In NSW they had a couple of codes of horse carriages. I think they were classified as coaching stock and would certainly have beeen run in passenger trains. Not quite as imposing as the 70’ cars that Chuck wrote about in the States, but certainly for the same purpose. Moving thoroughbreds to race meetings.
One is preserved in the Thirlmere museum (Googleable) and a horse and strapper (1’=12" models) are included with the door open so we can see the internal arrangement. I was sure I took a photo, but seems to be lost. [:(] Horse stalls at either end and the humans in the centre compartment., with the windows. Horses must not have enjoyed a scenic journey. [(-D]
Hey, guys, pay attention! [zzz][sigh] I posted a picture of just such a car, in this thread, several posts back. The model was built using a photo of the prototype as a reference, and is a fairly accurate rendition. [:D]
Yes, I saw your photo. They make them a lot bigger in Canada than in Oz. Different era I think. The one I put in a photo of is 19th century. Running until that traffic moved off the rails though.
The car that my model was patterned after was originally a Grand Trunk car, so it had been built sometime before the 1923 Canadian National take-over. A friend owns the book with the information (and photo), and although I borrow it often, it’s not here at the moment. The CNR rostered a couple dozen of these cars in at least two classes, and some were still in use at least into the 1990s, although by that time, it was work train service and the cars had been cut down to flatcars.
How many cows did the average 40’ stock car hold? I’m just trying to get a feel for how many cows my stocks yards will be shipping on my layout. Thanks. Jason
I would like to know that too. Most likely steers rather than cows, but let’s just say cattle. Average cattle. Don’t care if they are longhorns or poleys or herefords or whatever. Just the average.
I tried to look it up for you, but the best reference I have did not give a number. It gave 200 sheep for a two deck 36 foot sheep wagon. Maybe that will benefit someone.
IIRC, 45 full-sized cattle (I forget where I found this number, and I “think” it might be for 36’ stock cars, which were much more common than 40-footers). Let me do some digging to nail down the number, with sources.
I went digging through my old copies of RMC for the answer, which I couldn’t find. What I did find was a photograph of cattle being loaded into the upper deck of a bi-level stock car. These were not calves: judging from the photo, they were about chest-high to a man. The photo is dated 1968, and was taken on UP’s Yellowstone Branch, in Idaho. The car dimensional data is legible, showing an inside length of 40’6" and an inside height of 10’0’'.
The October and November 2004 RMC issues had a 2 part article on building and operating a meat plant. I know the author of these articles. He has done presentations in the past about this subject. From his material, found in a 1941 UP directory,
Cattle per car, animal weights ranging from 300lbs to 1400lbs, 36ft car = 60 to 19; 40ft car = 67 to 21.
Hogs per car, animal weights ranging from 100lbs to 400lbs, 36ft car = 130 to 47; 40ft car = 145 to 52.
Sheep/Lambs per car, animal weights ranging from 50lbs to 180lbs, 36ft car = 155 to 75; 40ft car = 170 to 83.
Those are figures for single deck cars. In loading hogs or sheep in double-deck cars the number loaded in the upper deck should be eight to ten less than that recommended for loading in lower-deck cars, especially in hot weather.
We could probably make some estimates from those numbers. He gave us a pretty wide spread though.
Are there any butchers or farmers out there who would like to give me a feel for an “average” steer off the the slaughterhouse? I guess at around 1,000 lb, but might be way out. An extension of the guesstimate, somewhere around 35 to 40 head of cattle to a 36 foot car?
Similarly for pigs (hogs) and sheep. For sheep I would think 200 head to a 36 foot double deck wagon would not be far off the mark.
So I will make my stock yards accordingly. However, a new question now comes up. How much area of stock yard does one need for say 100 head of cattle? [?] always more [?]-[?] [(-D]
The handout I have listing the number of animals per car (also listed in the RMC article) is broken down into different weights. I just gave the high and low numbers.
It also lists typical market ready weights of today. For cattle, 1200 lbs; 22 into a 36ft car, 23 into a 40ft car. For hogs, 250 lbs; 68 into a 36ft car, 76 into a 40ft car. Sheep and Lambs; 125 lbs, 96 into a 36ft car and 104 into a 40ft car.
Thanks for the additional information, Jeff. I had forgotten about the packing house articles. I just went into the layout room to check on how many steers were in each of those pens in the stockyard in the picture that I posted earlier: there are 16, although there’s probably enough room for another 8 in each, so one car per pen. [:D] This was just a lucky coincidence, as I built the pens in proportions that I thought pleasing to the eye, and yet still of a small enough size to allow room for four open pens, plus the two covered ones. Here’s a view of the pens from a different angle, taken before the livestock showed up from the paintshop.[:)]
I don’t think luck had much to do with it. Your reason (pleasing to the eye) may have been a little off but I suspect that the prototype pens may have been built specifically to match the capacity of one car. It would surely have been easier to chase all of the steers from one pen into a car than to have separated out only a carload from a larger pen or to have had to move them from more than one pen to fill a car.
I had forgotten I had posted a question in this thread. Thanks for the great info Jeff. I guess I’m going to need to add a few more pens to my two stock yards to get the desired traffic levels. I’m off to the 2007 Walthers cataloge to do some looking for pens. Thanks for the help. Jason
Those are nice looking stock yards. I gather from what you wrote that you scratchbuilt them. If I am wrong in that deduction would you mind telling me what kit you used?
About the only thing significant I would do differently is to paint them weathered wood instead of white. You guys must be a lot neater in Canada than we are own under.[:I] Cannot recall any railway stock yards benefitting from a coat of paint where I came from.[:(] Our railways were run by the government in those days, while the Canadians were private industry (I think). So maybe that is the benefit of private operators - they paint their stock yards.[(-D]
However, if that is a kit I have to get it. It could save me a lot of fiddly work like I did on my old layout.[:D]
John, the pens are scratchbuilt: I used Evergreen 3"x8" for the horizontals and the posts are 6"x6", except in the covered pens, where round posts were used. All of the ramps (there’s one facing the parking lot for truck loading/unloading, too) are built up board-by-board. I built each wall, including integral gates, by pinning a sketch of the post spacings to a sheet of 1/4" balsa, then pinning the posts in place and adding the horizontal slats. Corner posts, and on longer sections, some intermediate posts, were left longer on the bottom ends to allow for insertion into holes drilled into the layout. The ramps were the only fiddly part of construction. In Canada, the pens could have been owned by the railroad or held privately. Stockcars were supposed to be treated with lime, according to government regulations, as a disinfectant. Because this usually left the cars looking pretty ratty, the railroads decided to paint the lower part of the cars white. I suspect, although I’m not certain, that there may have been similar regulations governing the stockpens too. Most of the photos that I’ve seen show the pens in pretty good condition, including the white paint. The only other stockpens on the layout currently are the ones picture below, also in pretty good condition. Plans call for at least one more similar to this one, and one or two consisting of just the ramp and gates. These will be in a slightly poorer state of repair.[:)]
For some reason, this doubledeck car is the only one that I can find a photo of, and it’s not the best demonstration of the lime/ white paint treatment. Single deck cars were white only to a height of 4’ or 5’.
Thanks for that description. I will try that. It is pretty close to what I have done before.
It is interesting to find out what is done in different countries. I have never seen anyone use lime on yards or stock cars. I wondered why the North American stock wagons were white in part.
NSW cattle wagons were emphatically not white.[:)]
