Have never seen any on a train.
If they are, it would probably be in a boxcar or container, so you wouldn't necessarily see them.
Ulrich Have never seen any on a train.
Back in the late 60's early 70's, GN/BN would park a couple of boxcars on a siding in Libby MT. My cousin was always part of the crew hired to harvest and load the christmas trees for shipment to the 'big city".
I seriously doubt this still happens, as many use fake trees, or they can be sourced locally or delivered by truck.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
A lot do move by dry van container. A lot ship from Oregon and Wash. You need to line the box w plastic to avoid getting sap everywhere. You also need to be cool with getting paid for the shipment in cash by a guy in a parking lot who ordered the trees.
That last part sounds really familiar: I was delivering Xmas trees to Canadian Tire over the weekend (by truck)..after spending a couple of hours slinging the trees off of the truck he handed me cash and bought me breakfast. Not a bad deal... but I got to wondering if the rails handle any of the tree traffic. 2700 bucks cash for hauling trees 500 miles... Christmas indeed.
It seems like the logistics involved with hauling the trees from the railroad to the Christmas tree retail lot would be an overwhelming obstacle to making any money on them. A truck, on the other hand, can drive from the forest to the lot. How many trees would fit in a train car?
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
I do not know. But I would assume some are.
Way back when, when I was doing pricing and market development for ICG intermodal, I had a guy show up at my office totally unannounced and unexpected.
He told me that he shipped Christmas trees to Chicago each year via TOFC from the south and had come to Chicago to negotiate his rate. I had no knowledge of such a move.
I shook his hand and ask him to sit down. He told me his story and I offered the standard, published, usual rate. He shook his head in the afirmitive way and said "OK". We had a deal.
I got up from behind my desk and he got up from his chair. We again shook hands and he left. It all took less than 10 minutes. I made sure our standard charge included Christmas trees and went on to other business.
I hope he had something else to do in Chicago.
Murphy Siding It seems like the logisticks involved with hauling the trees from the railroad to the Christmas tree retail lot would be an overwhelming obstacle to making any money on them. A truck, on the other hand, can drive from the forest to the lot. How many trees would fit in a train car?
It seems like the logisticks involved with hauling the trees from the railroad to the Christmas tree retail lot would be an overwhelming obstacle to making any money on them. A truck, on the other hand, can drive from the forest to the lot. How many trees would fit in a train car?
Murphy Siding:
To answer your question - A Bunch!- A load of Christmas trees would most likely "cube out" long before it would "gross out".. Factors would be the 'cube' of the container ( interior size). I used to do some dispatching for a refrigerated carrier, one late fall season we seemed to hit a run of Christmas trees to be hauled from The PNW to points East and South. Some loads would be straight to a single receiver, and some were multi-stop-offs. I had one team truck loaded in Washington State and delivered in Charlotte, NC. They reloaded christmas trees in North Carolina for a deliver in Seattle area, and did two more rounds with christmas trees in both directions... and then quit when they got yo Tulsa, said I was working them too hard, and left the rig in a truck stop; That is when the trucking business really sucks.
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edblysard Murphy, Most of the trees are grown on farms, we have three farms here in Houston.
Six and a half years ago, we were driving through Ashe county, in North Carolina, and saw several tree farms there. Since the N&W quit serving Ashe county many years ago, I am certain that the product was shipped by truck.
Such shipments of Christmas trees I have seen arriving around here came in on flatbed trucks.
How long, how long, until we regain spel Czech?
Johnny
Back when I first was taking notice of trains as a young kid (a little more than just watching them go by), our area of western Michigan was a big exporter of Christmas trees, and yes, they went by rail (I know not where, but I suspect around Chicago...this would have been throughout the 1960s). The little spur at the station sign in West Olive, which never saw any action the rest of the year, would be full of box cars around Thanksgiving time, and the local farmers would load their trees--at night, mind you, just to get it done.And in Grand Haven, the same thing, except that every spur around the station that could accommodate trucks backed up to the car doors, would have the cars being loaded by growers around the area. That would be about eight to ten cars being readied for shipment. I don't think they bound the trees as tightly for shipment as they do now, but they were tied up (probably with twine), and a lot could be stacked in a conventional 40-foot box car.It took a number of years to grow good Christmas trees, and the sandy soil in our area was great for them. It was good weekend work for high-school kids in the fall to work on the tree farms (not me...I had a paper route). And the stumps and roots made great fences when lined up.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Nice photo... and more proof that a picture is often worth a thousand words. At one time at least trees did move by rail.
