Atlas - 45718 - Boxcar, 40 Foot, USRA Double Sheathed Wood - Minneapolis and St. Louis - 25100

Model Information: This car was first produced by Atlas in 2006. It models a interwar double-sheathed wood boxcar as standardized by the USRA during the First World War. Features: 5-5-5 or 7-8 steel ends; Fishbelly or standard center sill; Vertical or end mounted brakes; AccuMate® couplers; Steel or wood doors.

Prototype History: Double-sheathed means the cars carried wood sheathing both inside and out. The structure that this sheathing is applied over steel framing. The USRA double-sheathed design boxcar had a steel underframe with a monster heavy deep-fishbelly steel center sill. The interior carried horizontal sheathing and the exterior carried vertical sheathing. These are described as steel UNDERFRAME. (but not usually called "steel framed").

Road Name History: The M&St.L dates to 1853 and received the M&St.L name in 1870. They ran west from Peoria, Illinois to Oskaloosa, Iowa. There the mainline split. The more heavily trafficked line headed north through Marshalltown, Albert Lea and ended in Minneapolis. The other route from Oskaloosa headed northwest to Des Moines, then traced a big arc thought Spencer, Iowa; Winthrop, Minnesota and back to Minneapolis. A northeast to southwest diagonal line connected these to parallel routes. In addition to some shorter branches, there was a very long branch from Winthrop, Minnesota to Aberdeen, Leola, and Akaska, South Dakota. Although they had St. Louis in the name, and they were known as “The Louie” by locals, they never went anywhere near that city. Total mileage during the 50’s ran about 1,400. That’s just a bit smaller than Western Pacific.

The M&St.L called itself “The Peoria Gateway.” Peoria, Illinois, like Chicago and St. Louis is a gateway between eastern railroads and western railroads. M&St.L was in a position to forward freight from Great Northern and Northern Pacific in Minneapolis to Peoria and its connections with Pennsylvania, Nickel Plate, Toledo Peoria & Western, and their favored connection, New York Central’s Peoria & Eastern subsidiary. Because Peoria was far less congested than Chicago, it often saved a day of transit time between Northwest and Eastern end points.

M&St.L also jointly marketed a route with Illinois Central for traffic between Chicago and Minneapolis under The Albert Lea Route name. It was surprisingly successful given that Burlington, Milwaukee Road, Chicago & North Western, and Soo Line all served the same corridor.

Passenger service was not their forte. Rock Island served the same major cities with nicer trains. That left M&St.L with a fleet of doodlebugs, often running with one to three trailers to serve local communities. An average passenger on the M&St.L traveled just 90 miles. In later years, Budd streamlined coaches served as trailers.

M&St.L operated in receivership from 1923 until 1942, longer than any other railroad at the time. Lucian Sprague, the receiver and later president dumped the oldest freight cars and bought new ones. By 1950, the steam fleet (the largest engines of which were light Mikes and light Pacifics) had been completely replaced with diesels.

M&St.L had more Alco RS-1’s than any other line (35) and painted them in NINE different paint schemes. SD7’s were painted in one of those schemes: black, cream, and gray. F units were painted in two versions of yellow and green with orange pinstripes. Switchers were black with modest striping. A new president in 1956 brought a new red and white paint scheme that was a nod to his alma mater, the University of Nebraska. Incidentally, that is the TENTH paint scheme for the RS-1’s. A bit later, they began painting freight cars in the same red with big jaunty M&St.L lettering that Lionel made nationally famous.

During this period, M&St.L tried to gain control of Toledo Peoria & Western and the Monon. Pennsylvania and Santa Fe joined forces to block the TP&W acquisition and that was that. The Chairman (Ben Heinman) left M&St.L to head the Chicago & North Western. In 1960, C&NW bought the railroad assets of the Minneapolis & St. Louis and merged the operations. The M&St.L corporation became an empty shell, which changed its name to MSL Industries and got into the hardware and finished steel businesses. MSTL reporting marks are still used today by Union Pacific to denote certain leased car fleets.

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.