I know that at one point, cattle, sheep, etc., were moved by rail in stock cars. When did this practice stop? Why?
Very educational reply!
What actually ended the movement of animals by rail is the very strict govt regulations now in place requiring rests, feeding, watering. etc. making it pretty much impossible. Funny that years ago it wasn’t such a problem. Thanks PETA - who buy the way now wants to stop fishing.
The regulations for resting, feeding and watering livestock were in place long before PETA. I know they were in place more than 60 years ago.
Some data to support Mark’s comments. According for the 2002 Census of Transportation 75% of the shipments were less than 250 miles and 45% of the shipments weighed less than 50,000 lbs.
Was the most important date in 20th Centurya railroading when Henry Ford opened his assembly line in 1914? That brought automobiles to the middle class and their demand for good highways. Farmers and others were very quick to put those roads to use to move livestock, logs and other fright.
Great replies, thank you!
Wow what a reply! [:o)][:p][:)]
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Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill
Read about the Fort Worth stockyards…Do a google search… Once a mighty powerhouse of two major beef companies, Armour and Swift, now a ghost of the past…
The paved highway and the truck killed the livestock railroad business… Simply economics… Plus a huge number of smaller slaugherhouses…everywhere…
Well this comment isn’t about cattle per se, but it’s something close…
The sweetest little mixed-merchandise that regularly rolled through Cheyenne on Union Pacific was a train called the CLS (California Live Stock). With two Centennials sandwiching an SD40-2 geared for 80-mph, the train consisted of maybe a dozen cars of live hogs on the point and usually filled-out with another 30 loaded freight cars including boxcars, tanks, reefers, and a caboose. It seldom-to-never carried trailers and containers. The hogs were gathered in Nebraska, the train was built in North Platte, and the last cut of livestock to join the train - this at Cheyenne - came up from nearby Adams and Weld County, Colorado. The cars were consigned to an outfit hard by the Los Angeles River called “Farmer Brown.” During football season, the Wyoming crews would refer to this livestock block as “the Nebraska Cheerleaders.” You really didn’t need to see the train to know that it was in town - your nose would tell you that!
The livestock cars held title as being Union Pacific’s first roller bearing freight equipment.
Each was about 42-feet long, and they were painted Armour Yellow with silvered roof, ends, and trucks. The hogs were loaded on two or three decks. Adjustable louvers for winter weather protection was another feature; and because they carried supplies of onboard grain and water, the federal government allowed longer “hours-of-service” transit times between “feed, water, and rest cycles.” I seem to recall that the cars lasted until the very early 1980s when they were replaced with a series of higher capacity 50-footers carrying, appropriately, HOGX reporting marks. Painted a shade lighter than B.N.'s “Cascade Green,” these HOGX cars lasted only a very short while. The whole operation disappeared rather quickly and the cars were subsequently scrapped.
The empty livestock cars returned on the LANP train, a really slow, heavy drag freight. Invariably the cars were placed immed
G’day, Y’all,
Fort Worth isn’t a “ghost and the place, instead of being an embarkation place for steer and sheep is a destination for hogs, Harley hogs, that is.” The last of the butchers moved out in 1971 but community leaders did not sit still and take their loss with a shrug. Now the place is a thriving tourist destination. You can learn a lot, as least I did, about that part of the rail industry and Americana. And, if yo do what the shops want, you can drop some serious coin on Stetsons, sumptious steaks and souveniers. Yo can also see some of the fanciest Harleys because they line the streets on the weekends while their owners converse with each other and bike fanciers.
Jock Ellis
Cumming, GA US of A
I cast my eye across the USA and I survey the area between Armarillo TX, Garden City KS and over to Omaha NE.
All Livestock and tons of meat plants. There are many lesser operations in the rest of the USA, but virtually everything comes out of one region.
Hard Bitten Sunburnt truckers heavy on the hammer running that cattle to the slaugter from the farm is way faster than rail. Much more mobile as well. Try getting a rail car into this network and keep it productive in a timely manner. It wont happen.
We must not lose sight of alot of things rail can do for the meat industry.
They dont haul much cattle by rail. That is ok. What they WILL haul is feed stock, feed and grains, medicines, tools, animal fat out of there, guts going to rendering plants and other things that are important to support such a industry.
You just dont have to worry about a 100 car stock train sitting in my town of 6000 people on a hot summer day stinking up the place and mooing everyone in the road while waiting on a red signal.
Having said that, I am looking forward with some ancitipation at the BLI stock cars that supposedly makes animal sounds according to how you drive the train.
Ok, we know that the cattle & pigs no longer move by train from, for example, Nebraska to Chicago (The Stockyards) and the slaughterhouses because of the economics and technology. We know that farms have moved away from rail and are now served by trucks that take the animals from the farm to slaughterhouses that moved away from the big cities. How much of the product that the slaughthouses produce is moved by rail these days? If trucks make the short haul from farm to slaughterhouse, then who is handling the longer haul from salughterhouse to your grocery store? Truck, or train?
CC
Well, I’m going to have to disagree with Mr. Hemphill here.
Two very important things were basically ignored in his post. 1) Government Regulations and, 2) Union Rules. Neither applied to trucking of livestock. Both significanltly restricted rail movement of livestock.
First, there is to this day a Federal law that requires livestock moving by rail to be let out of their cars for feeding and watering every 24 hours. As an owner of racing Greyhounds, I fully support laws such as this that protect the welfare of animals in our stewardship. A cow/sheep/pig, whatever certainly deserves to get some feed and water every day. It’s a crying shame that this same regulation does not apply to animals being hauled by truck. Truckers can, and do, keep loads of livestock cooped up in their trucks for days on end with no food or water. If truckers had to go find “turn out” pens to discharge the livestock for feed and water every 24 hours, they’d have less of an advantage over ther railroads in handling livestock. By law, they don’t. The railroads had to provide such pens every 24 hours and that significantly disadvantaged them vis a vis truck transportation.