A few more photos:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/6008641057/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/6009190234/
Beautiful. Thanks Trainman Ty. I love to look at these old photos.. the longer one looks the more one sees..
Ulrich:How many trees did you have on your trailer? How were the trees loaded in the trailer? Across the trailer, or lengthwise? Using my slide rule, I came up with about 200 trees in a 53 foot trailer (van). However, my guess is more could be loaded depending on how tightly these were wrapped and how the trees were packed.
200 trees = $13.50 per tree, plus loading/unloading cost.
Ed
Given restrictions around here on moving firewood (due to several tree diseases/pests) I have to wonder if that hasn't impacted shipping trees by rail over substantial distances.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Not really what you were looking for, but I have very fond memories of Harry and Ruth's Tree Farm in Damascus, OR. Harry and Ruth had a half mile loop of 2' narrow gauge running through their tree farm, with a real fire in her belly steam locomotive at the head end. You would select and cut your tree take it trackside, and the train would stop and pick up you and your tree. This had to have been in the 1970's, Harry Passed away in 1985 and Ruth IIRC, in 1991, the train had been parked for several years before Harry Passed, I don't know what became of the train, but it still lives on in many of my fondest childhood memories, sure do wish that I had some pictures though.
Doug
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
MP173 Ulrich:How many trees did you have on your trailer? How were the trees loaded in the trailer? Across the trailer, or lengthwise? Using my slide rule, I came up with about 200 trees in a 53 foot trailer (van). However, my guess is more could be loaded depending on how tightly these were wrapped and how the trees were packed. 200 trees = $13.50 per tree, plus loading/unloading cost. Ed
700 trees loaded lengthwise (longitudinally) on a 48 ft. flatbed trailer. I had stakes along each side of the trailer to hold them in place, and had the already tightly wrapped trees strapped down even tighter. I could have taken another 50 trees no problem. Works out to $3.86 per tree to transport... not a bad deal for them or me.
I just checked the trees at our local supermarket... they're from Tacoma, WA! That surprises me... that someone would transport trees some 2700 mi. when there are lots of tree farms regionally.
There's a Christmas Tree vendor set up in a tent here in Sierra Vista, Arizona, near the Mexico border, with a large sign indicating his trees are from Oregon.
He comes here every year around Thanksgiving.
It looks like he brought them here in a semi trailer and is renting the tent.
We're 30 miles from the nearest rail siding (Benson, Arizona on the Union Pacific Sunset Route) that he could possibly have used to offload from a rail car, so I have no doubt that he brought them all the way from Oregon by truck.
The Ann Arbor RR was still shipping xmas trees at least into the late 70s. I remember a lot were shipped from a spur a couple-or-three miles east of Copmish, MI. (That end of the AA was abandoned in the early 80s.) I also saw trees stacked adjacent to the Cadillac wye, but I am not sure they loaded them on rail cars, or just used the site as a staging area. I have not noticed trees there in many years, and I checked today and the area is weed grown.
I was just at the Home Depot in San Pedro, CA. and the 53' domestic intermodal container that the trees came in is still there in the fenced in area. Could they have been harvested in the PNW and transported via through Tehachapi to Hobart? Possibly.
Yes, I can tell you that a friend who worked for the Long Island Rail Road (yes, THE
LIRR or Route of the Dashing Commuter as some of us modelers, fans and riders still call it!) told me of a shipment of Christmas trees in a 40-foot boxcar shipped from Canada that did make it on time and kept the shipper happy! Next time I
see him I'll ask him for more information, if that helps. The boxcar landed up somewhere on the Babylon Branch, I believe, where it was unloaded without incident. Merry Christmas!
Mike Boland, The Long Island Rail Road Modeler
UP's Streamline Intermodal Service move a lot of Christmas trees out of Oregon.
Eighty percent (80%) of artificial trees worldwide are manufactured in China, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. North American Real Christmas Trees are grown in all 50 states and Canada.
Real Trees are a renewable, recyclable resource. Artificial trees contain non-biodegradable plastics and possible metal toxins such as lead.
http://www.christmastrees-wi.org/tree_pictures.html
http://www.realchristmastrees.org/dnn/Education/QuickTreeFacts.aspx
On weekend in November we include a coach on our regular train (Cuyahoga Valley) for the "Christmas Tree Express". We drop the passenger at the midpoint of our trip. They are bused to a tree farm where they pick out a Christmas tree that is trucked back to the train station. We pick up the passengers and trees on the return trip. Trees are loaded in the baggage car.
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