This is a fascinating thread. Thanks for starting the thread FOUR years ago, Thomas 9011. Where have I been?
Union Pacific’s Los Angeles & Salt Lake Line used to host a hot westbound hog train that unloaded somewhere near Los Angeles. I once saw (late 1970’s / early 1980’s) one of those hog trains go into the siding at Dry Lake, NV in the M.P. 374 area The hogs were watered there. The hog train ironically had gotten in the way of a hot westbound passenger special with GP40X’s on it (you can see how long ago that was). The hot passenger special rounded the final curve, previously passing a yellow, expecting a red in mountainous terrain. It saw a high green, and gunned it. What a show! The hog train then partially backed out of the siding, and the remaining hogs were watered while slowly going forward again. Cool show! Too bad that is not likely to be repeated in today’s world of no hog trains.
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A personal memo to Los Angeles Rams Guy (10-01):
Years ago my father-in-law had season tickets to Los Angeles Rams games in an Anaheim stadium, tickets I think he received because of his then railroad employment, and occasionally gave my wife and I tickets. Then the Rams became the St Louis Rams. It just so happened that my daughter and her husband moved to the St. Louis area. Quite a coincidence! What is the status of the continuing rumor that the Rams want to come back to Los Angeles? Are the Rams just playing games with the cities, or are they serious? Do you know anything about this?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
I definitely remember seeing (and have the photos) livestock cars on sidings on the UP in eastern Nebraska for hog service for the movement out to the Farmer John's facility in Los Angeles back in the mid- to late 80's. Sadly, there just aren't a lot of long-haul opportunities out there for the Class I's but if there were, I think they could find ways to capitalize on them if they knew how.
Being an old farm boy, 50's & 60's, Ain't no big deal. The farm house was down wind from the barns - 300+ pigs, 75 milk cows & 150+ sheep. The aroma of stock trailers now just bring back memories of why I'm NOT on the farm anymore.
BaltACD College days I was reduced to hitchhiking.....got picked up by a empty 18 wheel stock truck - rough ride in more ways than one.
BaltACD: A hearty salute to your perservience. Don't know if many of us could have done the same. Congrats.
blue streak 1 BaltACD Don't know how truck drivers can sleep. Have you ever tried to sleep in a rest stop and a stock trailer pulls in beside you ? Stock trailers at truck stops are frowned upon.
BaltACD
College days I was reduced to hitchhiking.....got picked up by a empty 18 wheel stock truck - rough ride in more ways than one.
Interstate rest areas don't have the 'high class' ambiance of recognized truck stops.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD Truck driver can sleep & rest - stock not so much.
AroUnd here we call "The aroma of animal business" THE SWEET SMELL OF AMBROSIA!!!"
It's an odd thing about trains carrying livestock: they're better in the abstract. If you saw one today you wouldn't like it.
When my family lived next door to the NKP main line (in East Cleveland) we had trains carrying livestock pass our house (eastbound) rather often, at least in the early 1950's, and sometimes those trains even stopped because of a red (signal) light. In any event, I always felt my heart go out to those poor beasts. Whether swine, cattle, or sheep, they all looked crammed into those (open) slat-sided cars. The sounds emanating from those cars were, to this kid, heart-rending. In the winter I recall seeing snow and ice caked on their wool or the wooden sides of the car.
Nonetheless, I ate their meat and wore their wool; it was the way of the world and I accepted it. Today, however, I am glad that such trains no longer exist, although I can still hear in my mind the mournful sounds of those animals enduring a long, uncomfortable journey to their slaughter.
Jeffery_Oday1211 the diffrance is they coulnt pull the train over for the night and sleep ike they can a semi truck and there for that is the diffrance between trucks hauling them and the trains hauling them.
the diffrance is they coulnt pull the train over for the night and sleep ike they can a semi truck and there for that is the diffrance between trucks hauling them and the trains hauling them.
