UlrichLivestock and meat processing is a far more localized industry than it was years ago. Guelph is a large processing hub for Southern Ontario. I see the same cattle trucks multiple times every day, running the same routes..presumably they're picking up cattle within 100 miles of Guelph and then hauling them to Better Beef Co. for slaughter and processing. Better this way I suppose than having these poor critters in transit for a number of days.
Effective, controlable refrigeration changed the industry from destination processing to origin processing.
The TV show Rawhide glorified the cattle drive from Texas to the railhead in Kansas. From the railhead in Kansas the stock go transported to all the Eastern market areas on the hoof for processing to the consumer. These days the stock is trucked to a 'nearby' processing plant and the final product leaves the processing plant and then moves in controlled refrigerated vehicles to the consumers point of purchase.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
daveklepperPlenty of opportunity for railroads to handle processed meet to consumer area a long distance from meet pricessing plants. Fish could be a back-haul.
That's for sure. The US produces great volumes of red meat and chicken. The production is concentrated in facilities that are long distances from the consumers in coastal population centers. Unlike livestock, the killed meat goes from concentrated origins to concentrated distribution facilities.
There's also significant export volume.
The meat and poultry move overwhelmingly by truck. Railroads run right by the plants and make little or no effort to get the business.
Backhauls can be almost anything. You can put a non-refrigerated load in refrigerated equipment just fine.
Farmer John has been sold to Springfield. They announced the closing of the Vernon, Ca. Plant next year. They didn't mention the fate of the famous mural around the plant at the corner of Bandini & Soto st. in Vernon.
greyhoundsRailroads run right by the plants and make little or no effort to get the business.
If you can put together 100 car unit trains, they might be willing to talk. But remember that the vaunted unit trains of produce from the west coast are now carload freight.
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...
greyhounds... Backhauls can be almost anything. You can put a non-refrigerated load in refrigerated equipment just fine.
While backhauls CAN be most anything - there isn't that much of anything to utilize the available space that brings the processed 'farm products' to the large market areas. Remember the farm producing areas are almost by defination low population areas in relation the major markets.
BaltACD greyhounds ... Backhauls can be almost anything. You can put a non-refrigerated load in refrigerated equipment just fine. While backhauls CAN be most anything - there isn't that much of anything to utilize the available space that brings the processed 'farm products' to the large market areas. Remember the farm producing areas are almost by defination low population areas in relation the major markets.
greyhounds ... Backhauls can be almost anything. You can put a non-refrigerated load in refrigerated equipment just fine.
And farming and trucking are very much intertwined. Show me a farmer and I'll show you someone who is comfortable around heavy equipment and likely owns one to four trucks... i.e. customers who own their own means of transportation may be less inclined to use rail in any event.
Ulrich... And farming and trucking are very much intertwined. Show me a farmer and I'll show you someone who is comfortable around heavy equipment and likely owns one to four trucks... i.e. customers who own their own means of transportation may be less inclined to use rail in any event.
The farm YouTube channels I have been watching recently - in addition to owning and using multiple 'heavy duty' tractors, grain carts to recieve harvested crop from the harvesters as well as multiple crop heads for the various crops they have planted. The multiple and various storage facilities the farmers have built at their own expense so they can 'play the market' for the sale of their crops which they transport from their own storage to processing centers in their own tractor trailer grain hauling equipment. One of the farms has BNSF trackage running either through it or adjacent to the property line. One of the farms is over 2000 acres and plants seed corn, commercial corn, soybeans, cattle and hogs. Another farms 10000 acres - spring wheat, winter wheat, rye and field peas.
The 18 wheelers they own not only take product to market but are also used to bring seed and fertilizer to the farm.
About 50 miles away from me is the sixth largest meat-packing plant in the U.S.
It sits directly adjacent to a double BNSF mainline running diagonally through the photo. However, the only train service to the plant is some tank cars that haul certain waste products away.
On the middle right side of the photo, notice the number of truck trailers. I imagine the plant deals with trucks and not trains because the trucking companies give them the best service for the best price.
York1 John
Many farmers also drive OTR during the downtime to make extra money.
York1About 50 miles away from me is the sixth largest meat-packing plant in the U.S. It sits directly adjacent to a double BNSF mainline running diagonally through the photo. However, the only train service to the plant is some tank cars that haul certain waste products away. On the middle right side of the photo, notice the number of truck trailers. I imagine the plant deals with trucks and not trains because the trucking companies give them the best service for the best price.
Be thankful that the waste liquids are being hauled away - I worked B&O's FY Tower that was bolted to the 33rd Street Bridge over the Allegheny River in Pittsburgh in the pre EPA days where the processing (rendering) plant would pump those waste fluids into the river at 6 PM daily - if you hadn't eaten your lunch before 6 PM you would not be able to get it to go down and stay down after 6 PM.
