It would have received milk picked up by a local train that stopped at many locations along the line where farmers put out cans of milk daily. That's the origin of the term, "Milk Run" for a local train that makes many stops along the way.
The milk may have been put into a boxcar, but was usually just carried in the caboose if there were not that many dairies along the way.
Outgoing products would probably have gone to local grocery stores by truck and would have been primarily butter, cream, and milk.
Not to be confused with a Crematorium?
Jeff Wilson's Industries Along The Tracks series of books covered Milk and Dairy Traffic in Volume 2. Highly recommended - I buy anything he cares to write about industries.
By the way Google Images is unusually rich with wonderful stuff if you type Creamery or Creameries as your search term, which of course you use to get to the accompanying text. You'll be busy for hours.
Dave Nelson
NorthCoast RRAre Creameries currently served on our present day lines?
Sorry, no. Milk carried by rail declined steeply in the '40s and '50s and was probably gone by the end of the 1960s in the US. That traffic all went to trucks.
There might be a factory somewhere still shipping processed milk products by rail (doubtful), but none receive milk by rail.
Layout Design GalleryLayout Design Special Interest Group
NorthCoast RROur local defunct line had a siding to our Cremery. Can anyone tell me what type of rolling stock would serve this industry? Both in the past, and if any dairy products are currently shipped by rail, and if so, what type of rolling stock would a cremery get? I haven't google searched this yet....I am looking over my track plan, wondering about what type of industry my railroad might serve, and I remembered our local railroad served this cremery in days gone by. I will be modeling a more modern era, the 90s-ish(current wisdom :) )
Farmers brought their milk to creameries, and the railroad picked up the milk and brought it to cities. Milk cars might be milk tank cars, or can cars. The creamery would chill the milk and pump it into the tank cars, which were just insulated, not refrigerated. The insulation would keep the milk cool enough, long enough to get in into the city. Can cars were merely insulated express cars loaded with 40 quart cans. The city milk plant had to clean the cans and return them to the owning dairy. Which is one reasons why tank cars were popular.
Athearn and Roundhouse make decent milk car models, painted for the many different companies that handled milk. These models are fairly prototypical except they both have roof ice hatches which the prototype did not. Milk cars remianed wood construction because wood is a better insulator than steel.
Trucks replaced railroad milk cars by the 1970's. The Boston and Maine hung onto milk traffic longest, where as it was gone from the New York Central and the New Haven by 1960.
Larger creameries might make butter and cheese and ship that out by rail as well as the milk.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
Before on-site refrigeration became common, creameries would also receive ice in reefers. The source could be either an ice plant in a city or an ice storage house where ice was harvested in the winter, and stored packed in sawdust until it was sold.
There were 2 types of creameries. One, as mentioned above would process raw milk into milk and cream for local sale. Another type would basicallty be a way station for collecting milk from the "milk run" trains, then ship it in milk tank cars to a large plant in a city for final processing. The 40' Pfaudler car made by Roundouse is one example of this type of car. It looks lile an ice bunker reefer, but had 2 glass lined tanks inside to hold the milk. http://www.athearn.com/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=40%27+Pfaudler+Milk&CatID=THRFA more streamilned version was the Bordens "Butter Dish" car, as described in this articlehttp://www.nyow.org/Articles/Butterdish/butterdish.htmlFunaro and Camerlengo makes a model of this; a friend of mine who has done quite a few craft kits says it is a difficult kit with many issues of parts fitting properlyhttp://fandckits.com/HO%20Milk%20Cars/1010.html
Model RR Craftsman had an aritcle on creameries in the March 2010 issue; "American Small Bussinesses: Creameries"
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
I'm afraid by the 90's it would be milk in/products out by truck. What few farms are left in our area are picked up with tank trucks. Some pull pup trailers, another tank on wheels that can be unhitched when they have to get to a farm with a less than desireable road. Other farms are picked up with full size tractor trailer tanks. When the tanks are full they head for the milk processing plant. For some close cheese plants and local brand daries the driver that picked up the farm delivers the milk to the plant. Milk going to a large processing plant close to the city, the trucks change drivers. It is much easier for them to ship the raw milk close to where it is going to be consumed in a large tank than to process it, package it, then have to ship all the packaged products to distribution centers.
