Reality check - small slaughterhouse

[tbdanny]

Hi all,

I'm planning to put in a structure on my layout that will be a retail butcher to the public, but will have a small (i.e. 1-2 cows) stockyard out the back for receiving the 'raw product'.  The cattle are then processed in the back of the shop, before the meat is sold out the front.  Would this be feasable?  My time period is the mid-1950s, in New Mexico.

Thanks in advance,

tbdanny

[Railway Man]

 Feasible, yes, but likely, no.  The cost of using rail service for less-than-carload volumes of cattle, or even single-car volumes, as opposed to truck, would make this slaughterhouse operate at a substantial loss.  By the 1920s (30 years earlier) trucks were economically viable.  Prior to that era, most cattle for slaughter in towns and even some mid-sized cities were raised locally, and simply herded to the slaughterhouse through the street.

RWM

[cahrn]

 As was aforementioned, I don't think a cattle pen/butchers that is so small would get rail service. Originally, when I ready your post I assumed that the butcher scene would just be a vignette in town not related to the railway. In this case I think it is plausible, but even for a small butchers I feel like only handling one or two head at a time might be a bit small.

 

-Cahrn 

[tbdanny]

Let me clarify;

The butcher isn't going to be rail-served.  There is a much larger stockyard that I am in the process of scratchbuilding, large enough to handle up to 3 carloads at once.   The butcher is intended to be a 'paired industry' (I think that's the term), with a truck taking the cattle from the rail stockyard to a 'holding' stockyard at the back of the butcher's - which should be big enough to hold 5 or 6 head?

[Railway Man]

I think the problem is that the cattle are arriving by rail at a consuming site in an state that is a major cattle exporter -- the phrase "hauling coals to Newcastle" comes to mind.  It's just not a likely business proposition.

Here's what would be prototypical for rail served cattle-pens in New Mexico in that era:

1. Stockpens for cow-calf units arriving in the spring for grazing on public lands, and departing in the fall for feedlots or lower-altitude grazing pastureland.
2. Stockpens for cattle sales lots or stockyards associated with slaughterhouses -- usually about 95% of the cattle were inbound only, but some would go back out for specialty slaughterhouses or for breeding stock.
3. Stockpens for en-route watering, feeding, and resting.

RWM

 

 

[cahrn]

tbdanny

with a truck taking the cattle from the rail stockyard to a 'holding' stockyard at the back of the butcher's - which should be big enough to hold 5 or 6 head

 

 

This is what I had imagined you were going to create. I'm far from being an expert, but again, it seems plausible to me as long as there are a few other supposed customers the cattle distributor serves. Perhaps they wont be modeled but they will be within reasonable trucking distance from the pens. In this sense I feel like it might not be completely bogus to have a stock car operation that feeds into a few other industries that need cattle, but are not feasibly or realistically served by rail.

 

-Cahrn 

[chutton01]

I found this concept interesting, as at first I thought by the 1950s cattle would be processed only at the slaughterhouse (pardon me, 'abattoir'), and the resulting carcasses shipped to individual small butcher shops (among other receivers such as markets), so the butcher wouldn't even have a stockpen.

However, I then realized that live butchers exists today, in the 21st century, to sell freshly slaughtered meat to retail customers - 1 is not far from Jamaica station in Queens, NY (Jamaica-Archer Live Poultry & Meat Market - they don't seem to sell Beef, but they do have Lamb, Goat, Chicken, Turkey and other small game such as Rabbit. I believe all the pens are indoors, or at least I never saw any open pens when taking the LIRR (which is across the street) - using Bing Bird's eye, perhaps there are small pens in the back, covered by corrugated sheet plastic.

Anyway, as stated the animals would be dropped off by truck by the 1950s - however, consider the area - is the planned butcher situated on the upscale main street between a prestigious law office and a fashionable ladies' dress shop - then it's totally unlikely to be getting live cattle, only frozen carcasses (delivered to the back service entrance, please); on the other hand, the live butchers in NY tend to be in light-industrial or service/commerical areas (e.g. near distributors, building material outlets, gas stations, etc) - although when these butchers (mostly Halal, I think) started coming in during the 1980s, people blocks away stiil complained on the news about the noise and smell...

[colesdad]

tbdanny,

I too would like to incorporate some type of scene with stock pens/meat processing plant on my layout as well. The Walthers Champion Packing plant is just too large for Me, so I am looking at the Branchline Meat Packing plant for just a trackside type industry. Although this would not give you that "retail butcher shop look", it may give you a resonable "excuse" to have a single stock pen. From there dressed beef sides could be trucked to the butcher store.

Good luck, and let us know what you decide.

