Union Tank Car Company

Union Tank Car Company or UTLX "The Tank Car People" (their best known reporting mark) is a railway equipment leasing company (and car maintenance / manufacturing) headquartered in metro Chicago, Illinois. As the name says, they specialise in tank cars, and covered hopper cars. Repair shops and mobile repair units provide railcar maintenance services at more than 100 locations. As of September 2005, according to their site, they have about 80,000 cars in their fleet.

A UTLX tank car passes westbound through Rochelle Railroad Park in Rochelle, Illinois on May 29, 2005.

In 2015, Union Tank Car Company, along with affiliate Procor, Ltd., acquired 25,000 tank cars and five fixed repair shops from GE Capital Railcar Services, increasing leased asset portfolio by 20 percent and repair shop network by 15 percent.

Union Tank Car Company was founded in 1866 by Captain Jacob J. Vandergrift, in response to the economic activities of John D. Rockefeller in the years leading up to his creation of Standard Oil. Vandergrift was involved in the conflicts in the oil regions of Western Pennsylvania in the 1860s–1870s. Eventually, Union Tank Car Company and Vandergrift's other holdings, which included pipeline and riverboat transport companies, merged with the company that later became Standard Oil. Rockefeller, once Captain Vandergrift's nemesis, made him Vice President of Standard Oil. The town of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania, built in 1895 by steel company president George G. McMurtry to house his workers, was named in Vandergrift's honor.

TransUnion was formed as a holding company in 1968 to hold Union Tank Car Company. TransUnion soon began acquiring credit information and information management companies as a second major investment. The Marmon Group acquired TransUnion in 1981, spinning off the TransUnion name and the financial portion of the holding company to Madison Dearborn Partners in the 1990s.

Union Tank Car Company is still owned by Marmon, which in turn is now a 100% owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway.

See also
  • Procor - Canadian subsidiary of Union Tank Car
  • UTLX corporate site
  • Chicago History thumbnail
  • Victorian Vandergrift Museum and Historical Society site
  • Alle-Kiski Today (Western Pennsylvania regional magazine)
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