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Atlas - 50 003 963 - Container Car, Single Well, Gunderson Husky Stack 53 - St. Mary's Railway West LLC (SMW) - 210429

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N Scale - Atlas - 50 003 963 - Container Car, Single Well, Gunderson Husky Stack 53 - St. Mary Different road number shown
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Stock Number50 003 963
Original Retail Price$34.95
BrandAtlas
ManufacturerAtlas
Body StyleAtlas Container Car 53 Foot Well
Prototype VehicleContainer Car, Single Well, Gunderson Husky Stack 53 (Details)
Road or Company NameSt. Mary's Railway West LLC (SMW) (Details)
Reporting MarksSMW
Road or Reporting Number210429
Paint Color(s)Dark Orange
Print Color(s)White and Yellow
Coupler TypeAccuMate Magnetic Knuckle
Coupler MountBody-Mount
Wheel TypeChemically Blackened Metal
Wheel ProfileSmall Flange (Low Profile)
Release Date2019-06-01
Item CategoryRolling Stock (Freight)
Model TypeContainer Car
Model SubtypeWell
Model Variety53 Foot
Prototype RegionNorth America
Prototype EraNA Era V: Modern Diesel (1979 - Present)
Scale1/160
Track GaugeN standard



Model Information: Atlas first released this model in June of 2019. It was followed up by an announced second release in January of 2020. The model features: Die-cast body; Detailed brake lines; Detailed air reservoir; Separate hand grabs; Etched metal walks; Minimum radius: 12-1/2".
Prototype History:
Double-stack container trains first hit the rails for regular service in 1981. The Southern Pacific Railroad had developed the idea to provide service for the Sea- Land maritime shipping company. SP's pioneering double-stack service let Sea- Land's containers take a shortcut from the west coast to the Gulf of Mexico bypassing the Panama Canal. From prototype car to production order, the SP spent a little over four years on the double-stack development project. The SP's double-stack cars featured unwieldy bulkheads on each end to prevent the loose top container from blowing off of the car. A new group at Greenbrier Intermodal designed a similar bulkhead car, even as other companies were starting to leave the bulkheads off of their stack cars. The support for the upper container came from inter-box connectors (IBCs) which had been used for years in oceangoing container shipping. Greenbrier and their car builder, Gunderson, wanted to get in on that market, and did so with their Maxi-Stack cars. But there was another new market out there: developing a single, two-truck stack car. Almost all of the existing cars in service were articulated, with the exception of one SP prototype car.

David DeBoer, a co-founder of Greenbrier, had been seeking to fill this single-well stack car niche, despite the "intermodal experts" at Trailer Train Corp. insisting that the only single-well car that could ride smoothly was a European-style 2-axle car. (In fact, it was DeBoer who wrote the reference book I used for much of this background. His Piggyback and Containers is a highly recommended read, and it was my first review item for MRN.) DeBoer sought advice from his retired former boss at the SP. This pitted the Doubting Thomases at TTX up against Bill Thomford, who had developed the SP's double-stack prototypes. Thomford laughed off Trailer Train's existence, pointing out that his own single-well, two-truck stack car had a million miles of reliable service under its belt. DeBoer went back to Greenbrier and the company got to work designing the car that TTX said was doomed to failure.

In 1990, Gunderson turned out the Husky Stack. Test engineers proved Thomford right, and the cars tracked perfectly. Trailer Train ended up reversing their initial claims and ordering 150 Husky Stack cars built with 48-foot wells in 1991. The Burlington Northern also ordered 75 cars and other buyers lined up later. The original 1991 model cars are still going strong for many different owners, including Trailer Train.

Husky Stack development has continued today, with the introduction of 53-foot wells and the "All-Purpose" Husky Stack, with trailer hitches on each end. In Greenbrier terms, the car is named the HS53 for the 53-foot well version.
Road Name History:
St. Mary’s Railway West LLC.(SMW) is a privately owned and operated Class III Short Line Railroad, located in the Heart of South East Georgia, servicing customers from all over the United States and Canada by providing safe storage for idle and/or under-utilized railcars and locomotives.

St. Mary’s Railway West's close proximity to the "CSX Rice Yard” in Waycross, GA, one of the largest CSX Classification Hump Yards, provides easy access to our railcar storage facility.

SMW is served daily by our Class I partner. St. Mary's guarantees 24 – 72 hours or faster delivery time frame, from initial request to delivery of requested railcars to the CSX interchange, plus provides customized and personalized services are only some of the many advantages, when storing your equipment with St. Mary's.

While in storage, St. Mary's Railway is able to offer a variety of additional services, e.g, state of the art food grade railcar cleaning (coming soon) and repair services by St. Mary's RRA, Coastal Railcar Services LLC., thus making the facility the perfect one-stop service solution.

St. Mary’s Railway prides itself to provide services with utmost attention to detail to our diversified client base.

St. Marys Railway West has not been affiliated with the St. Marys Railroad, which operates between St. Marys and Kingsland, since SMRW purchased the 23 miles of track from CSXT on June 4, 2004.
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.
Item created by: Jenna on 2019-06-20 17:08:46. Last edited by gdm on 2021-03-02 11:37:19

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