[markpierce]

This is a useful resource discussing stock operations, and more. 

http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/Sandifer/Clinics/OpClinics.htm 

Mark

[tbdanny]

Okay,

What I'm getting from this thread so far are the following points;

1) It would be feasable for a small combined abbatoir/butcher to exist, and have a stockyard out the back for truck delivery, provided it's in an industrial area - which it will be.

2) Livestock was mostly shipped out of the Texas/NM area, not into it.

So a more plausible scenario, given the area, would be that the butcher either receives carcasses from an off-layout slaughterhouse, or live cattle from a local rancher (is that the term?), and that same rancher also delivers his cattle to the rail-served stockyard for shipment out to markets east.

BTW, the sign on the butcher's will read 'W. Mitchell, Meat Surgeon' - it's named after my late grandfather, who passed away earlier this year.  He was a retired butcher, but always said he'd been a 'meat surgeon'.

[colesdad]

Mark,

I just read the info in the link you provided. That was some pretty cool information. I couldn't stop reading. Thanks for that.

[markpierce]

Railway Man

Stockpens for cow-calf units arriving in the spring for grazing on public lands, and departing in the fall for feedlots or lower-altitude grazing pastureland.

Did someone say something like "cow and calf"?

[Flynn]

I actually do know of a specific slaughterhouse/butcher that you seem to describe.

The business was located in the small farm town I grew up in out in the northern Midwest.  I can't speak to the Southwest in terms of whether they would have had an equivalent but I can describe our "packing house."

The shop acted primarily as a local slaughterhouse for cows, pigs and chicken for the local farmers and wild game for hunters.  The back of the shop had a very small spur from the local railroad.  The local population could stop by and purchase meat from the butcher in a small retail room at the front of the building while other product was shipped via truck/train to other larger cities through the back.

It wasn't a large operation or even a large building; maybe the size of a small gymnasium.  It was located outside of town by about an 1/8 of a mile.  It had a generic name like Jones Packing House or something but the locals referred to it as The Packing House.  Maybe this helps you or not but there you have it.

[tbdanny]

Flynn,

This does help.  I was mainly checking if such an arrangement was plausible - hearing of a prototype close to it confirms this is so.  Thank you.

tbdanny

[dknelson]

Another possibility would be a "Kosher" slaughtering operation operated according to the requirements of the Kashrut (dietary laws), which follows rules and standards different enough from the run-of-the-mill to possibly warrant being operated separately, and if the local Jewish population is not large it would also explain the small size of the operation. 

Decades ago Irving Wallace (I think) wrote a fascinating article about a trip to such a slaughtering operation, supervised by a rabbi.  Unfortunately I cannot find it on the internet (it was in an anthology of his early magazine articles). 

There may be no prototype for this whatsoever but there would be an explanation for it -- sometimes that is the best we can do.  Almost any industry that can fit on a normal sized layout is per se too small to warrant train service!

Dave Nelson 

[jmk69]

Hi, Reading this post, I came across this photo. Perhaps it gives a clue https://www.facebook.com/NEBandW/photos/a.298724703547412/1656104391142763/?type=1&theater

[jeffhergert]

Flynn

I actually do know of a specific slaughterhouse/butcher that you seem to describe.

The business was located in the small farm town I grew up in out in the northern Midwest.  I can't speak to the Southwest in terms of whether they would have had an equivalent but I can describe our "packing house."

The shop acted primarily as a local slaughterhouse for cows, pigs and chicken for the local farmers and wild game for hunters.  The back of the shop had a very small spur from the local railroad.  The local population could stop by and purchase meat from the butcher in a small retail room at the front of the building while other product was shipped via truck/train to other larger cities through the back.

It wasn't a large operation or even a large building; maybe the size of a small gymnasium.  It was located outside of town by about an 1/8 of a mile.  It had a generic name like Jones Packing House or something but the locals referred to it as The Packing House.  Maybe this helps you or not but there you have it.

 

Small butcher shops like this were once common in small midwest (at least) towns.  Maybe not with the railroad spur though.  Some still exist, but their numbers are dwindling.  They provide custom work for farmers and also sell meat to the public.  Many close now because the owner/operator is retiring and/or can't afford to keep up with health standards geared to large factory type operations.

Jeff

[basementdweller]

tbdanny, what you describe is very feasible. Where I live we have such a place where annimals arrive in small numbers and are slaughtered and processd. The meat is sold through the butcher shop in the front. 

Interestingly the massive stock yard that was nearby is long gone and the area has become more residential, but that small slaughter house / butcher's shop survives.

[BRAKIE]

tbdanny

I'm planning to put in a structure on my layout that will be a retail butcher to the public, but will have a small (i.e. 1-2 cows) stockyard out the back for receiving the 'raw product'. The cattle are then processed in the back of the shop, before the meat is sold out the front. Would this be feasable?

Absolutely! . The cows would be bought at a local cattle auction and delivered by truck.