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Bluford
Shops is proud to announce another all new body style for your
N scale freight car fleet. These 2-Bay Rebuilt War Emergency
Hoppers have never been available before in N scale. 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.
The story of these 2-Bay Rebuilt War Emergency Hoppers begins
in 1942 when the War Production Board directed car builders
to substitute wood for steel wherever possible in car superstructures.
The familiar 2-bay “war emergency” composite hopper
was a result of this directive. Those cars had wooden side sheets
and end slope sheets (although the middle slope sheets remained
steel.) This saved a bit over two and a half tons of steel needed
elsewhere for the war effort. Unfortunately, the wood boards
were considerably thicker than steel sheet which effectively
lowered the cubic capacity of the car. While you could build
ten composite hoppers with the steel of nine all-steel hoppers,
the lower capacity of the composite cars meant you needed more
composite cars to carry the same load. During 1944, the directive
was set aside and cars that were on order were delivered with
the familiar diagonal bracing but with all steel construction.
After the war, as composite cars came due for serious maintenance,
the wood side and slope sheets were replaced with steel. A large
majority of the composite cars were rebuilt in this manner sometime
during the 1950s.
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