Atlas - 20 000 776 - Boxcar, 53 Foot, Evans Double Plug Door - Modesto and Empire Traction - 13555

Body Style Information: Features: 70-ton roller-bearing trucks; Blackened metal wheels; Two-piece underframe; Separate brake cylinder; Air reservoir; End platforms; AccuMate® couplers.

Prototype Information: This 53' boxcar was manufactured in the 1960s and '70s by Evans Company and was used primarily to haul produce, wood and paper products, and canned goods. This railcar is an insulated RBL (Railcar, Passenger Service, Insulated) featuring a 16 foot opening and double plug doors.

Road/Company Information: Modesto & Empire Traction launched in 1911 to take over a line between Modesto, California and a connection with the Santa Fe 5 miles to the east. The line gave Modesto citizens a choice between the Southern Pacific (and later Tidewater Southern) and the Santa Fe for their travels. This was accomplished with gas-powered motor cars. Don’t let the “Traction” in the name fool you. The M&ET was never electrified.

Within just a few years, freight greatly surpassed passenger operations with the latter ending in 1918. The line was dieselized in 1953 with GE 70 ton switchers.

The railroad has always been owned by the Beard Land & Investment Company. Beard developed the Beard Industrial park on their line with the railroad giving them access to three area line haul carriers. This industrial park is massive. Although the M&ET mainline is just 5 miles, there are 49 miles of track in the park. Modesto is in the heart of California’s food processing region and that shows in the M&ET’s customers: Americold, Beard’s Quality Nut, Bunge Food, Miller Beer, Canteen Vending, Central Valley Ag Grinding, Del Monte, Budweiser, E&J Brandy, Frito-Lay, Gallo Winery, Great Spring Waters of America, JS West Milling, Hilmar Cheese, Kraft General Foods, Major-Sysco Food Services, Nestle, Newly Weds Foods, Rizo-Lopez Foods, Seneca Foods, Stanislaus Food Products, plus 59 other customers in other fields. There are more companies in the Beard Industrial Park, these are just the one’s served by the M&ET.

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.