Atlas - 20 003 193 - Tank Car, Single Dome, Trinity 17,600 Gallon Corn Syrup - Southern Pacific - 67749

Body Style Information: The 17,600 Gallon Corn Syrup Tank Car was built in large numbers by Trinity Industries between 1984 and 1998. They are commonly used in the transport of corn syrup, liquid sugar and molasses from processing facilities to bulk distribution centers. Over 7,000 cars were built and most remain in active service today.

Features: Three separate styles of manway / platform / ladder arrangements (used as appropriate per road name) Fine scale railings Separately applied brake rigging Separately applied manway “clamshell”-style cover (used when appropriate per road name) 100-Ton Roller Bearing Trucks Accurate painting and printing Full stand-alone brake system details Bottom outlet valve detail Stand-alone heater coil pipes Highly detailed body with prototypical jacket seams See-through top platform grating AccuMate® couplers

Prototype Information: The 17,600 Gallon Corn Syrup Tank Car was built in large numbers by Trinity Industries between 1984 and 1998. They are commonly used in the transport of corn syrup, liquid sugar and molasses from processing facilities to bulk distribution centers. Over 7,000 cars were built and most remain in active service today.

The cars followed a common bent-barrel tank design that helps the product drain and unload easier. These cars are jacketed and insulated, and have exterior coil pipes to heat the commodity to promote faster unloading. Midland food-grade butterfly unload valves and Midland exterior spring safety valves were common appliances used on these cars. The biggest variation in the car production was in the manway / top platform arrangement. Several arrangements were specified by large shippers; for example ADM, Cargill, Corn Products, GATX, MCP, and Staley to name a few.

These tank cars are commonly used to transport varying grades of Corn Syrup, Liquid Sugar, and Molasses from processing facilities to bulk distribution centers and other end-users throughout the US and Canada. They are a very common sight on today's railroads, and they have been for two decades. This initial release features three of the most common manway/top platform arrangements as specified by ADM, Cargill, and Corn Products (among others).

Road/Company Information: The Southern Pacific Transportation Company (reporting mark SP), earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually called the Southern Pacific or (from the railroad's initials) Espee, was an American Class I railroad. It was absorbed in 1988 by the company that controlled the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and eight years later became part of the Union Pacific Railroad.

The railroad was founded as a land holding company in 1865, later acquiring the Central Pacific Railroad by lease. By 1900 the Southern Pacific Company was a major railroad system incorporating many smaller companies, such as the Texas and New Orleans Railroad and Morgan's Louisiana and Texas Railroad. It extended from New Orleans through Texas to El Paso, across New Mexico and through Tucson, to Los Angeles, through most of California, including San Francisco and Sacramento. Central Pacific lines extended east across Nevada to Ogden, Utah, and reached north through Oregon to Portland. Other subsidiaries eventually included the St. Louis Southwestern Railway (Cotton Belt), the Northwestern Pacific Railroad at 328 miles (528 km), the 1,331 miles (2,142 km) Southern Pacific Railroad of Mexico, and a variety of 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge routes.

In 1929 SP/T&NO operated 13848 route-miles not including Cotton Belt, whose purchase of the Golden State Route circa 1980 nearly doubled its size to 3,085 miles (4,965 km), bringing total SP/SSW mileage to around 13,508 miles (21,739 km).

By the 1980s route mileage had dropped to 10,423 miles (16,774 km), mainly due to the pruning of branch lines. In 1988 the Southern Pacific was taken over by D&RGW parent Rio Grande Industries. The combined railroad kept the Southern Pacific name due to its brand recognition in the railroad industry and with customers of both constituent railroads. Along with the addition of the SPCSL Corporation route from Chicago to St. Louis, the total length of the D&RGW/SP/SSW system was 15,959 miles (25,684 km).

By 1996 years of financial problems had dropped SP's mileage to 13,715 miles (22,072 km), and it was taken over by the Union Pacific Railroad.

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.