Union Tank Car Company or UTLX (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.
Founded in 1866 by J. J. Vandergrift, in response to the economic activities of Standard Oil, as of September 2005, according to their site, they have about 80,000 cars in their fleet.
Vandergrift was involved in the conflicts in the oil regions of Western Pennsylvania in the 1860s–1870s. Eventually, Union Tank Car Company and his 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. Captain Jacob J. Vandergrift also had a town built and named in his honor by George G. McMurtry in Western Pennsylvania in 1895.
TransUnion was formed as a holding company in 1968, and began acquiring credit bureaus. The Marmon Group acquired TransUnion in 1981.
Union Tank Car Company is still owned by Marmon. In 2008 60% of Marmon Holdings itself has been acquired by Berkshire Hathaway, with the remaining 40% to be acquired in the next five to seven years.
Famous quotes containing the words union, car and/or company:
“In externals we advance with lightening express speed, in modes of thought and sympathy we lumber on in stage-coach fashion.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“One way to do it might be by making the scenery penetrate the automobile. A polished black sedan was a good subject, especially if parked at the intersection of a tree-bordered street and one of those heavyish spring skies whose bloated gray clouds and amoeba-shaped blotches of blue seem more physical than the reticent elms and effusive pavement. Now break the body of the car into separate curves and panels; then put it together in terms of reflections.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)
“In common with other rural regions much of the Iowa farm lore concerns the coming of company. When the rooster crows in the doorway, or the cat licks his fur, company is on the way.”
—For the State of Iowa, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)