Confined animals don't know if they are in a truck stock trailer or a railroad stock car, all they know is they want feed and water. Truck driver can sleep & rest - stock not so much.
well see the diffrance there they could not pull over and sleep for the night unlike u can a truck that is the diffrance between the truck and the train
Yet, from another website I learned that FGWX 300000 was seen yesterday - June 15, 2011 - EB through Cresson, PA (approaching the summit above Horseshoe Curve). It's stencilled as:
"USDA - GRAIN INSPECTION, PACKERS and STOCK YARDS ADMINISTRATION"
Then underneath in smaller lettering on its "plug' door on the side is a good clue to its true purpose in this life:
"Scales and Weighing Program"
See these photos (none are mine) of it - note the end door in the 2nd one - pretty unusual to see that large of what is essentially a scale test car !
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2141604
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2116409
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2116408
- Paul North.
Excerpts from Archeological Documentary Study, No. 7 Line Extension / Hudson Yards Rezoning (2004)
Historically, meat marketing and processing facilities in Manhattan were established along the shoreline to facilitate the movement of livestock and feed since the waterfront, with accessible transportation routes, was ideal for receiving goods from Long Island, upstate New York, New Jersey, and eventually the Midwest. Manhattan's supply of beef in the 19th and 20th centuries came from local slaughterhouses, with livestock arriving by rail at terminals on the west shore of the Hudson River. Large stock pens were maintained primarily in New Jersey, where the cattle were kept until needed by the slaughterhouses in Manhattan.
When needed, livestock was loaded onto special stock barges that were brought by tugboat across the Hudson. In the mid-20th century, beef slaughtered and prepared outside of New York City began to impact the slaughtering business on Manhattan, with the majority of City slaughterhouses and processing facilities closed sometime in the 1960s...
A major catalyst in bringing the livestock industry north into the project area in a more formal sense was the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., which transported livestock via rail to Jersey City and then across the Hudson to Manhattan. The company served a set of slaughterhouses located along West 39th and 40th Streets off of Twelfth Avenue, and another set at West 34th Street. The Manhattan Abattoir had a dock at the foot of West 34th Street in the 1870s, and cattle were brought to their slaughterhouse between Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues beneath the streets via a cow tunnel...
Sometime between 1928 and 1930 a two-story concrete cattle pen was built at the southeastern intersection of West 39th Street and Twelfth Avenue. Another underground cattle pass was built from the shoreline to this pen to allow cows to be driven under, instead of across, Twelfth Avenue. On the western end a covered ramp was entered from inside Pier 78, leased by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Pens were built on the pier itself to handle the livestock before the animals were moved through the tunnel to the West 37th Street yard...
http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/prrpier78hr.jpg
http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/prrpier78cattleboat.jpg
Pier 78 at W. 38th St. on the right, Con Edison gas storage tank at W. 44th St., NYC 60th Street Yard and the IRT Powerhouse (with 6 smokestacks) at W. 58th St. on the left.
Right headlight of a southbound truck on 12th Ave.
Northbound truck. Pier 78 is to the left of the pictures. The triagular-shaped cattle pen is in the northwest corner of the PRR freight yard. For more info and great pictures, be sure to visit the BEDT website.
http://members.trainweb.com/bedt/indloco/prr37.html
PRR yard from 12th Ave. & W. 38th St., southeast wall of cattle pen on the left.
Cattle pen with canvas in 1937, viewed from the shadow of the West Side Highway, which made the cow tunnel necessary. Sign says, "Open 1938" The Port of New York Authority (Lincoln Tunnel).