You could have a creamery along a siding where it used to be served. Now the rail line goes past it to other industries, but do not service it. If it had a seperate siding, it might still be used for car storage. But the milk coming into the plant would be in big silver trailers and delivery trucks going out.
Have fun,
Richard
Hello when I was a kid Borden's Dairy Products where very common, I imagined this little sidetrack business. I used a DPM kit and also kit bashed a Reefer to serve it's purpose.
I hope this will give you a few Ideas of your own.
Thank you.
Uploaded with ImageShack.us
Serge
What about milk bottles??
How would the early dairies have gotten their bottles?
When I was a kid (several centuries ago) milk was delivered to our door step in bottles. In the Winter when it was freezing the cream which would be on top of the milk would raise up out of the bottle with the cardboard cap on top. ( no homogenized milk back then) As I remember the bottles weren't returned.
But I digress. Maybe the dairies could have gotten their bottles by rail. I don't know, do you?
Bob
Edit: scribelt.....great modeling...tremendous scene
Don't Ever Give Up
Carnation Milk used reefers until the 80s.I'm sure canned milk is shipped by rail at some plant locacations in 50 ft. and 60 ft. boxcars.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
superbe What about milk bottles?? How would the early dairies have gotten their bottles? When I was a kid (several centuries ago) milk was delivered to our door step in bottles. In the Winter when it was freezing the cream which would be on top of the milk would raise up out of the bottle with the cardboard cap on top. ( no homogenized milk back then) As I remember the bottles weren't returned. But I digress. Maybe the dairies could have gotten their bottles by rail. I don't know, do you? Bob Edit: scribelt.....great modeling...tremendous scene
I remember home delivery in bottles as you describe in the 1950's. The milk man picked up the empty bottles which were returned to the bottelnmg plant to be cleaned and reused.
The mllk man delivered a lot of items in addition to milk. The customer had a "fan" which listed the products. It was placed sticking up out of the top of a bottle with the desired products showing. Products included different flavors of milk, ice cream, cheese, eggs. I think they had fruit juices too.
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
There was a creamery in Carrington, ND that also received loads of coal for their powerhouse. It was closed before the late 70's when I started working up there so can't tell you anything else about it.
cuyama NorthCoast RRAre Creameries currently served on our present day lines? Sorry, no. Milk carried by rail declined steeply in the '40s and '50s and was probably gone by the end of the 1960s in the US. That traffic all went to trucks. There might be a factory somewhere still shipping processed milk products by rail (doubtful), but none receive milk by rail.
Yes, some creameries are served by rail, as illustrated by the California Dairies plants south of Tipton, CA, in Turlock, CA, and in Visalia, CA. They manufacturer powdered milk, butter, and condensed milk. Since there are uninsulated boxcars and reefers there, I would say all may be shipped by rail.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
There was an MR article a year or two back about milk trains, generally short locals that ran through farm country, stopping at trackside platfomrs to pick up each farmer's milk. This was steam-era stuff. It was such an interesting idea that I plan to model it on the next section of my layout. The milk was brought together, either for further shipment or for delivery to a local creamery. These "milk run" trains sometimes carried a passenger coach or a caboose that could accomodate paying customers.
