Just out of curiosity was milk ever transported by rail in the US ? Here in the UK it was still important freight up until the early 70’s and is often talked about in the modelling & prototype press but I can’t recall seeing anything mentioned in MR or Trains.
Shaun
It sure was. There were milk reefers, milk tank cars, and milk boxcars. Farmers would set their milk out at designated locations for the “milk run” train to pick up each day. Empty milk cans would be set out for the farmers to pick up later that day. Creameries received the milk trains and made it into butter and cheeses.
Hi, thanks for that, I was just very curious.
Shaun
'Twas the genesis for the term “milk run” meaning a slow, frequent stop trip.
Just a piece on trivia ----- John T.
Railroads tapered off carrying milk after WW2, it was all but gone by the 1960’s. Trucks were better at gathering the small shipments of milk.
Dave H.
Hi, It looks as if the UK was about 10 to 15 years behind the US then and followed a similar pattern.
Shaun
Similar to the steam to diesel conversion, UK steam lasted til about 1968.
BTW I think in general parlance “milk run” means an easy job or assignment. It’s true milk trains stopped and started a lot, but they did little or no switching on route, so were relatively easy jobs for the brakeman and conductor.
RMC did a whole series on milk cars and routing. My guess is it was in the early 80’s but it was very informative. Here in the “colonies” we even have a term called “milk runs” for trains that had frequent stops, pick ups and set outs. It has come to mean any way freight that has a lot of work to do as opposed to one that runs from terminal to terminal.
The Colonies now that sounds like a nice way of saying we once ruled over your country? It’s like the 4th of July being the day we (UK) de-colonized the United States or the day gave you independence? But on a more serious note I would love to know which RMC issues covered the articles so if anyone could shed some light on it that would be great.
The term “milk run” is also used in this country and pretty much sounds like it is used for the same reasons.
Shaun
I think MR did something on milk trains fairly recently, like in 2007. Might have been in Classic Trains perhaps. O well maybe Mr. Sperandeo will read this thread and have the right info??[:)]
BTW I seem to recall the UK being pretty stubborn about “giving” anyone their independence…[:-^]
Yeah, we liked to reap the land of all it’s riches then give it back after it was no longer of use for us. We may have taken your land but we did give you and the world one of the greatest things in the world - Railways.
Shaun
Yep and we had the sense to preempt your plan to strip us if our richs. Very glad to have you as an ally though. We seem to get kicked and pilloried for saving everybody’s rear end for the last 100 years.
I was in the RAF for 17 years and spent 90% of that time working along side US soldiers sailors and airmen (it’s how I met my wife) and one thing I notice through out that time is alot of people condem the US for sticking it’s nose in to their affairs but when the you know what hits the fan they’re all screaming were’s uncle Sam, they always expect the US to bail them out. I had 17 great years working with you guys and my wife who is American lives here in the UK with me.
Shaun
During my last visit to England (2006), I visited the Duxford Air Museum outside of London. The museum has an outstanding collection, and includes a hanger full of the land-warfare equipment. As I recall, there is some railroad track on the base. I also had the pleasure of hearing a Merlin engine when a Hurricane flew over the field. (What a lovely sound.) Most moving were the glass plates along the U.S. hangar with a plane etched for every U.S. plane destroyed (in the European theatre, I believe), particularly so as my dad was a B-17 copilot whose plane was shot down on his 14th mission in 1944. He survived the war as a POW. He was quickly captured after his parachute landing by the local militia. He feared he would be hung, but the only abuse was a kick in the butt by a policeman. All 10 of his crew survived except for the radioman who died from injuries caused by antiaircraft artillery.
Mark
Milk was carried a long-time ago on the San Ramon branch (now abandoned, last train ran on Sept. 19, 1978) of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The branch ran from Avon (east of Martinez from the line between Martinez and Tracy) and ran south to San Ramon, with the line later extended to Radum (near Pleasanton on the Altamont Pass line of the Southern Pacific, part of the original transcontinental route.) Farmers would leave milk cans at the stations and small freight platforms scattered along the line. The milk was collected in the baggage compartment of a combination coach/baggage car on a mixed freight/passenger train. When the Danville Creamery Company (near the mid-point on the branch) closed shop in 1913, the milk was sent to San Francisco. This activity probably ended sometime in the 1920s. This low-volume milk activity doubtlessly once occurred over most of the U.S. before road improvement and the decline of short-haul train traffic.
Mark
78 was quite late for such a small amount of traffic to remain profitable when most of it had died of 20 years prior.
No, the branchline was abandoned in 1978. As I said, the traffic probably disappeared there by the 1920s. (Let’s have another pint!)
Mark
Ah, I have re read it correctly this morning now that I am awake, here in the UK we lost a lot of small traffic to roads after WWI due to all the surplus road vehicles.
Shaun
Unlike the other European “colonial powers” we had the sense to talk our way out once we felt that we had rigged things suitably so that the “authorities” we handed over to thought that it was in their interest to stay in the Commonwealth. This seems to have worked a lot better than “driving” the local Nationalists into the arms of the Communists. We learnt quite a lot from the mess we made with the Boar War.
I don’t have facts but I would have thought that most of our minor milk traffic - i.e. collection of churns - had gone from the rail by about 66/67. Churns were efficient in their day but once small tankers could get round the lanes their days were limited. I suspect that the last time I saw milk collection was either 71 or 72 and it was definitely a small articulated tanker (semi trailer) by then. It was also chilled on the farm before transport.
Against that I made a trip to Thurso in 79 and I’m sure that every station we stopped at on the night trip from Edinburgh they threw half a dozen empty churns out and another half dozen back in just to wake us all up.
There was an “Express Dairies” facility near Malden in Surrey (South London) which not only received a batch of tank cars of milk every day late into the 60s but had a small industrial switcher to shuffle them around the two very short stub sidings. That loco either died of boredom or luxuriated in an extremely easy life. It was very clean and neat when I saw it somewhere between 1962 and 66.
When I started on Southern Region in 78 the route to the uniform stores through the arches under Waterloo Station was through the old “milk Arch”… it still stank of sour milk… almost overpowering. (There was also a staff canteen down there which