Cattle by Rail

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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[:D] Many thanks to all the multifaceted in-depth answers to the original question. While I always considered the speed and cost of trucking to be the main reasons why livestock left the rails, I never realized how many aspects there were that caused the decline. I won’t attempt to add to these excellent answers, but I would like to make some comments about the industry when it used to move by rail.

I never knew until recently just how large an operation it was. Thousands of people were involved all over the country. Feed lots where the livestock had to be rested as described in this discussion could be huge, covering dozens of acres. Some of these places had a dozen or more tracks. And they weren’t just for loading and unloading livestock. Feed and bedding had to be shipped in. Waste had to be removed. The place had to be cleaned regularly since an outbreak of disease could have far ranging effects. Facilities had to be provided for not just cattle, but for sheep, hogs, and any other kind of livestock being shipped.

At the load origination point, livestock could not be loaded until the locomotive and train crew were ready to go, because once loaded, the clock started ticking for when the rest period was due. In most cases, the livestock had to be hauled to the railsite in trucks, or perhaps in earlier day, driven, since most ranchers were not located on a rail spur. The railroads had detailed standardized plans in different sizes for the livestock pens. These plans listed every last piece of wood and metal that would be needed in its construction.

Livestock cars, while perhaps not the most modern of equipment, was arguably the cleanest. While, granted, during a trip there was undoubtedly a healthy livestock aroma present, between trips the cars had to be sanitized to ward of disease which as noted could spread rapidly and cause widespread disaster. Two basic car designs existed. Single-level cars were primarily for the largest livestock. Two-level cars c

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Well, we’re not going to build a new rail network.

It is nearly (not totally) impossible to get 125 loads together from one origin to one destination, and you’re not going to ship fresh meat once or twice a week.

RoadRailer/RailRunner technology could be used, but there would have to be a good reason. The large beef plants near Amarillo and Denver can, and should, use double stack though existing intermodal terminals and on existing high priority trains. Double stack economics beat RoadRailer economics in such cases.

Carload is a non starter for this one.

RoadRailer/RailRunner technology could be used to serve large beef origins such as Garden City/Dodge City, Kansas that do not have IM terminals. But you couldn’t get 125 loads together for one train. The originating trains would have to “feed” the existing intermodal network. The “carless” technology would have to mix with other intermodal equipment. RailRunner can do this. RoadRailer has never understood the problem. (and I got fired trying to explain it to them.)

A really Greyt (that’s dog lingo) utilization for RailRunner would be pork from North Carolina into the Northeast. Pork production has a concentration in North Carolina. The obvious market for the dead hog flesh (I like to bake my bacon) is the population c

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Very interesting comments on this topic… You might like to know that in Queensland, Australia, cattle are still moved by rail in 2005 QR took delivery of new cattle trucks only last year. It must be economic only because the whole thing is subsidised by the state government and takes place over long distances.

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Sorry! In my recent comment I meant new WAGONS not trucks

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So basically, in Australia - there is an “Amtrak for Cattle”. Well, why not. It makes just as much sense as the US’s “Amtrak for People”.

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Lets get away from trucks and meat for a minute. I have another related question. The cattle cars that I always saw go by here where always right behind the locomotive if loaded, and could be further back in the consist if empty.

Was it a railroad regulation thet they had to be right at the front of the consist if loaded?

Was it the job of one of the head end crew to check on then from time to time?

Any help here?

Happy to see this topic come up.

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Down here in Queensland, cattle transport by rail is still very much in operation. We have three lines running westward from the Queensland coast which feed down into Brisbane, the state capital, where a good porportion of the meat processing occurs both for domestic use and export. Sometimes as I commute to the city on the suburban network, we paralell run with a very long cattle train, or pass an empty running back out.

Dave

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The UP move of the CLS train in the HOGX cars lasted till, possibly, as late as 1994, but that’s it. I saw cars being loaded in Schuyler, NE and Marysville, KS (I heard that was the very last active rail livestock location in KS, NE had a few) in Feb., 1990.

I used to do an AAR trace of random #'rd HOGX cars back then and they were moving into 1992-93. By '94 though, they were either in storage or being scrapped.