Looking south on 12th Ave. at W. 39th St. in 1933, cattle pen on the left, Pier 78 on the right. In the distance, water towers on the roof of LV's Starrett Lehigh Building.
greyhounds erikem: That idea had been implemented well before Bill walked into your office. White in his The American Railroad Freight Car described cars that had been built with watering and feeding troughs. These were built decades before long distance trucking became common, so the inventors weren't thinking of truck competition. Good insight on Bill's part about what could be done easily on a railcar as opposed to a truck. - Erik Which leaves us to wonder why the concept of a stock cars with feed and water for the stock wasn't adopted.
erikem: That idea had been implemented well before Bill walked into your office. White in his The American Railroad Freight Car described cars that had been built with watering and feeding troughs. These were built decades before long distance trucking became common, so the inventors weren't thinking of truck competition. Good insight on Bill's part about what could be done easily on a railcar as opposed to a truck. - Erik
That idea had been implemented well before Bill walked into your office. White in his The American Railroad Freight Car described cars that had been built with watering and feeding troughs. These were built decades before long distance trucking became common, so the inventors weren't thinking of truck competition.
Good insight on Bill's part about what could be done easily on a railcar as opposed to a truck.
- Erik
Which leaves us to wonder why the concept of a stock cars with feed and water for the stock wasn't adopted.
Some cars were built and put into service, but apparently there wasn't enough benefit to justify the extra expense. I'd wonder about how much of the water managed to stay in the troughs long enough for the animals to drink it and similar thoughts about the food. In addition, there would be the issue of copious amounts of organic fertilizer in both liquid and solid form.
[Edit] Since only a portion of the livestock cars were equipped for self watering and self feeding, the RR's still had to provide the infrastructure fr handling livestock with ordinary stockcars. It is possible that the RR's would have been ahead with all of the stock cars being equipped with watering and feeding troughs, but that never came about.
White did make the comment that RR's didn't particularly like handling livestock, the revenues weren't all that great and the claims department was kept really busy...
P.S. With respect to shipping ice cream: Ice cream needs to be kept colder than almost any other frozen food. This probably not a big issue with a properly running mechanical reefer, but I rather doubt that an ice-cooled reefer would say cold enough no matter how much salt was added to the ice.
ericsp Perhaps they ship pigs in passenger car now. "Porter, is my sty ready?"
Perhaps they ship pigs in passenger car now. "Porter, is my sty ready?"
A couple of the hog confinements around here use converted school buses to take small lots to the local packing plant. Possibly to transfer between confinement facilities, too.
Jeff
greyhounds Which leaves us to wonder why the concept of a stock cars with feed and water for the stock wasn't adopted.
[1950's gadfly investor Robert R. Young (and eventual czar of the New York Central RR) and his anti-"railroad mentality" public relations campaign re: "Hogs can cross Chicago without changing cars, but you can't !" notwithstanding . . . )
The MSU paper referenced above is pretty current - copyrighted 2009.
From a quick perusal of it - esp. pp. 3 - 4 - I suppose it's up to me to now mention the related practice of "watered stock", and I don't mean in the financial sense . . . see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watered_stock#Origin_of_term and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Drew of the Erie RR and New York & Harlem RR fame.
Somebody please pass the salt . . .
erikem That idea had been implemented well before Bill walked into your office. White in his The American Railroad Freight Car described cars that had been built with watering and feeding troughs. These were built decades before long distance trucking became common, so the inventors weren't thinking of truck competition. Good insight on Bill's part about what could be done easily on a railcar as opposed to a truck. - Erik
greyhounds The livestock were long gone from the rails when Bill walked into my office. We was talkin' bananas then. But he told of a special cattle hauling railcar he actually got built. You see, Bill knew all about this shrink thing long before those Mississippi State U professors wrote about it. And Bill Gentleman knew that you could put feed and water in a railcar with the cattle to reduce the economic loss cause by the "shrink". You couldn't do that with a truck. A truck is limited (generally) to 80,000 pounds gross. Railcars are 286,000 or more. That basically means you can put feed and water in the railcar, but not in a truck. Advantage rail. Less shrinkage = less economic loss due to transport. Bill Gentleman actually got the US Government to do something sensible. They agreed to waive the 24 hour rule if the cattle had continuous access to feed and water during transit. He told me that cattle delivered by rail in such a car would be worth $20/head more than those delivered by truck. He also said that the railroad should get every bit of that $20/head. (Think about 100 cattle in the railcar and what that means.)
