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It's not a real railroad unless your hauling chickens (layout pic)

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  • Member since
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  • From: Reading, PA
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Posted by rrinker on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 5:05 PM

 The BLI one is the wrong type of car, it's more or less a generic stock car, and for larger stock like cattle at that - pig and sheep cars usually had multiple decks. It's a fairly modern car as well.

Ambroid made a kit of the poultry car similar to the OP's scratchbuilt one - there's 3 or 4 of them on Ebay now. Not exactly 'cheap' but a lot less expensive than the brass ones.

                                   --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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  • From: Moneta, VA USA
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Posted by gdelmoro on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:36 PM

MalcyMalc

Does anybody make a 1930's live chicken car? I'd like to build a model of the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR in Maine and live chicken cars are a feature of the area and period.

 

Not sure if 30’s but there is this from BLI - it even has sound.

Gary

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Posted by gdelmoro on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 3:32 PM

THAT would be the most expensive piece orolling stock on my layout.

I went for monkeys instead.

Gary

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Posted by MalcyMalc on Tuesday, April 3, 2018 12:49 PM

gmpullman

 

MalcyMalc
Does anybody make a 1930's live chicken car?

 

https://brasstrains.com/classic/Product/Detail/055341/HO-Brass-Model-Train-OMI-1388-Overland-Palace-Poultry-Car-1920-1950-Era

Or painted:

https://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/072894/HO-Brass-Model-OMI-1388-1-Palace-Poultry-Car-1920-1950-Era-Custom-4202

You can add this to a "want-list" and Brass Trains will notify you when one becomes available.

Have Fun! Ed

 
Sorry - should have specified - are there any available without having to sell a kidney to buy it!
 
Malc
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Posted by gmpullman on Sunday, April 1, 2018 7:22 PM

MalcyMalc
Does anybody make a 1930's live chicken car?

https://brasstrains.com/classic/Product/Detail/055341/HO-Brass-Model-Train-OMI-1388-Overland-Palace-Poultry-Car-1920-1950-Era

Or painted:

https://www.brasstrains.com/Classic/Product/Detail/072894/HO-Brass-Model-OMI-1388-1-Palace-Poultry-Car-1920-1950-Era-Custom-4202

You can add this to a "want-list" and Brass Trains will notify you when one becomes available.

Have Fun! Ed

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    December 2015
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Posted by MalcyMalc on Sunday, April 1, 2018 6:49 PM

Does anybody make a 1930's live chicken car? I'd like to build a model of the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR in Maine and live chicken cars are a feature of the area and period.

  • Member since
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  • From: Reading, PA
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Posted by rrinker on Friday, March 30, 2018 7:15 AM

 Yeah, I've been in cow barns. While the smell isn't exactly pleasant, it's not unbearable - which is why on the occasion when the wind is just right,t he smell of the mushroom houses around here don't bother me so much - although my GF, who grew up on a farm (I was just a relative - it was my uncle that had the farm I visited) gags at the smell. Go figure. But the chickens, or turkeys.. bring forth the menthol to rub under your nose. 

 And to think, there was once that company that made scented smoke oil - and also I think just scented oils (put a little dab somewhere and like an air freshener it gave off the scenet, no heating required) - Olfactory Airs. And that had good ones - like pine to put in your logging steamers, but they also had various more industrial and rural smells. I guess if you used little cottom chickens in the chicken car you have the perfect place to add authentic chicken coop scents. Wait, you didn't WANT to be a lone wolf operator?

                                               --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by mbinsewi on Thursday, March 29, 2018 10:01 PM

Raised on farms, cattle (cows, steers, etc.) didn't bother me.  Pigs, well a little more intense, but the chicken coop!  OMG, the ammonia smell of the chicken **** and urine, was breath taking!.  Especially during the winter, when they were confined to the coop, or in a larger version, chicken house.

Mike.

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Posted by Uncle_Bob on Thursday, March 29, 2018 9:39 PM

rrinker

 There's a picture of it in Jeff WIlson's Exrpess and LCL book - chicks in boxes were shipped REA instead of the chicken/turkey cars - they'd fall through the screening or be badly injured if they were shipped int he big cars without some 'packing' material.

 Forget the poultry cars, imagine a unit stock train of pigs... train arrives at 12:20pm, but you can smell it by 11:00am. And still smell it hours after it leaves.

                                            --Randy

 

 

You also had cattle, which don't smell great anyway, especially if you open the door of a stock car and are greeted by Old Bessie "opening up on me like a howitzer," as Grandpa said about his experience.  Then there were the elephants aboard circus trains.  That had to have been less-than pleasant!  But, riding aboard a car with hundreds of chickens must've been foul indeed!

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Posted by stokesda on Wednesday, March 28, 2018 2:29 PM

Wow, I never knew such a thing existed! Reading your post put a smile on my face as I thought about the cleverness and whimsy of it all, then it slowly dawned on me that this was a real thing Surprise  Great work on the modeling. I especially like the "pieces of chicken shaped cotton" Big Smile 

Since it's Easter season, might I suggest a second car filled with little yellow marshmallow Peeps instead of chickens? Big Smile

Dan Stokes

My other car is a tunnel motor

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Posted by DavidH66 on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 4:18 PM

rrinker
Forget the poultry cars, imagine a unit stock train of pigs... train arrives at 12:20pm, but you can smell it by 11:00am. And still smell it hours after it leaves.



