Atlas - 40999A - Open Hopper, Ore Car, 70 Ton - Long Island Rail Road - 4123

Model Information: This model was first produced by Atlas in 1969 in their New Jersey facility with 4 road names at $1.50 each. The model was produced with nickel-silver plated wheels and Rapido truck-mounted couplers. The model was re-released in 1975 with 6 new road names at $2.50 each. More road names were added in 1976 and 1977 and the price was dropped to $2.00 per car. Due to popularity of this car for modeling freight yards, mines and long unit-trains (I recently saw a collection of 200 of these cars), it has been released over and over by Atlas. Later production runs wer moved to China sometime in the 1990s.

Prototype History: The bottom-dump ore car was developed in the late 1930s for use by Lake Superior ore railroads. It is a highly specialized railcar, measuring only 24 feet long and having a capacity of 70 to 80 tons. The 24 foot lenght was designed to be compatible with the 12 foot pocket spacing of the gravity-fed ore docks and the 12 yo 24 foot hatch spacing of the Great Lakes ore-carrying ships. These cars discharge into every other pocket.

The first 70 ton cars came to the DM&IR in 1937. 70 ton cars (with taconite extensions) are still in use today on DM&IR (CN) although they are getting pretty worn out. BN built new taconite cars in the 70's to replace the 70 ton NP and GN cars.

Road Name History: The LIRR was established in 1834 as part of a ferry-rail-ferry-rail route linking New York City with Boston. Within a few years, an all-rail route (later becoming the New Haven) was completed and LIRR’s through traffic evaporated. In the 1880s, the LIRR absorbed all of the other railroads on the island and settled in to a life of dependable local service. This included what may have been the first WOFC (wagon on flat car) service.

In 1900, Pennsylvania Railroad bought control of the LIRR and began incorporating it into their plans for Penn Station in Manhattan. This included electrifying certain routes on the west end of the LIRR with 600 volt DC third rail. The steam locomotive fleet began to take on a distinctly Pennsy look. Over the next 20 years, Long Island began to develop into a bedroom community for New York City and the LIRR stepped in to become the transport of choice for tens of thousands of daily commuters.

However, running commuter trains is an inherently dodgy business. It requires large investments in equipment and facilities that are used for two brief windows of time during the day, then sit idle for the rest of the time. The problem was made worse by the state of New York who froze ticket prices at the end of the First World War and left them there until after the Second World War. The LIRR slipped into bankruptcy. Parent PRR and the state came to an agreement. New York’s onerous property taxes were relaxed, ticket fares were allowed to rise and PRR began modernizing the LIRR. Steam was replaced with diesels primarily from Alco and Fairbanks-Morse. EMD’s joined the party in 1976.

In 1966, a state agency (later called the Metropolitan Transportation Authority) bought control of the LIRR from the Pennsylvania Railroad. Under state control, the LIRR gradually lost interest in their freight service and in 1997 freight operations were turned over to the New York & Atlantic Railway. The LIRR remains today America’s largest passenger hauler, moving over a third of a million passengers on a typical weekday.

Brand/Importer Information: In 1924 Stephan Schaffan, Sr. founded the Atlas Tool Company in Newark, New Jersey. In 1933 his son, Stephan Schaffan, Jr., came to work for his father at the age of sixteen. Steve Jr. built model airplanes as a hobby and frequented a local hobby shop. Being an enterprising young man, he would often ask the owner if there was anything he could do to earn some extra spending money. Tired of listening to his requests, the hobby-store owner threw some model railroad track parts his way and said, "Here, see if you can improve on this".

In those days, railroad modelers had to assemble and build everything from scratch. Steve Jr. created a "switch kit" which sold so well, that the entire family worked on them in the basement at night, while doing business as usual in the machine shop during the day.

Subsequently, Steve Jr. engineered the stapling of rail to fiber track, along with inventing the first practical rail joiner and pre-assembled turnouts and flexible track. All of these products, and more, helped to popularize model railroading and assisted in the creation of a mass-market hobby. The budding entrepreneur quickly outgrew the limitations of a basement and small garage operation. Realizing they could actually make a living selling track and related products, Steve and his father had the first factory built in Hillside, New Jersey at 413 Florence Avenue in 1947. On September 30, 1949, the Atlas Tool Company was officially incorporated as a New Jersey company.

In 1985, Steve was honored posthumously for his inventions by the Model Railroad Industry Association and was inducted into the Model Railroad Industry Hall of Fame in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition, Steve was nominated and entered into the National Model Railroad Association Pioneers of Model Railroading in 1995.

In the early 1990s, the Atlas Tool Company changed its name to Atlas Model Railroad Company, Inc.