The livestock were long gone from the rails when Bill walked into my office. We was talkin' bananas then. But he told of a special cattle hauling railcar he actually got built. You see, Bill knew all about this shrink thing long before those Mississippi State U professors wrote about it. And Bill Gentleman knew that you could put feed and water in a railcar with the cattle to reduce the economic loss cause by the "shrink". You couldn't do that with a truck.
A truck is limited (generally) to 80,000 pounds gross. Railcars are 286,000 or more. That basically means you can put feed and water in the railcar, but not in a truck. Advantage rail. Less shrinkage = less economic loss due to transport. Bill Gentleman actually got the US Government to do something sensible. They agreed to waive the 24 hour rule if the cattle had continuous access to feed and water during transit. He told me that cattle delivered by rail in such a car would be worth $20/head more than those delivered by truck. He also said that the railroad should get every bit of that $20/head. (Think about 100 cattle in the railcar and what that means.)
And a good and gracious "Moo" to all of you.
Here's an interesting piece from Mississippi State University on transporting Cattle.
http://msucares.com/pubs/publications/p2577.pdf
Note that stress is inherint in transport and 1) causes weight loss, which is an economic loss; and 2) may account for the so-called "mournful sounds" made by the critters as imagined by some folks.
I have no idea, although I've tried to find the data, as to how many cattle are shipped from Mississippi cow and calf operations to Kansas feed lots.
But I do know that I once dealt with a man named Bill Gentleman who had been a cattleman and rode trains as a "drover". A drover was a person man who rode the freight trains with the cattle to ensure their proper handling. (Trains or Classic Trains ran an article on this a while back. A young man and his farmer father had sold livestock to an eastern market. They rode the trains with the stock.)
Bill told me the key was to get to know the yardmasters along the route. He said he knew he had it made when they would call him "Bill". Then he knew he could get them to make any move with his stock cars that he needed. The key, he said, was to run a "railroad within the railroad."
I was interested in the cattle hauling thing, but I had no idea where the ICG could apply it. We stuck to bananas. Which he put on our railroad complete with banana drovers. (Actually they guy was called a banana messenger. He rode in the caboose.)
Anyway, if anyone could ever quantify the amount of cattle shipped from here to wherever, there could be a shot at some buisness here. Heck, with the double stack thing we could probably give each steer a private stall, a comfy bed, feed, water, and a drover/cowboy to sing 'em to sleep.
The 2 paragraphs at the link provided by jeffhergert above have a decent amount of info - Purdue [University's] Animal Science "The Beef Blog - Cow Calf Weekly", posted October 9, 2006. So even though the next link there to the "Full Story" didn't work for me, either - "The website was not found", etc. - I'm not particularly missing it.
http://purduephil.wordpress.com/2006/10/09/usdas-28-hour-rule-expanded-to-trucks/
It has a link to the "full story," but it wouldn't work for me. The link might be out of date.
greyhounds [snipped; emphasis added - PDN] It is almost impossible to habituate livestock to transportation. A bovine meat critter may get two trips in its life - so they're not used to it. If they get upset it's not a big deal. I'll get upset tormorrow morning driving I94 on my way to work. A wise old railroad man (Al Watkins) once told me that the two most difficult things to transport were 1) Livestock and, 2) Ice Cream. It'a best to minimize the transport requirements for livestock. And that's largely what's been done. Through free market economics, I might add. Or, "What's good for the steer is good for the country."
A wise old railroad man (Al Watkins) once told me that the two most difficult things to transport were 1) Livestock and, 2) Ice Cream. It'a best to minimize the transport requirements for livestock. And that's largely what's been done. Through free market economics, I might add. Or, "What's good for the steer is good for the country."
http://www.asabe.org/awards/major/Awards%20PR/09fellowspr/Grandin.doc
"Grandin is an internationally recognized expert in the design of efficient, safe, and humane animal handling equipment used on farms, ranches, zoos, and meat processing facilities. Her educational and design efforts, which emphasize the minimization of handler and animal accidents and related damage to the meat products, have earned for her the respect of producers, animal humane organizations, and inspection agencies and have moved the industry forward. Her humane treatment and inspection system standards include the use of solid-side, curved chutes to move livestock smoothly, without electric prods and restraining equipment, to calm the animal prior to slaughter. Almost half of the cattle in North America are handled in a center-track restrainer system that she designed, and the same system is used in facilities in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries."