The remaining active stations that UP had in the early 90s had one thing in common - all on very active mains (except I heard one in Gill, CO???). Once the cars were loaded, a few hours later a mainline train picked them up and it was off to the races to L.A.
Because of automatic watering and feeding troughs in the newer HOGX cars, I don’t think these hogs were ever taken off the train. They ran thru a “car wash” of sorts in Dry Lake, NV, just before Vegas, but that was it.

As far as processed meat going by rail, don’t believe there is very much of that. It may be growing however due to brand new mechanical reefers being built by both UP and BNSF.
There is definetly still some frozen chicken moves going to southeastern ports for export though. Much of it going to Russia. This moves in traditional mechanical reefers, and possibly cryogenic cars. Frozen fish also goes by rail, but often not for human consumption; often it is going to pet food processing plants.

Believe a big fear for the railroads in hauling meat for example is the the enormous liability if there is a claim. Once spoiled, that’s 3 tractor trailer loads of meat to dump. What’s worse - what if it looks good, transit was fine, but the reefer unit was erratic… Sometimes stopped for a few days, got a good hit in the yard, and restarted…? At the destination however it was temp reading looked good, and the meat was frozen - or refrozen… Takes a lot of consumers to eat 3 tractor trailer loads of meat… That’s a lot of sick people calling their lawyers…

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[quote]
Originally posted by mudchicken

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???

Mudckicken -
You gotta be kiddin’ me? Are you sure? Last time I did AAR tracing on those green HOGX cars, it looked like they were all being scrapped. That was back in '94…

There were at least TWO 86’ , double decker, high cube, livestock cars that lasted longer into the 90s. (They may still be around, but I haven’t found them in the Railway Equipment Register anymore). General American had these 2 cars, stenciled GASX (General American Stock), the same comapny that has/had GARX (General American Refrigerator). They are really known today for what they have always been, GATX, General American Tank Car.

Last I heard in the 90s they were actually still on the rails, but hauling golf carts(!!), not livestock.

Lightweight products, such as auto parts, or in this case, golf carts, can only compete with direct truck if enough of them can be moved. I.e., a 1:1 truck to rail ratio does not work. 2:1, 2 trucks in one rail car sometimes does, such as scrap paper in a boxcar, 3:1, such as reefers of frozen french fries works, and 4:1 ratios such as plastic pellets in covered hoppers works best.

But regarding Farmer John… hard to believe. I don’t think there is any equipment left. Canada’s fleet was disappearing from the Equipment Register all thru the 90s, Mexico’s too now.

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I must mention that fuel for reefers is NOWHERE near what is consumed by the desiels both locomotive and Tractors.

The paltry expense feeding reefers is insurance against bad and spoiled loads.

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The fuel in them wasn’t the problem. Most UPFEs and BNFEs were built from '64 to '74. No new mechanical reefers were built until 2002. Cyrogenic reefers starting being built in the early 90s; they were safe, nothing mechanical to break down, but the CO2 got to be very expensive.

But on the mechanicals, the old Detroit Diesel motors in them would break down constantly. It is a hard life. On the reefers I would see carrying frozen meat or fish for a PA pet food plant, the temperatures were set to the max, -20 below zero. Some of the frozen fish cars were from as far away as Long Beach, Ca. Picture those cars rolling thru the desert, at 110 degrees outside, sometimes sitting in the sun… They were isulated well, but those things were running constant for the 2 plus weeks it would take to get to our shortline.

Sometimes the engine compartments you could see had been flooded with oil from some recent failure blowout, other times, the smell of antifreeze. Just plain old. UP and BN did spend a lot of time fixing them, but like that first old car you may of had as a kid, eventually the repairs are just too much.

UP’s fully rebult ARMNs, are a step in the right direction. Besides the nice new paint that everyone notices, the more important thing is that motor. The DD’s are gone, all replaced by the same motor the truckers use, Carriers. (Trucks also use others, but the reefers all have Carriers that I’ve seen so far).

The brand new cars high cube reefers though, are the way to go for frozen food, especially boxed anything like frozen french fries, which we also got a few hundred of, late 90s till present.

But plenty of cars with fuel in them shut down all the time, middle of nowhere. The new and/or rebuilt cars, with their satelitte tracking, tell the carrier that such and such a car, rolling thru MiddleofNoWhereVille, Midwest, is shut down. They now have a much better chance of saving that load. You also could not trust the temperature or f