Those "waste" liquids are most likely blood and lard/animal fat, both edible and inedible.
The actual waste products is usually dried and shipped out in covered hoppers by rail, or by semi trailer hoppers, the same kind used to haul grain. I believe it goes to be used as fertilizer.
In the old days, the guts, et al, might be moved in gondolas if the slaughter house didn't have it's own rendering plant on site. I've read accounts from switchmen handling such moves. It's simply offal.
I have a soft cover book on the railroads of Omaha/Council Bluffs. Back in the day there was a manure movement from the South Omaha stockyards to a nearby station where it was collected to be used for fertilizer.
Jeff
jeffhergert It's simply offal.
It's simply offal.
rdamon jeffhergert It's simply offal.
A different kind of movement.
jeffhergertA different kind of movement. Jeff
In comparison to what I was smelling being dumped into the Allegheny River at FY Tower in Pittsburgh - manure was relatively higher on the purfume scale.
Out here, we call it the smell of money.
York1Out here, we call it the smell of money.
You are smelling the purfume of manure as money.
I lived in Akron and know the smell of rubber as money, I have been through several towns where paper and the smell of its manufacture was money. Been to a number of chemical plants and refineries and the smell they create for money. I have lived in rural farm areas and know the smells they generate. None of those smells compare to what was going into the Allegheny River.
And that's the problem/opportunity.
I make that to be somewhere in the Texas Panhandle within economical drayage distance of Amarillo. (Would you please tell us where this is?) A good portion of the beef produced in the panhandle moves long distances by truck to coastal population centers. There are three such large plants in the Texas Panhandle. The plants tend to cluster geographically to be close to where the cattle are.
BNSF normally provides truck competitive service on this line. And none of those truckers can come close to matching the economies of double stack movement at the long distances involved. (It’s over 1,000 highway miles to Chicago for example.)
So, the railroad has a service match and a cost/price advantage. Please know that no rail activity will happen at the plant. The beef would be drayed from the plant to an intermodal terminal, probably in Amarillo. The intermodal containers would be in the trailer lot. Note: Tyson does have a large beef plant in Amarillo proper.
So why is the beef moving by truck instead of rail?
1) People come up with reasons why it won’t work instead of figuring out how to make it work. Such people actually fight adding profitable business to the railroad.
2) The BNSF doesn’t have an intermodal terminal that can handle this business anywhere in the Amarillo area.
3) The BNSF doesn’t have a marketing department that can identify and quantify the opportunities. These abilities are needed to justify an intermodal facility in the Amarillo area. Marketing and market development are significant weak points of North American railroads.
There are many such opportunities for the railroads. They just don’t have the ability (Market Development Expertise) to exploit them.
The problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer.
I find three of the largest packing houses in the Panhandle, two listed in Amarillo (although I think it's closer to Hereford), and one in Cactus. The area also has one a large concentration of feedlots, that would be a short haul for a truck. While they don't deliver cows any more, railroads move goods out of these plants, edible oil and bone meal, for example. The plants also load refrigerated trailers that move to a nearby intermodal ramp where they're loaded on flat cars.
The sign out front of Cargill's plant near Hereford reads "Cargill Meat Solutions." Worst euphemism ever. I'd guess it's so named to pretty up what goes on inside for the most squeamish among us.
Grand Island, Nebraska. Former Swift packing plant. Now JBS Meats. Brazilian ownership.
oldmancatThe plants also load refrigerated trailers that move to a nearby intermodal ramp where they're loaded on flat cars.
What nearby intermodal ramp?
Shadow the Cats ownerThe problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer.
OK, how much lading weight does a meat load for an over the highway move normally have?
Well Prime in their containers carries a maximum of 39k in a trailer pulled by a normal truck 45k lightweight 47.5k. If your a receiver paying for a load of meat and you need over 20 tons at a time guess what if you demand it in a container you don't get your load. BTW that load limit is with a daycab pulling it that is 2 tons lighter than the lightweight truck. It comes down to the chassis weight killing the load limit. We have loaded some of the older now retired from Cr England and it's worse for those. Max weight a load can be with a standard truck is around 36k due to moisture build-up in the walls. A reefer will over time accumulate water in the walls. It is nothing for a 3 year old trailer to be almost 900 to a thousand pounds heavier than when new.
If this is a new, domestic business, is there an advantage in a fleet of those Indian-style dwarf containers? Lower tare, better clearance, perhaps optimized load-out weight net of standard underframe...
Shadow the Cats owner The problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer.
6,000lbs.?.. A bit of exaggeration there in your numbers.. I haven't seen that discrepancy between reefer trailer and reefer container... The difference in net weight is only around 4000lbs.. Or less. The newest reefer containers have lower tare weight.
