Year-round shipments

[KBCpresident]

I notice that several lines seem (or at least during the heyday of the industry) to rely on fruit and grain. These are summer and fall crops respectively. SO during the winter and spring, how did the line make money? Do they store grain and then ship it tthroughout the year, or is it all moved at once?

Thanks,

Steven K.

[doctorwayne]

Such roads certainly enjoy an upswing in business at harvest time, but to rely solely on those industries isn't a very solid business plan.  
Of course, agriculture also requires other commodities (fertilizer, machinery, packaging, etc.) but where transportation became available, other industries soon followed.  Towns and cities sprang up and there'd soon be plenty of business to support a year-round railroad, which often included passenger service.

 
Wayne

[jrbernier]

Steve,

  You are basically correct about these products.  But there are different growings seasons.  For example FGE/WFE/BREX pooled reefers and moved them as needed(Florida Citus/Washingtion apples/plums).  Grain was always an issue.  Box cars were in short supply in late summer as the grain harvest got into full swing.  That is true of any seasonal product.  Grain can be moved from a local elevator to a larger one for export, or malting mils(barley)/flour mills(wheat).

  However, there was lots of manufactured products that had to be moved, and LCL, fuel. etc....

Jim

[NittanyLion]

Feast or famine and you hope your annual surge makes you through to next year.

Where I grew up, there was a surge of southbound iron ore to Pittsburgh in the fall before the lakes iced over and everyone laid up for the winter.  Once a lake froze, the ore stopped.  The mills had to have enough on hand to make it until the spring thaw.  The all rail route from Minnesota to Pennsylvania is long and expensive.

[charlie9]

Feast or famine is exactly right.  Everywhere I worked, when there was a downturn in business, the railroad company cut off as many jobs as possible and if we were lucky put them back on when things picked up again.

Charlie

[tomikawaTT]

Look up the history of, 'Boomers.'  Before the name was applied to ICBM-packing submarines it meant railroaders who made their living following seasonal rushes.  They would sign on when the ABC was manning up for the early harvest, then move from division to division, and/or railroad to railroad, always riding the crest of demand for extra, qualified crew.  After the final late-season surge petered out on the XYZ they would go on extended vacation until the next early harvest.

Like the boomers, the 'granger' railroads might make half their annual income in two months, then cut back operations (and staffing) until the next year's rush.  Winter would see lines of cold locomotives, stacks covered and boilers drained, put out to pasture until the time when every one of them would be needed, in steam, to move the boxcars that filled all those unused passing sidings on the mixed train a day branches.  Note that grain had to move in clean cars.  It made more sense to park those clean cars rather than contaminate them with other lading.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[ndbprr]

I live in the Traverse City Michigan area. 75% of US cherries are grown here as well as apples, asparagus and sunflower seeds. Granted rail traffic is long gone but the packing plants have internal storage and seem to run year round releasing product throughout the year since a lot of fruit gets dried or cooked. There is also some form of alliance that allocates the volume each producer can sell with a ten percent banking for lean years. About five years ago the cherry production was so large producers had to dump product in the fields to rot. The entire industry is not prepared for excess product or the ability to handle or process it so the feast or famine scenario is smoothed as much as possible with all aspects matched as much as possible. I suspect local grain elevators served as the surge holders to a large degree for grains.

[BRAKIE]

NittanyLion

Feast or famine and you hope your annual surge makes you through to next year.

That's how most granger short lines survived even today they must seek other customers and most did in fertilizer,feeds seeds farm implements etc.

I forget the name of the short line but,it had regular service nine months out of the year and as needed the remaining three months.

IIRC this railroad was in Trains Magazine several years ago..It was a interesting read.

 

 

[Colorado_Mac]

NittanyLion

Feast or famine and you hope your annual surge makes you through to next year.

Even today,many  retailers claim they make half their money in the two months of Nov and Dec.  They still rely on planning to make it through the other ten months. 

[wjstix]

Over time, it was a two-way street. When the Santa Fe was sending long trains of wooden reefers with produce west, the vast majority of the US manufacturing was done in the northeast quarter of the country - Chicago, Detroit, Pennsylvania, New York etc. A lot of heavy machinery, autos, consumer goods, and such went west on the Santa Fe to the southwest US.