Did any cattle train runs on any road survive into the first-generation diesel era? Kyle
What kind of cars were the livestock mooved in after 40’ cars we gone from the rail. If anyone one has a pic of one I would love to see it.
Andrew
Sorry I dont know if that is intentional but I found it humourous anyway.
Why don’t they transport livestock by rail anymore?? I know that its impractical for smaller ranches but for those big huge feedlots it seems like the best way to transport their cattle.
I was amazed when I saw a UP train with yellow livestock cars running through Cajon Pass in the mid-80s; I had thought the cars had long disappeared, but then I never lived in farm country. IIRC the critters were hogs.
Stock hauling was pretty much gone by the mid 1970’s. The Santa Fe for instance quit the business in 1974.
There were 50’ stock cars and somewhere I’ve seen a photo of a 80’+ car for hauling pigs.
Did these cars have shackles inside?
It seems like Model Railroader had a small article about UP’s livestock movements (I believe they said that was the only existing one at that time) in the mid-80s to early 90s (it might have been in the workshop section). I seem to recall they said it was pig/hogs. I think by that time they were no longer unit trains but tacked into intermodal trains (the capacity for puns is almost limitless). The article said that regulations regarding care of livestock while enroute lead to the thinning and subsequent demise of such operations.
Eric,
I do recall the train I saw had other cars, but the stock cars were concentrated in a block. The photo I have is from Feb. '86 and I don’t have any other details.
I was too far away to see if they had shackles or anything else, and I couldn’t “smell” anything either!
Mike
According to my very fuzzy memory…
The last regular livestock move on Conrail was from Chicago to a Kosher butcher in North Jersey. It consisted of a few cars on the headend of TV11 (I think…) which could make the trip without the need for intermediate watering (28 hours between watering by law?) I think this service ended in the early to mid 1980s.
Go vegitarian
even after livestock service became extinct - UP kept a dozen or so cattle cars in Blackfoot Idaho to serve as spacer cars for the weight restricted bridge across the Snake River on the Mackey Branch. The Mackey Branch also served the National Energy Lab at Scoville. This combinate led to some really interesting trains – GP9 power followed by nuclear waste casks on heavy duty depressed center flat cars, spaced by empty cattle cars. Those trains also had 2 cabooses - a gray DODX for the security guards and a yellow UP for the train crew. Sometimes UP would have a car clerk ride the caboose as well to handle the paperwork on the spot.
dd
Truckers bring the cattle down to the slaughterhouses. Garden City Ks, Liberal Ks, Dumas, Tx, Plainview Tx, Omaha City NE, and other places around the country work solely for meat.
I think it was Ft. Morgan Colo that told me that they need about 2000 cattle/day. Everything except the hoof was used. Good Hides shipped in-country the “bad” hides (Cheap) was shipped to Mexico. There are also very special trucks that have water tight, airtight trailers to haul the “guts” to rendering plants. As a example to cleaniness, these loads must never be allowed to “Drip” onto law enforcement scales. Customer products ranging from candles, medicines, makeup and other things are made from this material.
Everything is on trucks both as cattle and as boxed meat. I used to be involved in this business of Meat Hauling. You would turn in your trailer to be cleaned (after it was fully fueled) and go with your Bob-tail to a “bull-pen” near the plant’s gaurd shack. There you would settle in to sleep. It could be up to 3 days before your trailer was loaded.
Once your trailer was loaded, the gaurd fetches you with paperwork, your seals for the trailer and inspected you, weighed you (both gross and also by axle as a courtesy to defend against overweight citations) and it was time to go.
Once you got moving, you cannot stop. Teams are best for this Garden City to Salinas CA is about 2440 miles by way of Flagstaff AZ and Mohave (Bakersfield CA) and you can do it in 50 hours. Food stores have strict hours to take in meat, Produce, Dairy and grocery and it was vital you meet your appointment time with the load. Your meat load is considered in the trucking world hottest on the list.
