Atlas - 50 004 005 - Boxcar, 50 Foot, ACF Precision Design - Burlington Northern - 214583

Model Information: This model was introduced in 2002 and is made in China. It comes in two variants: Rib side or Smoothside.
It features:

• a prototypically detailed body with realistic ladders, brake wheel and see-through end crossover walkway;
• detailed die-cast metal underframe;
• separate brake system;
• air reservoir;
• 70-ton roller-bearing trucks;
• accurate painting and printing details.

Prototype History: The 50' boxcar had largely replaced its 40 foot predecessor by the 1960s. With the advent of the Per Diem rules, production of 50 foot steel boxcars by all tyhe major manufacturers really took off. ACF (American Car & Foundry) was no exception. This model was built by ACF (American Car and Foundry) in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It was delivered in both smooth side and rib side versions. This boxcar features a single sliding door and no roof-walk. Conrail took possession of about 1,000 of these cars from the Penn Central that were built and delivered in 1971. The Illinois Central took delivery of 200 50' ACF boxcars in April of 1967. The cars are easily identifiable with their indented panel area to the right of the 10' door

Road Name History: The Burlington Northern Railroad (reporting mark BN) was a United States railroad. It was a product of a March 2, 1970, merger of four major railroads - the Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway, Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway and the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad - as well as a few small jointly owned subsidiaries owned by the four.

Burlington Northern operated between 1970 and 1996.

Its historical lineage begins in the earliest days of railroading with the chartering in 1848 of the Chicago and Aurora Railroad, a direct ancestor line of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, which lends Burlington to the names of various merger-produced successors.

Burlington Northern purchased the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway on December 31, 1996 to form the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway (later renamed BNSF Railway), which was owned by the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corporation.*

Read more on Wikipedia.

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.