The railroads could offer a significant advantage here. It is feasible to present feed and water to the livestock in a railcar. It is not feasible to do so in a truck because of the highway weight limits. But it doesn’t matter if the cow has food and water in the railcar or not. The stupid law says “let 'em out every 24 hours” and it don’t matter none if they’re fat and happy or not.
Second, the freight rates for livestock transportation by truck were never, ever, regulated. (It was called the “Agricultural Exemption”) The truck rates could fluctuate with market . The rail rates were fixed by the Federal Government. They couldn’t flucuate at all. When shipment volumes were high, the truckers could charge what the market would support. The rails could not. They had to haul the freight at below marke
From an econ point of view, it makes more sense to butcher cattle as close to the ranch as is economically feasable, then ship the packaged beef by refrigerated trailer or reefer railcar to the markets. You can pack more payload into a box post slaughter than live. Most cattlemen probably ship their beef to the closest slaughterhouse available, so that would fit into a mostly trucking move. Transporting live “doomed” animals long distances just doesn’t make sense when you can cram the tastiest parts tightly into packages, e.g. no wasted space!
A 48 foot trailer that is cooled holds about 500 cases give or take a little bit.
They get stacked pretty high in the nose and are “stepped down” the closer to the door. These are for floor loads.
They are not Bulky but they are dense and heavy. I reckon about half the cubic footage is used and each case weighs on the order of 90 pounds or so.
Even considering how meat processing plants have tended to move away from major urban areas; I’ve still seen and heard of places where slaughterhouses are adjacent to the railroads. For example; in Logansport, Indiana, there is a huge pork processing plant located right next to the Norfolk Southern ex-Wabash mainline (by the way, stay away from Logansport! It’s a nice town, but because of the pork plant and the fact that the town is downwind of this plant, the place reeks to high heaven! LOL! ). Additionally, I’m aware that Omaha also has several slaughterhouses, and we all know what a major rail terminal Omaha is. Obviously, there are many logical reasons listed under this subject as to why live cattle is no longer transported by rail. However, I wonder why you dont see things like unit reefer trains originating from the processing plants; especially considering how much meat they probably produce. To follow on that question, I also wonder why the meat processing companies dont own their own refrigerated railcars?
Rich,
Same basic reasons as in Mark Hemphill’s reply. Ask yourself where the meat is going, answer to grocery stores. How many grocery stores have rail sidings - None. To use rail, grocery chains would have to go through warehouses which adds a layer of cost and increases transit time vs truck. Time counts, as fresh meat is a perishable.
This end of the business is driven by the grocers. Their whole thing is to minimize inventory stock and maximize inventory turns. That mindset drives one to truck, especially where you do not have direct rail service. Warehousing is expensive!
Mac
A brief comment on rail and trucks in general and not specific to cattle transport.
Railroads are governed by strict operating rules mandated by government and the railroad. Speed is one rule. If an engineer exceeds the posted speed for a section of track he gan be subject to an unpaid vacation or very early retirement. We all hear stories of a train crew going “dead” 50 yards from the terminal. This is a Federal law that is obeyed by all railroads and crews and should be.
Now lets look at trucks. Have you ever seen an 18 wheeler obeying the posted speed? How many times have you been traveling at the posted speed or slightly above it and have a trucker pass you up like you were standing still? How many times have you seen an 18 wheeler pulled over by the highway patrol? Very seldom. A deputy sheriff tells me that almost any truck pulled over will rack up several thousand in fines for equipment and other violations. Now I understand why the trucking industry in California (and other states) advertise extensively in the California Highway Patrol inhouse magazine. The last time I checked the CHP is not a significant user of trucks. Truckers refer to their driving log as the “cheat sheet”. Have not heard of a train crew referring to their time in the same manner.
We need to level the playing field.
Ok. Let’s visit your playing field and make it level. Bear with me a moment here.
The truck obeys the speed limit.
The truck obeys the law to the letter.
The truck actually does pretrips and post trips.
The truck operates the engine below peak power for fuel conservation.
The truck does everything necessary for safety such as following distance, slowing down in bad weather etc etc etc.
That truck will require about 100 hours to make a 2400 mile trip driving time.
That 100 hours DOES NOT incude lost time due to waiting
Fresh meat is not that great anyways unless you get it slaughtered illegaly right at the “family farm” anyways. ((Eat local foods as much as possible, tastes better anyways)) Meat is rattled around enough in trucks driving too fast on highways with poor pavement. Then they pump the meat with injections to make it seem juicy. Sure the price is right but the product is crap and people eat to much crap. AND the farmer is the worker that gets ripped off !
Earlier I was gonna say cattle does not belong in trains, now I see they don’t belong in trucks either. Cattle should be hoofed along when transported.
We are on the wrong path here, and trucking down the highway pushing the traffic is just desperation.
Cattle used to be shipped by rail and boat to Europe to be processed there, what a brutal journey, it must have killed the quality of the meat.
MP173/573 (one of them) knows where Farmer John’s is at (@26th & Vernon Ave in the City of Vernon, CA in the LA basin not far fro UP’s Hobart Tower crossing of ATSF/BNSF.
McDonalds is right across the street[dinner][dinner][dinner][dinner]
Farmer John’s still gets occasional shipments of porkers via UP in UP Green Livestock cars. Whatever happened to the self watering Pullman Palace livestock cars???
From experience, Rendering Plants tracks, Tallow tracks and meat processing plant tracks are to be avoided at all cost account of spillage and smell ([xx(][xx(][xx(] YECHHHH!)