You can also get closer to trailer reefer net with a daycab.
The weight you see listed on them is a DRY meaning no fuel in the reefer tank at all. They carry 100 gallons of fuel at 6 pounds a gallon which is another 600 pounds of fuel that has to be accounted for. Then the chassis that they are on is right at 8K pounds. So you have a 22K pound empty box. Prime has 2022 trailers that we get into our locations from time to time hauling pellets that the customer wants under climate controls. They weigh in as they have drop and hook with us at under 16K full of fuel in the reefer tank. One of their IM speced trailers is right at 16K due to the larger fuel tank at 100 gallons. Sorry I have been dealing with these things for a while and know what they can LEGALLY haul for an 80K GVW. We do not allow and no daycab truck out there is 6K pounds less than a sleeper truck maybe 2K to 3K pounds less. Our spotter trucks are right at 14K as they carry blowers and PTO's to allow them to do whatever is needed. Our standard sleeper for van service is 16.5K wet weight out the door ready to go and our tanker fleet as we have them ligher in certain ways are under 16K. So trust me when I say I know my weights of these things. I see these things in my sleep on regulations let alone dealing with my drivers that complain about how heavy the loads tend to be.
SD60MAC9500 Shadow the Cats ownerThe problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer. 6,000lbs.?.. A bit of exaggeration there in your numbers.. I haven't seen that discrepancy between reefer trailer and reefer container... The difference in net weight is only around 4000lbs.. Or less. The newest reefer containers have lower tare weight. You can also get closer to trailer reefer net with a daycab.
6,000lbs.?.. A bit of exaggeration there in your numbers.. I haven't seen that discrepancy between reefer trailer and reefer container... The difference in net weight is only around 4000lbs.. Or less. The newest reefer containers have lower tare weight. You can also get closer to trailer reefer net with a daycab.
greyhounds SD60MAC9500 Shadow the Cats owner The problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer. 6,000lbs.?.. A bit of exaggeration there in your numbers.. I haven't seen that discrepancy between reefer trailer and reefer container... The difference in net weight is only around 4000lbs.. Or less. The newest reefer containers have lower tare weight. You can also get closer to trailer reefer net with a daycab. I also believe 6,000 pounds is an exaggeration. A gross exaggeration. Something is going well with these reefer containers. KLLM, a trucker specializing in perishable loads, started out by acquiring 600 rail intermodal reefer containers. They now have 1,050. They didn’t acquire more because the containers were not competitive. Generally, fruit and vegetable perishables, like meat, weigh out before they cube out. If the containers work with oranges, which are mostly water and load heavy, why wouldn’t they also work with heavy meat loads? (Note: “weigh out” means the weight limit for the truck is reached before the full cubic capacity of the truck is used. Conversely, “cube out” means the cubic capacity of the truck is reached before the weight limit is reached. These limits become important on the highway portions of intermodal movements where weight and trailer size are limited by law.) Like the movement of oranges, meat transportation is an economic activity. Economic activities are all about trade-offs. In this case one trade-off involves taking a load that weighs slightly less in exchange for a lower per vehicle shipped rate. At the distances involved for most meat transportation the railroads should have little difficulty offering rates that beat the truck rates by more than enough to take a good part of the business. The problem is that the railroads have focused on import/export business and put domestic business on the back burner. It’s not that they don’t haul domestic business so much as they do little to develop it. For example, there’s not a real intermodal terminal anywhere near the Texas Panhandle. But there sure are a whole lot of meat loads coming out of that area and moving long distances by truck. Just get the freight on the railroad and send ‘em a bill. Worry about net income and return on invested capital while doing so, but don’t treat the operating ratio as Divine Guidance. I’ll deal with backhauls for the loads coming out of places such as the Texas Panhandle in another post.
SD60MAC9500 Shadow the Cats owner The problem with trying to ship meat via double stack containers comes down to 2 things weight and time. The loss of 3 tons per container is not something that shippers overlook to easily. Meat normally weighs out way before cubing out in a trailer. 6,000lbs.?.. A bit of exaggeration there in your numbers.. I haven't seen that discrepancy between reefer trailer and reefer container... The difference in net weight is only around 4000lbs.. Or less. The newest reefer containers have lower tare weight. You can also get closer to trailer reefer net with a daycab.
My observations are that railroad intermodal - be that with trailers or containers are the natural transportation medium for cargos that weigh out instead of cubing out. Unless authorities make an effort to establish permanent or temporary weigh stations near intermodal terminals - most loads that use railroad intermodal can escape over the road weigh stations and the risk of being prosecuted for the trailer/container being overweight.
Some things - like putting zip-locks on breakfast cereal packages - seem obvious, but don't seem to happen.
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