Beer Unit Trains?

[Tulyar15]

In Ireland a lot of Guiness is moved by rail in containers which contain several kegs. At off loading points arounded the country the kegs are then delivered to the pubs. In the Irish Republic Guiness have over 80% of the beer market.

They used also to have a brewery in London which was the last brewery here to be rail served but it's now closed. It would dispatch a couple of wagons loads (again containing kegs) to Scotland.

Many years ago the Guiness plant in Dublin had its own internal narrow gauge locos. These could also be mounted onto special broad gauge converter cars so they could haul broad gauge wagons to the exchange sidings with Irish Rail too. I think at least 3 of these locos and their converter cars survive but the only one in working order is at the Amberley Chalk Pits museum in Sussex near Arundel. This place is well worth a visit as it contains railroad related exhibits in 4 gauges and a lot of other industrial exhibits. For James Bond fans its the location of the mine in "A View to a Kill".

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

Big pink rocks?[%-)]

Pink Elephant Ballast ??!![}:)]

[greyhounds]

QUOTE: Originally posted by blhanel

Big pink rocks?[%-)]

Sometimes, it's just best not to ask. I don't think we need to know about the Big Pink Rocks. For God's Sake Man, leave it alone!

Anyway, I've never heard of beer unit trains. Coors is kind of unique in that they've made their brand reputation based on brewing with "Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water." So they're stuck brewing with that water in Colorado.

This means they have to ship water (beer is basically water) from Colorado to Virginia in tank cars.

Other brewers built brewerys close to their markets. They have to ship the grain and such in, but they're not paying to move water 2/3 of the way across the USA as Coors is.

I wonder just who came up with the idea of hanging the Coors hat on the peg that is now a curse, the use of that "Rocky Mountain Water".

But, as many of us know - there may be no beer unit trains, but there are Orange Juice unit trains. Unlike beer, which can be brewed about anywhere, OJ needs to come from warm climates where orange trees can thrive. Such a place is Bradenton, FL which originates unit trains of OJ for the New York City area.

[blhanel]

Big pink rocks?[%-)]

[Anonymous]

Here in Western Pennsylvania most of the stuff I usually see traveling in unti trains are coal, intermodal, and auto racks. Occasionally you see some iron ore one the old Bessemer & Lake Erie and I have seen trains of nothing but gons hauliung scrap metal.

I also remember hearing about the tank train in the southwestern states. It was a famous unit oil train.

[Murphy Siding]

The Coors article in the April Trains Magazine says that Coors sends a lot of beer out by train. It seems plausible (allthough the article said they don't) to send beer in a unit train. That made me wonder what other things generally do / or did ship in unit trains? In my part of the country, it's grain and big pink rocks that ship in unit trains.