Atlas - 20 001 259 - Boxcar, 40 Foot, Steel ARA/X-29 - Missouri Pacific - 17140

Body Style Information: Features: Accurate painting and printing; Friction-bearing trucks; AccuMate® couplers.

Prototype Information: The first all-steel box car adopted as standard by the American Railway Association or ARA was a sound design, but unfortunately adopted near the depth of the Depression. Accordingly, not many railroads had the funds to buy this design, and orders only totaled 14,500 cars. But some of the railroads which did buy the 1932 car bought substantial numbers of them, and they are significant railroads: the Missouri Pacific (with subsidiaries, purchasing over 3000 cars) and the Seaboard (2000 cars). The Seaboard cars are especially interesting because the railroad chose to use the flat steel roof and ends reminiscent of the ARA’s proposed all-steel box car of 1923 (not adopted as standard), and widely used on the Pennsylvania X29 and Baltimore & Ohio M-26 classes.

In the early 1920's the Pennsylvania Railroad developed plans for a steel-sheathed box car and designated the design X-29. Production of this design began in 1924 and lasted into 1934. During this time period almost 30,000 Pennsylvania X-29 cars were built. Not all X-29's were the same. Their parts components varied from the original cars almost immediately. Variations included: frame components, brake systems, side sheathing, ends and doors just to mention the major changes. The 1924 X-29 was produced with the split K-brake or AB brake (added later), flat ends and side sheathing that has the 2nd to last panel from each end of the car overlapping its adjacent panels.
The ARA / X-29 box cars were noticeably shorter in height (8'-7" inside height) than later cars. .

There are many photographs showing X-29's lasting into Penn Central maintenance of way service.

More on PRR X-29 on this web site.

Road/Company Information: The Missouri Pacific Railroad (reporting mark MP), commonly abbreviated MoPac, with nickname of The Mop, was one of the first railroads in the United States west of the Mississippi River. MoPac was a Class I railroad growing from dozens of predecessors and mergers, including the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railway (SLIMS), Texas and Pacific Railway (TP), Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad (C&EI), St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway (SLBM), Kansas, Oklahoma and Gulf Railway (KO&G), Midland Valley Railroad (MV), San Antonio, Uvalde and Gulf Railroad (SAU&G), Gulf Coast Lines (GC), International-Great Northern Railroad (IGN), New Orleans, Texas and Mexico Railway (NOTM), Missouri-Illinois Railroad (MI), as well as the small Central Branch Railway (an early predecessor of MP in Kansas and south central Nebraska), and joint ventures such as the Alton and Southern Railroad (AS).

In 1967, the railroad operated 9,041 miles of road and 13,318 miles of track, not including DK&S, NO&LC, T&P and its subsidiaries, C&EI and Missouri-Illinois.

On January 8, 1980, the Union Pacific Railroad agreed to buy the Missouri Pacific Railroad. Lawsuits filed by competing railroads delayed approval of the merger until September 13, 1982. After the Supreme Court denied a trial to the Southern Pacific, the merger took effect on December 22, 1982. However, due to outstanding bonds of the Missouri Pacific, the merger with Union Pacific become official only on January 1, 1997.

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".

Atlas has made a ton of wonderful products throughout the years and we often get questions one whether we have run a certain road name on a particular model. It should be noted that Atlas locomotives and rolling stock are greatly appreciated for their superior operating and running characteristics. Atlas products are also well known for their outstanding collectability not only due to their superior prototypical workmanship, details and decoration, but because there are relatively so few of them made. Each and every production run has been carefully built to market demand, meaning almost every piece in any given run is sold out by Atlas on arrival or shortly thereafter, thus creating a built in collectors market.