It seems as if railways aren’t servicing breweries anymore. Vancouver B.C., New Westminister, Edmonton, Calgary and Saskatoon haven’t seen switching in any of their breweries for years and in cases the rail sidings have been torn up.
Has this been true for the majority of towns or cities where breweries have been located?
Trains Magazine did an article a while back on Coors rail activity (muy mucho!)
All three of the breweries I have seen have rail service, both for raw materials and products. I have also seen a few beer distributors that receive beer by rail.
Maybe it’s just the ones I’ve seen in Canada then.
I know the ADM Alchol plant in Peoria, was still in Service when I worked for the TPW in 2006. The TZPR is the one that serviced the plant. I am sure that it is till operating.
I know that miller brewing company still ships lots of beer via rail still
I also saw a train in our yard that someone broke into that was full coors beer and some kind of whiskey that was a couple of months ago
The Reading & Northern serves Yuengling’s main brewery in Port Carbon. Yuengling doesn’t ship by rail, but it recieves most of it’s raw material by rail.
Nick
The Busch breweries are all actively rail-served.
The Huber Brewery in Monroe, WI was serviced by the Illinois Central on a spur off of their Freeport ,IL -Madison, WI branch. They received covered hoppers of grain and shipped out boxcars of beer. Shortlines, Chicago Madison & Northern and The Central Wisconsin serviced the plant after the IC pullout. The spur was removed in the 1990’s due to a bad bridge and a the need to use the right of way for some city utility works. The brewery still operates but under a different name and just trucks for shipping.
Not so many years ago both the BNSF and Coors Brewing Company railroad yards in Golden, Colo. were full of ATSF, BN, BNSF, CNW(?), CR, CSXT, DRGW, KCS, MP, NS, UP, and WP insulated boxcars for hauling finished beer products. The last few times I’ve driven along Colorado highway 58, all I see is equipment from BNSF and its predecessor roads.
Oh sure, there are UP system covered hoppers carrying rice and barley malt and UP system open tops bringing in coal, but I never see foreign line insulated boxcars there at all.
Que pasa?
The Great Western Railway of Colorado switches the A-B brewery in Fort Collins, and both their North Yard and the brewery’s industry tracks are usually pretty full of insulated boxcars displaying a wide assortment of western roads reporting marks (ATSF, BN, BNSF, MP, UP, and WP). Some of this beer “long hauls” all the way to Portland, Ore.
Las Vegas used to receive upwards of sixty boxcar loads of beer weekly. Since the old downtown Union Pacific yard closed, that traffic has dropped to zero. Geeze, that’s good steady recession-proof business I’d think the railroad would want to hang on to. Once again the situation begs the question, “Que pasa?”
It is my understanding that in Canada beer for Canadian consumption can not be shipped out of the province it is brewed in.
This would make for shorter hauls and lower volumes - and favor the use of trucks.