Atlas - 50 006 293 - Tank Car, 20.7K, General Service - Calumet Specialty Products - 11827

Road Name History: Calumet Specialty Products Partners, L.P. (NASDAQ: CLMT) is a publicly traded U.S.-based company that was incorporated in 1919. It specializes in the manufacture of lubricating oils, solvents, waxes, packaged and synthetic specialty products, fuels and fuel-related products. The company operates 12 production, blending, and packaging facilities across North America. This includes locations in Princeton, Cotton Valley, and Shreveport, Louisiana; Burnham, Illinois; Dickinson, Texas; Muncie, Indiana; and Karns City, Pennsylvania. Calumet's specialized hydrocarbon products are distributed around the world to approximately 2,700 global customers.

Calumet is a producer of specialty hydrocarbon products. The company processes crude oil and other feedstocks into a wide variety of customized lubricating oils, solvents, waxes, synthetic lubricants, and other products. Calumet's specialty products are sold to domestic and international customers who purchase them primarily as raw material components for various industrial and consumer applications. Calumet also blends, packages, and markets specialty products through their Royal Purple, Bel-Ray, and TruFuel brands. Calumet's fuel products segment processes crude oil into a variety of fuel and fuel-related products, including gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, asphalt, and others, and occasionally resells purchased crude oil to third-party customers.

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.