It's funny you say that, I learned recently about the Farmer John plant in Vernon used trains to transport pigs to market up until the mid90s. So Almost 30 years after most railroads stopped doing so.



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Posted by garya on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 1:35 PM

Medina1128

A few years back, Model Railroader (not sure of the issue) ran an article about special chick trains. There used to be a daily train than ran from Belton, MO to Clinton, MO (where I live now). Clinton was known as the "baby chick capitol of the world". It was a lot more efficient to ship chicks than full-grown chickens simply because of the sheer numbers.

 

Believe it was in Model Railroad Planning 2008.  See http://www.frisco.org/shipit/index.php?threads/clinton-chicken-train.3091/#post-20093 for more info...

Gary

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Posted by rrinker on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 1:10 PM

 There's a picture of it in Jeff WIlson's Exrpess and LCL book - chicks in boxes were shipped REA instead of the chicken/turkey cars - they'd fall through the screening or be badly injured if they were shipped int he big cars without some 'packing' material.

 Forget the poultry cars, imagine a unit stock train of pigs... train arrives at 12:20pm, but you can smell it by 11:00am. And still smell it hours after it leaves.

                                            --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

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Posted by mbinsewi on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 12:28 PM

Medina1128
A few years back, Model Railroader (not sure of the issue) ran an article about special chick trains.

Now that would have been interesting to see. Stick out tongue Laugh

I like the way you have a Facebook thing.  I just took quite a scroll Laugh (You know, verses stroll)

Mike.

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Posted by Medina1128 on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 11:59 AM

A few years back, Model Railroader (not sure of the issue) ran an article about special chick trains. There used to be a daily train than ran from Belton, MO to Clinton, MO (where I live now). Clinton was known as the "baby chick capitol of the world". It was a lot more efficient to ship chicks than full-grown chickens simply because of the sheer numbers.

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Posted by BroadwayLion on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 10:01 AM

Bet you can smell that train a mile away.

 

ROAR

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Posted by railandsail on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 8:27 AM

rrinker
Probably not a good idea to be standing too close trackside when one of those cars went past.

                                                  --Randy

ROFLMAO Laugh

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Posted by rrinker on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 6:59 AM

 Probably the guy who rode along inside. Plus there was another big of ingenious design to those cars - the cages sloped slightly to the outside, so 'stuff' would roll to the outside, not to the center aisle between them. Probably not a good idea to be standing too close trackside when one of those cars went past.

                                                  --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

  • Member since
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Posted by railandsail on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 6:56 AM

Wonder who was task with cleaning up the floor of that car,...ha...ha

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Posted by "JaBear" on Tuesday, March 27, 2018 2:20 AM

on Flickr

"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."

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Posted by hon30critter on Monday, March 26, 2018 8:51 PM

Bob, the chicken hauler is great! So is the backdrop. My first impression was that I was looking at the real thing.

Dave

I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!

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Posted by Bob grech on Sunday, March 25, 2018 3:56 PM

Dr. Wayne, nice modeling.... I really like that accident scene.

 

Have Fun.... Bob.

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Posted by doctorwayne on Sunday, March 25, 2018 1:09 PM

Nice job!   YesYes  The chickens are especially effective.

Live chickens doing any travelling on my layout are usually in crates on the back of a farmer's pick-up truck, heading to a local market.  The picture below shows the trip home after a successful day...

On another occasion, though, a truck got stuck on the crossing, and while the driver and his brother got out safely, the truck and most of the chickens didn't fare so well...

Even some of the chickens still running around during the clean-up ended up in the caboose, in the form of the conductor's renowned chicken stew.

Wayne

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  • From: Southern Florida Gulf Coast
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Posted by SeeYou190 on Saturday, March 24, 2018 6:11 PM

But they are not real chickens unless they are tall chickens. Just like the only real cows are long cows!

.

I really wish I had a picture of the "Tall Chicken and Long Cow" ranch on the layout that was on display at the Happy Hobo hobby shop in Tampa before they closed.

.

It was quite a sight.

.

Nice job on the scene. Great modeling work.

.

-Kevin

.

Living the dream.

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Posted by HO-Velo on Saturday, March 24, 2018 11:41 AM

That's some really cool and clever modeling, not to mention the nice presentation.

Regards,  Peter

 

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Posted by rrebell on Saturday, March 24, 2018 10:22 AM

Nice job, got a few of those cars.

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Posted by rrinker on Saturday, March 24, 2018 9:58 AM

 What you may or may not know is those cars carried an attendant to feed and water the birds en-route. The center of the car had a bunk, sink, and stove for this person. Having been on chicken and turkey farms, I can only imagine how smelly this job was, not to mention the insane never-ending noise of the birds.

                                         --Randy

 


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

  • Member since
    August 2003
  • From: Collinwood, Ohio, USA
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Posted by gmpullman on Saturday, March 24, 2018 3:23 AM

That's an excellent model, Bob!

Have you seen this photo of the real thing?

 9251 001 by John W. Barriger III National Railroad Library, on Flickr

Not long ago I saw an HO model by Overland on a consignment sale. It was priced at nearly a thousand dollars. That ain't chicken scratch!

Regards, Ed

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Posted by NWP SWP on Friday, March 23, 2018 4:47 PM

One of the guys at the club had a livestock car with a decoder that made such a racket I don't know what was in it, sounded like chickens, cows, horses, and sheep all at once.

Steve

If everything seems under control, you're not going fast enough!

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