At a train show last fall, I was listening to a talk about these operations. A creamery operator and a railroad man had a chance meeting, and the milk guy complained about how he couldn't get milk from the farms because the city was growing, and the near-in dairy farms were being sold to developers for housing developments. They put their resources together. The result was the H.P. Hood company, now a 2 billion dollar dairy business.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
As something of a sidelight to this entire creamery/dairy industry discussion, at one time on Milwaukee's south side there was a large factory, rail served, that made bottle washing machines, used in various industries, including the dairy business. The advent of cans, throw away ("no deposit/no return") glass bottles and waxed cardboard milk containers killed the business off. When my sister went to school even the milk served in elementary school came in small glass bottles. I imagine the schools were happy to see an alternative to glass. By the time I went to elementary school we received our daily milk in small waxed cardboard containers, and it was very common for pretty good sized chunks of wax to be mixed in with the milk. That and a stale graham cracker were an integral part of the school day.
And somehow all of us managed to be taught how to read and write. Maybe it was the waxy milk?
There was also a thriving business on Milwaukee's north side that dealt with cullet, broken glass from damaged and broken returned bottles in the beer, soft drink, and dairy industries. The track to that industry looked like it was ballasted with diamonds in the sun. I have seen a similar look at the tracks leading to the glass plant in Streator IL.
When recycling first became a buzzword, most of us remember when it was required to separate glass by color. Now it is all mixed together and I have read that as a result there is less glass recycled today than there was 20 years ago.
I bring this up because as is so often the case there was a great deal of ancillary industry that surrounded the creamery/bottling industry back in the day. For example casein, a byproduct of milk, is used in adhesives and in paints, or at least has been used that way, and is also a food additive.
Actually I can think of two creameries here in Wisconsin that still ship by rail. The Land o Lakes one in Portage still ships to a central distrubution service, that which isn't used in local. From the couple of occasions I've been up there, it's 2 to 4 cryo cars every two weeks, depending on local demand. The other does bulk processing and ships it somewhere else to do labelling for generic brands.
I know of a large warehouse in Pennsylvania that gets condensed milk by boxcar. It ships in the modern yellow TBOX high cubes, these cars have become popular for shipping canned goods. I think the milk is coming from somewhere in the Midwest(Wisconsin?) I have seen reefer cars of butter, cheese and margarine at times .
Jim
James Sanchez
POOR DYSLEXIC LION...
Him thought you asked about CEMETERIES served by railroad.
Well, if you must know, there *was* such a thing.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
The Milk Trains group on Yahoo is a great source of information. The archives are loaded with over 10 years of conversation and information on all aspects of dairy on the rails.
You can find the list at: http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/milktrains/
I am the moderator, and will do my best to approve new members as quickly as possible.
Rob Davis
Up until about 10 years ago, the Kemps ice cream plant in Rochester, MN shipped frozen ice cream by rail(in those 'Solid Cold' cars). The ice cream plant loaded trucks that were driven over to the AMPI milk plant and the rail cars were loaded there. Now, everything transported by truck. The AMPI plant used to get those long 4 bay covered hoppers with plastic pellets to may the milk bottles. I have not seen a covered hopper there for some time, so they may be trucked in as well.
Milk transport by rail was not real big in this area. The government price support was lowest in Eau Claire, WI. The price support increased the further you got away from Eau Claire. Thus, New York and California milk producers got a higher price support than here(We are less than 100 miles from Eau Claire). I think there was a change in the fed policy, and milk is not supported directly, but non-fat milk products & cheese still are. Most milk transport is 'local' to a milk plant. around here by truck.
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham, Texas is still served by rail. Blue Bell makes some darned good ice cream. Their plants are located on the ex-SP main line perpendicular to the BNSF (ex ATSF) mainline from Temple to Houston/Galveston. There are two main plants on the line, a novelty plant (ice cream bars) that receives corn syrup in tank cars; there are generally two to four cars spotted there for unloading. The main plant has a receiving building where covered hoppers of sugar (my guess) are unloaded. There is at least one additional spur for tank car unloading, and tank cars may also be unloaded or stored at the end of track (which coincides with end of plant). This property is not accessible to the public, and I haven't walked the ROW to find out (and don't really plan on doing so).
