When CJ Bender put his arm around his nephew W. Ray Wallace in 1946 and told him, “We’re going to build something. One day, you’ll be proud of what we’re going to have,” he couldn’t have imagined where the company that he helped co-found would be in 2025.
Wallace, who started out as the 17th employee of what was then called Trinity Steel, would go from making $57 a week working as an entry-level engineer and salesman to serving as the Chairman and CEO from 1958 until his retirement 40 years later, when he was succeeded by his son, Timothy R. Wallace.
Today, with annual revenues around $3 billion and under the brand name TrinityRail®, the company is a leading provider of railcar leasing and other rail transportation products and services to diverse customers across North America.
From its robust and industry-leading lease fleet to its maintenance services and aftermarket parts businesses, to its leadership in railcar management software, TrinityRail offers a comprehensive suite of solutions to shippers, railroads and third-party lessors that is unmatched within the industry.
And while much has changed in terms of the types of businesses and industries that the company serves, many of the core principles that Mr. Bender and Mr. Wallace promoted are still applied every day, most especially its singular focus on meeting the needs of its customers and a dedication to innovation.
Beginnings
The story of TrinityRail technically begins in the mid 1940s with Trinity Steel, a Dallas-based company that Bender founded in July 1944, that focused on manufacturing tanks for Butane and Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG). Following the successful recruitment of his 23-year-old nephew Wallace from an oil field services company in California (and his successfully convincing him to abandon his ambition of heading up to Alaska for lucrative work in the oil business of the Great White North), Bender put Wallace to work immediately. Though his job description was officially listed as an engineer, Wallace found himself learning the ins and outs of much of the grunt work required to keep production lines running and ensure that product got shipped out the door as quickly as possible.
“There wasn’t enough to keep you busy as an engineer, so I swept the floor and loaded the tanks. At that moment in time, I was in hopes that someday I would make $500 a month”, Wallace said in a 1998 interview with The Dallas Morning News. Indeed, income-wise, Wallace was off to a great start, as his monthly salary of $225 was already 15% more than what he was making as an engineer in Bakersfield, California.
Solving Problems, Being Innovators
Although Wallace’s responsibilities would eventually expand to include door-to-door sales, (a role that he confessed to struggling with initially until some tough love by Bender helped set him straight), his first assignment really was that of problem solver.
Following the November 1958 merger of Trinity Steel and Dallas Tank, the newly formed company was renamed Trinity Steel Company, Inc. and it would continue to grow as a domestic leader in the manufacturing of everything from waterborne barges, wind towers, highway products and other steel-based offerings.
But with the merger came additional problems with production processes, inventory control and chain of command issues at the plants.
Wallace wasted no time in asserting his leadership, holding management meetings every Saturday morning in an attempt to untangle the myriad of challenges the company was facing and identify ways to streamline processes.
Peers and subordinates alike spoke admiringly of Wallace’s ability to listen to his team, be open to suggestions, and convey genuine honesty and decency in the process.
Said longtime board member, Edmund Hoffman in a 1999 interview:
“If he needed to be tough, he’d be tough, but he was always fair and always honest. And trying to figure out what to do and how to do it, and what can we now make that we weren’t able to make two years ago…Ray and the employees kept working”.
Whether it’s challenges on the production line or finding ways to build products and services to solve customers’ unique shipping needs, TrinityRail has always prided itself on solving problems. As a leader in the rail transportation industry, the company is laser-focused on creating and implementing innovative products and services to help solve their customers’ challenges and make shipping by rail easier.
When agricultural customers expressed a need for a more streamlined and quicker approach to moving grain products, TrinityRail designed and delivered the very first 5,161 cubic-foot covered hopper car in 1995, which incorporated an innovative through-sill design with rounded, smooth sides.
But never one to remain content resting on its laurels, TrinityRail’s spirit for innovation and passion for resolving customer problems continued several decades later with the creation of the 5,459 cubic-foot covered hopper in 2020, specifically built with the intention of optimizing unit trains due to its shorter length. The result is an innovative lightweight covered hopper that maintains structural integrity while optimizing shipping capacity and car length, allowing agricultural shippers to ship more product with fewer cars.
Big Changes and Becoming a Railcar Leader
The company’s foray into building railcars occurred almost by accident in 1966, when Union Tank Car, a former subsidiary of the Standard Oil Company at the time, presented Trinity Industries (renamed from Trinity Steel Company, Inc. that same year) with an opportunity to fully build 1,500 railcars designed to transport LPG and anhydrous ammonia, after Union fell behind on its production schedule. Trinity had already been supplying the tank portion of tank cars to another railcar manufacturer, Richmond Tank Car, for several years. Trinity completed the order, but it wasn’t until 11 years later that it would make its jump again into building the entire railcar, this time on a full-time basis.
