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.
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.
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?
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:
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.[banghead]
Murphy,
Most of the trees are grown on farms, we have three farms here in Houston.
Well I guess I knew that. [D)] We have some tree farms here as well, but not the big, commercial / wholesale type. If you think about it, there would also be the issue of getting the trees from the tree farm to the railroad load out as well.
The first time my wife and I traveled to Wisconsin, I was struck by how the trees in great forests seemed to be spaced out so evenly in rows along the highway. I asked my wife how that could be. She said “They planted them that way stupid!”. [:-^]
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?
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.
70 carloads of Christmas trees for sale at the NYC yard at 11th Ave. & W. 41st St., when the tracks came right down 11th Ave. Looking northwest to West Shore and Ontario & Western ferry terminal at 12th Ave. & W. 42nd St.
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.
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
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.