Tank Car, Single Dome, Trinity 25,500

History: This Trinity tank car is in the typical condition of tank cars that have been hauling relatively clean commodities for decades. There is evidence of years of sun bleaching and rain-washed dust. The darker black areas are the positions of the original Cargill logos, which suggests that the remainder of the car has not been painted or cleaned (on the outside) in that 20-year period. When this Trinity CRX7293 tank car was photographed 20 years after the car was built the original Cargill logos had been painted over with black so only the white reporting marks identify the owner (or lessor). A number of firms took this identity-loss precaution after television photos of train wrecks provided adverse publicity for any type of tank car (although the vegetable oils that these cars would carry are relatively harmless).

Railroad/Company: The company, first known as Trinity Steel, was founded by C. J. Bender in Dallas in 1933. W. Ray Wallace, an engineering graduate of Louisiana Tech, worked for Dallas's Austin Bridge Company in 1944 before joining the company in 1946 as its seventeenth employee. At the time Trinity Steel manufactured butane tanks in a Dallas County mule barn. In 1958 Trinity Steel merged with Dallas Tank Company, which was also founded in 1933, and Ray Wallace became the new firm's president and first chief executive officer. At the time Trinity had revenues reaching $2.5 million and employed 200 workers. While some employees of the firm in other states eventually unionized, Texas workers never formed a union. For a time the company profited by producing larger tanks that enabled it to enter the petroleum business and do steel fabrication for refineries. In addition, to free up capital, it established an investment company to buy trucks and lease them back to the firm. Nonetheless, by 1957 Trinity faced competition and declines in the petroleum industry. Dallas Tank, Trinity Steel, and Bender-Wallace Development Company merged in 1958 to form Trinity Industries, Incorporated, and went public.

The Trinity Industries Rail Group, TrinityRail, is a leading North American provider of railcar services and products providing a single source for comprehensive rail transportation solutions. TrinityRail offers extensive manufacturing resources and a complete product line of new railcars. Included is a full menu of state-of-the-art covered hoppers, flat cars, gondolas, open hoppers, box cars, automotive equipment and tank cars. In addition, TrinityRail offers one of the fastest growing railcar lease fleets in North America and a broad portfolio of comprehensive railcar services. Our wide-ranging railcar service offerings provide our customers with enhanced transportation efficiencies and optimized fleet utilization.

From Wikipedia