A small percentage of truckers haul 'Swinging" Beef which is simply deskinned and frozen cattle cleaned and stripped of nerves, intestional and brain/unediable matter and hung on hooks in your trailer. A skilled driver needed due to high center of gravity.
Every major city has a “Market”
In Queensland we have cattle trains, solid rakes hauled by 3900 class 3MW overhead electric locomotives (25 kV). Some of the cars use cattle containers on flat wagons, others are straight cattle cars. They are often diesel hauled too!
Peter
Highiron
I’ll second that complement.
Ken Burns did a great documentary, “Packing Plant”. Black and white, no commentary, just the visuals and sound through the process and and also in the office to get a sense of the business.
Remark from the guy on the order desk to someone trying to buy a truckload of just hindquarters. “Sorry, we can’t do that unless you order fores. Why NOT??? We get them in SETS!!”
Jay
Into the early 70’s B&O’s New England 88 nearly always had one or two 80’ stock cars for Food Fair in Philadelphia. The cars were medium green lower halves and silver up top with the FF logo. Food FAir was swallowed up by Safeway or one of those large national chains in the early 70’s; that’s when the shipments stopped.
I don’t know where they came from or where they are going to, but out here dump trucks haul around cattle parts and sometimes whole cows. I once saw on with part of the cow (upside down) sticking up above the sides. Another time, I was passing one (one lane between us) as it lost part of its load.
Ty Mr. Hemphill. I forgot to mention that one of the worst duty one can have with these places is hauling out livestock who died in transit on the cattle trucks. Feed lots do cut down on the casulties. I think the driver needs to drive carefully and quickly to get the stock to the slaghterhouse I am not sure.
Anyways the live stock that are sick, dead or otherwise have issues do not get into the human side of the beef consumption.
Alot of the workforce comes from Mexico. I will only say that there are people willing to work at these places to send the wages home to Mexico, I refuse to visit the subject of illegal immigrants. I have developed some views and I dont know anything about how they are handled at some of these places.
Wintertime is a dangerous time for hauling live stock. I dont know too much about casulties from the cold, however the stock trucks always put “boards” in between the panels to help keep the body heat in the trailer.
I did not touch on the trade in cattle at auctions and such places. Most small towns usually have one of these and I belive they eventually get sent to the feedlot prior to the final trip to the kill floor. I do see that there are “Buyers” working for these meat plants with very specific procedures and many a heated arguement over pricing (By weight) and quality rang from many of these portable office trailers.
Railroads have a large presence at these plants. I see tank cars box cars gondolas…
The Gondolas are the worst. Hot humid summer day with the flies waking up… whoo… is usually organized chaos divided by division. For example I will relate this story…
I pulled into the gaurd inspection area to drop off trailer to go to the wash rack. I get a voucher so the company can organize payment of the wash fee. The office for that was at the wash rack. While walking the 200 feet from where I dropped the trailer to the wash rack I see my own trailer being backed in on top of me. Of cour
I saw some of the Ortner cars being built at their Cincinnati plant in 1966. They were Pig Palace cars for the Northern Pacific. The B&O ran Food Fair cars through Pittsburgh, Pa. on the head end of a trailer train.
I saw some of the Ortner cars being built in 1966 at their Cincinnati plant. They were Pig Palace cars for the Northern Pacific The B&O ran Food Fair cars through Pittsburgh, Pa. on the head end of a trailer train in the late 60’s-early 70’s.
I thought the main reason livestock was dropped from the rails was government requirements for the animals to be exercised, fed and watered every 24 hours or so. I can’t see it being very economical now for the railroads to have to unload and reload a train, especially with the current rail congestion.
I also remember reading some time ago (at least 20 years) that there was an exception to this for hogs and them only requiring watering. One of the railroads had a set of basically was racks (UP? SP?) which the train passed through and sprayed the animals. Could do 48 hours that way.
I would bet that most of the live hauls are trucks now, and that the distance isn’t that great. I still remember livestock pens along the highways for trucks. Don’t see much of that now.