- hey, it's a dented banged up car, it looks prototypical.

Maybe people should reserve twice as many of the new batch cars as they want. Have a chance to get how many you want. Looks like the extra cars evaporate pretty quickly.

[nkalanaga]

"Looks like the extra cars evaporate pretty quickly. "

That's part of the reason I ordered four more for repainting.  And, yes, depending on the year modeled, a freshly painted, heavily dented, car is possible.  I model 1974 BN, so a BN gon could well be fresh from the paint shop.

[turbowhiz]

Got my examples of these cars in hand. I think the effect looks better in person then in pictures honestly, these things are sweet. Need to get some weathering on them, but of course I needed to deal with the couplers first.

Medium on Left, Heavy on Right. The heavy dented cars have warped ribs too... The Interior of the car is also where these cars really shine!



Don't really like the screw holes in the floor, but its an easy fix. Even with my scale couplers, these cars will do 9 3/4 corners and hard S bends. They also couple properly at low force, unlike the stock MTL clones.



Comparison of stock couplers to mine: These cars ride very low factory coupler height however. I've added .02" of washers to these to get them to the correct height. Given the proto photos I've looked at, the ride height is still good even after shimming them up (all these pictures are the cars raised).






End Shot:



Airline is not stock; I added one of my own scalebox airlines by drilling a hole in the factory box.

[up1950s]

I only got 7 of the 10 ordered do to me ordering late . I love this style of gons because the sides hide the rails . All mine are heavy dented and look fine to me , that said I would also like to have some beat to blazes , bowed out somewhat , and a bit swayed back ones . However those might be best produced by Misco Trains because of their outstanding weathering ability .

[OldEastRR]

Since these are the real length of 52', the pre-made drop-in gon loads built for all the other 50' gons made up till now are too short. I'm working on a way to make easy-to-build drop-in loads that fit these guys. And easy to use with any kind of scrap load you can make.

No, it won't be 3D printed. I'll leave that kind up to the hi-tech guys.

[bbussey]

Atlas has four 52' gondola loads originally made for the ex-BLMA gons that will fit these gons.