TYCO - Union Pacific - 62040

Body Style Information: The same 40' hopper car model serves in TYCO's line as the 344-series Hopper Car and the 366-series Billboard Hopper. The car is a one piece shell with separate brake wheel and underframe. The standard TYCO talgo trucks are used for this car. The car is a very basic model and extremely similar examples are found from AHM, Athearn, Bachmann, Cox, Lionel-HO and other manufacturers causing some identification confusion. The TYCO models do carry the company's name raised on the underframe bar. The first appearance of the Hopper Car pre-dates the '70s Brown Box Era. The car is first found in TYCO's 1969-70 annual product catalog.

Road/Company Information: The Union Pacific Railroad (reporting mark UP) is a freight hauling railroad that operates 8,500 locomotives over 32,100 route-miles in 23 states west of Chicago, Illinois and New Orleans, Louisiana. The Union Pacific Railroad network is the largest in the United States and employs 42,600 people. It is also one of the world's largest transportation companies.

Union Pacific Railroad is the principal operating company of Union Pacific Corporation (NYSE: UNP); both are headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. Over the years Union Pacific Corporation has grown by acquiring other railroads, notably the Missouri Pacific, Chicago & North Western, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and the Southern Pacific (including the Denver & Rio Grande Western).

Union Pacific Corporation's main competitor is the BNSF Railway, the nation's second largest freight railroad, which also primarily services the Continental U.S. west of the Mississippi River. Together, the two railroads have a duopoly on all transcontinental freight rail lines in the U.S.

Read more on Wikipedia and on Union Pacific official website.

Brand/Importer Information: The history of TYCO trains can be traced back to John Tyler, a pioneer in HO scale who helped found the Mantua Toy & Metal Products Company in 1926 with other members of his family. They began selling trains under the Mantua name in the 1930s. Early offerings included the powerful Midjet Motor as well as a variety of rolling stock and steam locomotive kits. The shift towards “ready-to-run” (RTR) train sets after World War II led to the creation of the Tyler Manufacturing Company in 1952, better known as TYCO .
Consolidated Foods purchased TYCO in 1970, and manufacturing was shifted from New Jersey to Hong Kong. Consolidated Foods would later change its name to Sara Lee, though Norman Tyler remained as an executive with the new company. This change in ownership ushers in the “brown-box” period for collectors. Prior to 1970, TYCO offered models that reflected fairly accurate prototypes. After 1970, TYCO’s offerings wander into a fantasy world of unprototypical models.
The TYCO model railroad business was bought back by the Tyler family in 1977, who revived them under the Mantua Industries brand. Model train production by TYCO ended in the 1990s, with the final catalog appearance in 1993. The TYCO name continues as a line of radio-controlled cars produced by Mattel.
Many of the TYCO model train products were subsequently manufactured by Mantua and by International Hobby Corporation (IHC). In 2001, Mantua stopped producing its model railroad lines and sold the business to the Model Power company, which continued to sell a few items such as steam engines and freight cars under its Mantua Classics brand. In early 2014, Model Power was acquired by Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC). The company continued to make the Mantua Classics line.

Read more on HO Scale Train Resources and TYCO Brown-Box Era websites.