I am unaware of any Blue Bell products shipping out by rail; I have never seen insulated box cars or reefers of any sort on the local. I think the plants are worked two or three times a week; probably more so in hot weather months as there is more demand for product, especially at the novelty plant. There is a runaround track off of the interchange track where cars are blocked for setout; I think the Blue Bell spurs are all trailing point; there is a facing point spur off the ex SP main. I guess the BNSF would call this an industrial lead; as it really isn't a branchline. It would make a great model railroad...
I.
1) I can't believe that no one has mentioned the Lionel O-Gauge operating milk car. You loaded the milk cans via a roof hatch and when you wanted to unload, you pulled up alongside the platform, pressed a button to activate a magnet between the rails and the doors would flip open, a trainman would appear and deposit a can on the platform.
http://www.lionel.com/products/3662-postwar-celebration-milk-car-6-19554/
2) Milk trains traditionally picked up early in the morning to deliver fresh milk to the city in time for the morning milk man's deliveries.
3) It could be big business - the Lacakawnna had runs so heavy that it assigned 4-8-2's to some runs originating in the Poconos destined for New York and up in Vermont, the Rutland sent milk all the way to New York City via the New York Central. Also shipping to the Rotten Apple via the Central (West Shore) was the New York, Ontario and Western, and the NYC's own subsidiary, the Ulster & Delaware.
4) New Jersey even had a farm, Becker's Dairy Farm, that operated their own railroad, the Centerville & Southwestern
http://www.trainweb.org/prrh/c_s/cs08.html
The farm hands doubled in brass as the section gang and 12 inch to 1 foot railroaders worked as the train crew on their days off. And, look what they had for motive power (built by Alco with 2nd all welded boiler in US)
http://www.trainweb.org/prrh/c_s/cs06.html
5) Looks like a great reference series - there's at least four volumes
https://www.amazon.com/Railway-Milk-Robert-Nehrich-Liljestrand/dp/B004XYGZ8A
and this has indices of all sorts of "milk by rail" topics - amazing
http://users.rcn.com/jimdu4/MilkTrains/MilkReferences.htm
https://www.amazon.com/Railroad-Model-Craftsman-Magazine-June/dp/B004KKCVEY
https://www.amazon.com/Railroad-Model-Craftsman-May-1988/dp/B000TC6O5Y
https://www.amazon.com/Rolling-Stock-Gauge-Rail-Craft-Library/dp/B0010ZZI9W
and, from Kalmbach, an overview of the industry
https://www.amazon.com/Milk-Trains-Traffic-Jeff-Wilson/dp/1627006966
Wow, you found a 7 year old thread. LOL.
Back in the day, there was a huge multi-story cold storage building at the south end of Dearborn Station in downtown Chicago. It was owned for a time by Beatrice Foods, and Meadow Gold Butter was produced and stored there. It was a common side to see Borden milk cars on the siding next to the building. Funaro & Camerlengo still makes several versions of the Borden's Milk Tank Car in HO scale.
http://www.fandckits.com/ho_milk.html
Rich
Alton Junction
My grandfather had a Grade B dairy in Fresno in the 1940s and 50s. His cans were picked up and take to the Danish Creamery processing plant by truck. However, I know that milk trains operated along the SP mainline through the Central Valley because I used to ride on them when visiting my grandparents after moving to the suburbs of Los Angeles. My mom and grandmother used to work at Danish Creamery packing butter and my dad used to steam clean the equipment. I'll check with my folks (they're in their 90s) and verify that the plant was served by trains. If so, I will definitely incorporate the plant into my layout.
Tim
Late to the model railroad party but playing catch-up.....
Rob,
That link doesn't work. Have you guys gone to groupsIO?
oldline1
I know Carnation still ships condensed milk by rail. I have dropped of various 50ft boxcars and Tbox 60ft cars at a customer's warehouse recently.