For more info, see the website: http://www.grandin.com/, esp. the references, resources, and pages on "Behaviour of Cattle, Pigs, Buffalo and Antelope During Handling and Transport" at:
http://www.grandin.com/behaviour/transport.html
*Also famous for her autism and life story in coping with it, which was a recent HBO movie - but that's not relevant here.
It looks like the tankcars are for the neighboring industry.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
BaltACD The 'standard' Livestock Bill of Lading contained all the provisions of the 24 hour FWR requirements, however there was a 'optional' clause on the BoL that the shipper could execute that extended the FWR requirements...I don't know if there was a additional charge or discount for executing the optional clause; as executing the option would provide the shipper/consignee quicker service but would also permit the carriers to utilize fewer resources in completing the contract. Paul_D_North_Jr: I was under the impression that the requirement to Feed, Water, Rest (exercise) the critters was at 24-hour intervals, not 36, but I can't support that belief with any citation. - Paul North. Livestock Bill of Lading from the 19th Century http://www.sacramentohistory.org/admin/photo/1018_1991.pdf
The 'standard' Livestock Bill of Lading contained all the provisions of the 24 hour FWR requirements, however there was a 'optional' clause on the BoL that the shipper could execute that extended the FWR requirements...I don't know if there was a additional charge or discount for executing the optional clause; as executing the option would provide the shipper/consignee quicker service but would also permit the carriers to utilize fewer resources in completing the contract.
Paul_D_North_Jr: I was under the impression that the requirement to Feed, Water, Rest (exercise) the critters was at 24-hour intervals, not 36, but I can't support that belief with any citation. - Paul North.
I was under the impression that the requirement to Feed, Water, Rest (exercise) the critters was at 24-hour intervals, not 36, but I can't support that belief with any citation.
Livestock Bill of Lading from the 19th Century
http://www.sacramentohistory.org/admin/photo/1018_1991.pdf
It was required to let the livestock out of the cars for access to feed and water every 24 hours (or less). The 36 hour exception applied when the stock would reach the final destination within 36 hours of the last feed and water. The railroad didn't have to stop and let the stock out if it was only going to move them less than 12 hours further down the line.
It wasn't up to the shipper. It was a Federal law. Access to feed and water every 24 hours is adequate for livestock. These Federal rules only applied to rail and water transport. They did not apply to truck transport. While most truck moves may have been short, some took days and the critters just stayed in the trailer without food or water. That just got changed (I think.).
It is almost impossible to habituate livestock to transportation. A bovine meat critter may get two trips in its life - so they're not used to it. If they get upset it's not a big deal. I'll get upset tormorrow morning driving I94 on my way to work.
There is a tankcar and a passenger car on the Farmer John spur. They must ship out tallow by rail. Perhaps they ship pigs in passenger car now. "Porter, is my sty ready?"
Victrola1 Why pay to ship guts and hooves.
Why pay to ship guts and hooves.
What! No hot dogs?
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Why pay to ship guts and hooves. Process the raw material closer to the source.
The meat packing industry decentralized in the middle of the last century. Carl Sandburg's "Hog butcher of the world" surrendered that title to many smaller plants around the country. Trucks played a role in the change. All roads no longer lead to Chicago, Omaha, nor other major rail junctions. Trucks created a straight line between farmer and processor.
I think the time interval was 28 hours. A waiver could be signed to extend it to 36 hrs, but I'm not sure it applied to all types of livestock. For some reason I'm thinking it only applied to hogs.
Paul_D_North_Jr I was under the impression that the requirement to Feed, Water, Rest (exercise) the critters was at 24-hour intervals, not 36, but I can't support that belief with any citation. - Paul North.
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