Some of us figured the 2011 suspension of beer shipments from the St. Louis brewery would prove temporary. Indeed it was.
The brewer began rail shipments last week to Aurora, Colorado and LaPorte, Texas. It already ships beer rail from Fort Collins, Colorado and Fairfield, California plants.
The company had ended beer shipments by rail in March 2011. Manufacturers Railway ceased operations in the fall and was replaced by Foster-Townsend Rail Logistics, which delivered six or seven carloads per day of bulk ingredients.
(1) Who will provide RBL’s since I believe MRS’s fleet was sold off?
(2) Anyone want to speculate on additional destinations for rail shipments from St. Louis? I know Coon Rapids, Minnesota was a big one. I believe Memphis was another.
Will they even be using RBL’s for this service? Could they just use a regular non-equiped boxcar? If needed, could cheap sheets of packing foam lining the boxcar serve?
I know BNSF and UP RBL’s are assigned to A-B’s Fort Collins, Colorado brewery, which is served by Omnitrax’s Great Western Railway of Colorado. A-B’s Fairfield, California brewery uses UP RBL’s, and is served by Genesee & Wyoming’s California Northern RR. St. Louis will probably have to use boxcars provided by Class I’s since Manufacturers’ Railway is out of business.
I figure RBL’s are standard for A-B. I do know that Corona beer is shipped from Mexico to Chicago via UP in non-insulated boxcars, at least they look like non-insulated boxcars.
Anhueser Busch has a large quantity of dunnage material that they use and reuse on their shipments. The main items arr 24"x 69" x 3" cardboard panels that they place on the front and rear of pallets of bear. As well as a variety of void fillers. The experience level of their shipping staff was very instructional when I first started driving. (All union shops) . Rgds IGN
Not immediately, no, but give that stuff a few days to spoil, especially in hot weather, and nobody will voluntarily go near the stuff. I learned that one from a wreck on GTW, where some of Milwaukee’s stuff, in a piggyback trailer, joined other cars on a trip over the countryside adjacent to the tracks. The wreck was gone, but the spirits lingered…
