Jack M. Willis
Journal Correspondent

The railroads brought prosperity to North Louisiana at the turn of the 20th century, when harvesting the virgin pine forests and sawmilling brought boom times to places that today are only skeletons of their past glories. Only a few of the towns from that area still have either rail service or the relative prosperity that came with the timber boom.

The railroad industry is again being counted on to bring a new measure of prosperity to the Central Louisiana area, with the construction of a major modern new tank car facility at Alexandria.

A special ceremony was held at the England Air Park community center on September 8 this year, when Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was joined by members of the Louisiana Economic Development Commission, the CENLA Chamber of Commerce, regional politicians and business leaders and other well-wishers to witness the signing of a cooperative agreement between the State of Louisiana and Union Tank Car Company which will secure the location of the plant

Bob Zwartz, Director of Taxes, nion Tank Car Company, 175 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, represented the Company at the ceremony, and said construction will commence soon to begin operations during 2006.

Zwartz told The Piney Woods Journal the Alexandria plant will be the company's most modern operation, equaling at the one plant in this area the total production of two other plans, in the Chicago area. The construction phase of the new industry will employ a variety of skilled contractors in the Central Louisiana area, and when complete the plant will employ 850 or more directly, with other satellite services raising the payroll generated to 1,000 or more.

When in full operation the plant will produce 75 tank cars per week, Zwartz said.

Among the selling points for the State of Louisiana, said Zwartz, is that Alexandria is an the crossroads of two main interstate rail lines, Union Pacific and Kansas City Southern, and there is already in place a spur line that had been used when England Air Park was the site of the England Air Force Base, for rail delivery of military supplies.

"The more things change, the more they stay the same," appropriately describes both aspects of Union Tank Car company's 110 years as the premier tank/rail car supplier in the business of petroleum products transportation.

In 1891 the nation fought a battle over oil. The battlegrounds were not about overseas deserts, but in the halls of the U.S. Congress. The U.S. Government, armed with the newly created Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), plus the Sherman Antitrust Act took on Standard Oil Company, history's biggest monopoly.

Standard Oil was better known for lubrication than transportation, but the key to Standard Oil's success was Union Tank Line, its railcar subsidiary.

Standard Oil Company President John D. Rockefeller used tank cars as his stock in trade to dominate the petroleum industry by attaining control of all oil shipments.

Oil refined into kerosene was in big demand for lighting and other uses. The earliest tank cars were built in 1865 to transport oil from newly discovered fields. Although they were little more than two wooden tubs mounted on a flat car, they were much more efficient than any other mode of transport at the time, and within five years an improved design utilizing the now-familiar iron tanks made tank cars the obvious transportation choice. In order to bypass governmental interference on July 14, 1891 the Standard trust dodged the legal assault of the U.S. Government by forming a separate corporation, the Union Tank Line Company, dedicated to transportation, and now its job was to show a profit.

Meanwhile, tank car design continued to evolve and improve, and shortly after turn of the century, rail cars with iron tanks banded onto wooden frames were replaced by inventor John Van Dyke's steel "X-car" (named for the shape of the under frame), which connected tank to under frame with a specially created anchor to keep the tank from shifting. The durable X-car permitted new commodities such as gasoline and chemicals to be shipped more safely and with the addition of heater pipes, another Van Dyke innovation, opened tank car shipping to include such products as paraffin and asphalt.

As competition grew throughout the thirties, the company continued to develop new types of cars and construction techniques. They pioneered the use of the relatively new fusion welding process to increase tank strength, and as a result various products could be shipped under high pressure.

With the collapse of the economy in the early 1930s, the number of surplus cars began to increase dramatically, so the Union Tank Car company proceeded to buy them back and re-lease them, and in doing so launched a trend that continues today.

When World War II broke out, the threat of enemy submarines kept oil tankers off the high seas, and tank cars became of strategic importance to the war effort. When the war ended, the tank car's dominant role in transporting bulk liquids was increasingly threatened by the growth of both pipelines and long-haul trucking. In response to competitive threat, Union Tank Car launched an all-out effort to serve producers in emerging markets such as petrochemicals and fertilizers. In 1954 they introduced a new tank car nicknamed the "Hot Dog" because of its appearance. Its flexible design allowed custom application for a variety of cars to fit special needs by shippers.

The 1980s saw computers enter the company's manufacturing process. With computer-aided design (CAD) of railcar components improved fit-up of car components, and on the plant floor, computer-controlled lathe and robotic flame cutters and plasma burners literally put UTC on the cutting edge of tank quality.

Today Union Tank Car begins its second century with a strength that would probably impress the demands of John D. Rockefeller. Just recently the company signed a compact with the Governor of the State of Louisiana.

Zwartz will manage the Alexandria upon completion. In an interview, he told The Piney Woods Journal, "I was born in Chicago on August 18, 1941. I received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Loyola University, and Master of Business Administration from DePaul University. I also attended John Marshall law school for a brief period of time. I served in the United States Army between 1964 and 1966 during the Vietnam conflict. I married Bonita Guthrie in 1969 and we have been blessed with four daughters. We currently have three grandchildren with another on the way. All of our children live within a thirty minute drive of our home in Willowbrook, Illinois, a suburb twenty miles southwest of the city of Chicago.

"I began my full time working career when I was discharged from the United States Army in July of 1966, by going to work for General Motors Corporation, Electro-Motive Division as a cost accountant. A year later I went to work for Cook Electric Company as a budget accountant. Another year later I went to work for Union Tank Car Company (UTC) on December 8, 1969 as a Financial Analyst. In 1970 I was promoted to Senior Financial Analyst.

"In 1974 I was promoted to Accounting Manager. In 1978 I was promoted to Budget Director. In 1981 I was promoted to Director of Financial Analysis.

"In 1982 I was promoted to Director of Taxes. This position has been quite a challenge since UTC has approximately 60,000 railcars that travel throughout the 48 contiguous states as well as Alaska. The Company also has repair shops in 16 states as well as manufacturing facilities in three states.

"During the last twenty two years I have been given increased responsibilities in the fields of tax work, governmental relations work as well as site selection work. I have been successful in having UTC either expand or form new operations in the states of Wyoming, Tennessee and Louisiana.

"In July of 2003 a decision was made to expand the UTC manufacturing facility in Sheldon, Texas. I was given the assignment to negotiate and maximize the financial incentives available from the state of Texas. In order to do this, I needed to establish the 'market value' of the UTC project in the open incentive market. In other words, I had to find out what other states were willing to give UTC to attract its manufacturing expansion. We concentrated primarily in the Southeastern states because most of our customers are located in these states. After we determined the value of our project in the open incentive market, we decided to negotiate exclusively with the state of Texas. After the exclusive period of negotiations with Texas ended, we decided to exclusively negotiate with Louisiana. The reason we chose Louisiana was because it had everything we wanted. It has an excellent quality of life, a very dependable work force, good rail service provided by two major railroads and a very business friendly environment.

"From the very first meeting we had with the Economic Development Department it was very apparent that Governor Blanco and the state of Louisiana really wanted UTC to locate there. This attitude coupled with the incentives that the Legislature made available to the Department of Economic Development made it very easy for UTC to make its decision to locate in Louisiana."

UTC is currently in the process of finalizing its land lease withthe England Economic Development District. It also has applied to the Department of Environmental Quality for the appropriate permits necessary to begin construction. The current schedule calls for the plant to be built and partially operational during the first quarter of 2006. The plant should reach maximum production by December, 2006.

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