The 1970s brought on two tremendous changes to the company, both of which had effects still felt to this day.
On June 28th, 1972, Trinity Industries began trading on the New York Stock Exchange, and in 1977, after witnessing several years of heavy demand for railcars due to factors like the increasing need for grain in eastern Europe and a booming domestic petrochemical industry, Trinity became a full-fledged railcar manufacturer.
After fulfilling a steady flow of orders for just the tank portion for a long-time railcar customer, a pricing dispute between Wallace and the customer caused the relationship to turn sour. After tense in-person negotiations resulted in a stalemate and a threat that the customer would put Trinity out of business if it tried to become a bonified manufacturer of finished cars, Wallace returned to Texas and overnight Trinity became a builder of finished tank and hopper railcars for good.
With a newly hired, full-time railcar sales team providing boots on the ground to help grow the business, and a team of young engineers creating innovative, new designs, Trinity created proprietary drawings for the 6,130 and 4,750 cubic-foot hopper cars. The company’s ability to go from producing zero finished railcars in early 1977 to becoming an undisputed leading builder by the beginning of the next decade was enabled by its decades of flexible manufacturing experience and the perfectly symbiotic relationship that building steel structures had with making railcars. By the early 1980s, the company was producing upwards of 6,000 cars per year.
A direct lineage to this large, flexible manufacturing footprint can be seen today in the highly diverse types of railcars that TrinityRail currently builds, with no fewer than 60 designs publicly marketed across seven different car segments (with the capability of producing numerous other specialty designs to meet customers’ unique needs).
Becoming a Leading Railcar Lessor
As part of his quest to build a sales team to support the organization’s new commitment to building railcars, in 1979 Wallace secured the services of long-time Union Tank Car sales executive and Chicago-based Trinity customer Richard Brown to lead the newly formed sales organization. Almost immediately, Brown was able to convince Wallace of the tremendous profitability and tax advantages of leasing railcars. With an initial order of 180 cars for direct-sale and 120 cars on lease for the energy company Amoco, Trinity was officially in the railcar leasing business by the end of the year.
By the early 1980s the company’s lease fleet grew to more than 1,000 railcars. Today, TrinityRail boasts one of the largest and diverse lease fleets within the entire industry (with most of the cars easily identifiable by its “TILX” markings on the sides), with over 140,000 cars either owned or managed by the company and over $7 billion invested in the fleet. The company prides itself on providing a number of flexible leasing options to a wide range of vertical market customers ranging from chemical shippers, agriculture, energy, construction, metals and consumer goods.
A True Services Partner
TrinityRail proudly offers a wide range of services that complement its lease fleet, including a dedicated field support team that can assist with safety procedures, unloadings, inspections, and technical troubleshooting anywhere in North America.
Also available is TrinityRail‘s robust maintenance services business and network, which include mobile repair units, railcar cleaning, and industry-leading paint and lining services, tailored for both owned and leased railcars.
The company’s parts business manufactures and distributes replacement parts, ensuring on-time delivery with a vast inventory. Based in Fort Worth, TX, this segment of TrinityRail’s business specializes in proprietary designs like the EDSCO Pro-Series® pneumatic gate, the Seal Safe Radial door, and the TTM® low-profile restraint system for automobile transportation. And with the acquisition of Holden America in 2022, TrinityRail now offers Holden’s full product catalog, including the market-leading bi-level chock system.
The New Millenium to the Present
After divesting most of its non-rail businesses in 2018 into a new infrastructure materials company, Arcosa, Inc., TrinityRail became solely focused on providing integrated rail solutions to the industry, with a primary focus on leasing cars.
Now under the leadership of President and CEO Jean Savage since 2020, TrinityRail continues to dedicate itself to improving the end-to-end supply chain experience for its customers. Most notably, the 2023 acquisition of RSI Logistics, a provider of proprietary software, logistics services and terminal management solutions, has helped with this goal by applying rail transportation management software like Rail Command® and Rail Impact® to increase the visibility of rail shipments and improve overall shipping efficiency.
Conclusion
Although CJ Bender and Ray Wallace are no longer with us (Bender passed away in 1977 and Wallace in 2016), their legacy of putting the customer first and adopting an attitude of innovation is still very much a core tenant of how TrinityRail operates. They would be proud of what the company they started has become and how it lives up to its purpose statement: Delivering Goods for the Good of All™.
References:
The Legend of Trinity Industries Inc., by Jeffrey L. Rodengen, copyright © 2000 by Write Stuff Enterprises, Inc.
