Atlas - 50 006 232 - Passenger Car, Heavyweight, ACF Coach - Erie Lackawanna - 3359

Prototype History: Heavyweight refers to early 20th century cars built before the late 1930s. They were usually of riveted steel construction with 6 wheel trucks (not always) and often (not always) had large clerestory (learn more about clerestory roofs in our blog: What is a Monitor Roof Passenger Car?) or arch roofs that tapered or curved at the ends. Heavyweights were built with a heavy under frame to hold the car body. The floor was often of poured concrete, which helped give these cars a smoother ride than older wooden-body cars. The rest of the car was built on top of the frame and was structurally irrelevant. Heavyweight passenger cars weigh around 1 ton per foot of length. So a 85' car weighs in the area of 85 tons. Some railroads 'rebuilt' older heavyweight cars with new low profile roofs, thermopane windows, and flashy paint schemes to match the newer lightweights.

Road Name History: The Erie Lackawanna Railway (reporting mark EL), known as the Erie Lackawanna Railroad until 1968, was formed from the 1960 merger of the Erie Railroad and the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad. The official motto of the line was "The Friendly Service Route".

Like many railroads in the northeast already financially vulnerable from the expanding U.S. Interstate Highway System, the line was severely weakened fiscally by the extent, duration and record flood levels due to Hurricane Agnes in 1972. It would never recover, and most of the corporation's holdings were subsumed into the federal rescue purchases creating Conrail in 1976, ending its days as an operating railroad company.

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.