Even I know the odds are against it but I’m wondering if there might be certain traffic lanes out there that might possibly see a potential for a return of some livestock traffic for a few different class I’s or regionals. I know the UP used to handle shipments of hogs from points in Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado out to the Farmer John’s packing plant in the Los Angeles area but I don’t know how long it’s been since those movements stopped. Wouldn’t there be other opportunities out there to recapture some of that traffic in light of extremely high fuel prices that the trucking industry faces right now?
As I recall from reading about stock trains/cars in the past, getting a stock train across the system would make dealing with Amtrak look like a walk in the park.
Of course, I would imagine there are very few capable cars left, but I suppose there is the possibility of moving the livestock in semitrailers on (dare I say it?) piggyback trains.
That said, IIRC, one reason that stock trains died out was because in most cases the plants were moved closer to the feedlots, very much reducing the amount of haulage involved. It’s far easier to move the beef on the hook than on the hoof.
This is correct. My brother-in-law, who was a meatcutter, explained this to me many years ago when I asked him why all the packing houses were closing. We used to have packing houses in St. Louis proper, and they all closed down during the '70s.
East St. Louis had stockyards which were second in size only to Chicago and equal in size to Kansas City. They are all gone, but some of the buildings are still standing. The National City Hotel burned down some years ago, and wasn’t rebuilt.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
It seems the livestock industry went in the opposite direction than the railroads with the demise of steam. Diesalization resulted in fewer local facilities and larger centralized locations, while the livestock industry set up smaller localized slaughter houses and did away with large centralized stock yards.
Livestock trains were great to watch. These trains moved fast and their lading had a forlorn look. I saw it at the very end when the last big packing plants in Chicago still obtained raw material from hundreds of miles away.
Old timers long gone told of driving livestock to a station; on the hoof. This was in Iowa with no point more than 10 miles from a railroad. Nobody would tolerate such traffic tie ups these days. Most of those branch lines and rural stations on mainlines are history.
If you must load them on a truck, they will stay on a truck. There is nothing to be saved if the packing house is closer, or not much farther away, than the nearest rail facility with stock ramps.
I hadn’t heard about the incident Ishmael mentioned–where Gloria Mundi (a prize cow, perhaps?) got sic in transit.
That must have been what did 'em in! That, and all of the packing houses, feed lots, etc., previously mentioned.
How long of a trip are you proposing? One headache with livestock trains is the requirement that every 24 hours they are let out to fed and watered. The railroads tore out their feedlots along the line faster than they did water and coal towers. The cost of handling the animals would eat significantly into the revenue.
The entire supply chain for meat products has changed and there is about a snowballs chance in Hates of the old supply chain returning.
Sorry, Carl. That’s Latin for the glories of the earth pass away.
We used to have livestock trucked into Independent Packing Company in central St. Louis when I was on the Police Department in the '60s. Once in awhile a steer would get loose and guess who had to be the cowboys? And the aggravating part was we weren’t allowed to shoot them. We had to capture them alive so they could go over to the packing house and get their throat cut.
Wouldn’t want to put lead poisoning in the food chain!
Ish–I had a couple of years of Latin in school.
'Twas a joke, son!
What a great topic! Living next door to the Nickel Plate in the 1950’s I saw cattle cars myself for years. While I was fascinated by them, I hope never to see another one. Cattle cars were packed to the boards and yes, the animals certainly did have a “forlorn look.” Without question they were miserable, scared, and I’m sure, knew what whas coming for them. In the summer the heat must have been insufferable; the winter was worse, and I could clearly see the ice matted to their coats. Because there was a signal near our house the cattle cars were sometimes stopped and one could hear the many mournful voices of the animals. In the summer, one could smell a cattle car almost 100 feet away from the tracks.
The NKP seemed to run cattle cars eastbound only; I don’t recall noticing any going west.
To wax even more serious, when I first began to study the Holocaust and learned that the Nazis used cattle cars to deport their victims, I drew upon my own recollections to fully understand how human beings, packed into similar cars, most have felt going to what many must have suspected, like the cattle, to be their slaughter.
I really did, as a kid, enjoy seeing cattle cars on the trains of the NKP; but as I said, I hope never to see another. If they weren’t exactly inhumane, they weren’t at all wonderful for the poor beasts inside.
It is so sad to see the political-correctness police at this site have set the filters to eliminate the well-known acronym fror the German National Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party (see my recent contribution to this topic/thread). Is the mis-use of this particular acronym a major problem on a site dedicated to trains? Is this kind of censorship necessary? Very sad, indeed.
IBP Iowa Beef and Pork packer and Cargill have a virtual monopoly on meat processing…That said it seems that 90% of slaughterhouses are in Iowa. Its time to go vegitarian if ethanol takes over the corn production.
NKP Guy pretty much said what I was going to say except to add there is the old expression; “good Laws are like good sausage, you don’t ever want to see either one of them made.” Once you’ve seen the condition of the animal’s when their unloaded, it will kill your will to railfan.
One thing that has changed though, and it is only in the last 10 years or so with these various meat safety crises, is the rules concerning “downer cattle” (those that can’t walk to the kill floor) and the fact they cannot be put into the food chain. Therefore the wastage that would occur using rail transport would make it cost prohibitive. Truck’s are bad enough.
AgentKid
Well, go vegitarian if you want to, that’s your right. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
In the first place, IBP no longer exists. And there is no “Meat Monoploy” as you stated. (As if two firms could possibly have a “Monopoly”)
Here’s the red meat slaughter capacity breakdown according to the Illinois Farm Bureau in 2005:
Beef:
Tyson 29%, JBS/Swift 29%, Cargill 23%, Others 19%
Pork:
Smithfield 31%, Tyson 21%, JBS/Swift 13%, Cargill 9%, Hormel 8%, Others 18%
Considering the fact that Americans eat more chicken that either beef or pork, that doesn’t seem like much of a “Monoploy”. (Chicken brings in additional competitors such as Pilgrim’s Pride and Perdue.) There is no “Meat Monopoly”.
As to “90% of the slaughterhouses being in Iowa”. No.
In 2007 Iowa produced 13.6% of the US red meat (virtually all pork, there is only one major beef plant in Iowa. It’s at Denison.) There are no major poultry plants in Iowa. So most of the slaughter isn’t done in Iowa.
Well, I’d like to see livestock back on the rails. Probably never going to happen because the meat packers have located hug
[quote user=“greyhounds”]
The two most difficult things to transport are: 1) livestock and, 2) ice cream. So it ma
I hope livestock shipments by rail to not make a come back, at least through here. [xx(]
They make it OK. They’re known as “Feeder Pigs”. The Canadian producer accelerates the weaning and gets 'em started. Then they’re put on a truck and moved south. Actually, if transit times could be kept reasonable, the railroads would have an advantage for this movement. Rail cars are not subject to highway weight limits. This means the cars could carry feed and water for the little ones, something a truck can’t do. The small hogs would arrive in better shape for fattening up and there would be less loss in transit.
This process became so prevalent that the US producers went to the Feds and got a 15% duty imposed on Feeder Pig imports from Canada. (So much for NAFTA) That is known as “cutting off your nose despite your face.” By preventing the pork production channel from configuring to its most economical structure the price of pork will be increased. This will cause people to substitue other meats for pork (i.e. chicken) and decrease pork demand.
If it made more sense to ship the grain north that’s what would have happened instead of shipping the Feeder Pigs south. Absent government intervention things tend to get more efficient.