Does anyone happen to know if the UP continues to haul hogs for Farmer John from Nebraska to LosAngeles in the HOGX stock cars? Do any of the Canadian and Mexican roads haul cattle/hogs?
Thank you!!
Can’t vouch for Mexico, but I strongly suspect that there are no longer stock cars (railroad-owned or private) operating in the United States or Canada.
I don’t have a clue about this particular situation, but I have a sincere question about the correct nomenclature because I’m writing an article.
Specifically: What is the correct term for the wood slat railroad cars in which I saw, years ago, either hogs or cattle being transported? We called them all cattle cars, but this thread makes me wonder if the correct term is really stock cars. Would the term cattle car or stock car vary from road to road? Or are they synonymous?
Who can enlighten me on the subject of these cars?
I’d go with “livestock cars” only because sometimes a piece of equipment so designed may have been used to haul cattle, sheep, hogs or what have you - depending on the market and the season. For variety sake calling them “stock cars” or “cattle cars” would be acceptable.
I’m pretty certain that Conrail and Union Pacific were the last two American carriers with livestock tariffs, and the former exited the business first. The green HOGX cars that Union Pacific handled between Nebraska/Colorado and southern California were retired perhaps twenty or more years ago. Even equipped with feed and watering troughs, the loaded cars still had to be setout at Las Vegas each trip to allow the hogs to be fed, watered, and rested as required by federal law.
During winter months the HOGX cars had adjustable slats, so positioned to minimize the cold air moving through the cars. During the summer months when crossing the Nevada desert, the cars had to be sprayed with cold water to keep the critters inside comfortable.
Stock cars was the correct name for them. The AAR Mechanical Designations all started with “S”. I suppose that if you knew that there was only a single deck inside you could call them “cattle” cars, because I don’t think they sipped many other types of large animal (horses got better treatment and were shipped in cars akin to baggage cars).
The UP no longer hauls the hogs.
The hogs went to the only pork plant on the west coast that has any significant size. The Clougherty Packing plant in Vernon, CA (Farmer John brand) has a capacity of 7,300 hogs per work day. It is my understanding that Clougherty switched its sourcing of live hogs from the midwest to local hog farms in California.
While the Vernon facility is the largest pork operation by far on the west coast, it is small by modern pork industry standards. It’s capacity of 7,300 head per day is about 41% of what Hormel can do in its Austin, MN facility. Hormel acquired Clougherty in 2004.
The output of the facility in California can be estimated at right around 1,000,000 pounds of pork per work day. This would be 24-25 truckloads. Certainly not near enough to keep the west coast or even California supplied with bacon, sausage, pork chops, ribs, etc. Most pork consumed on the west coast is slaughtered in the midwest and trucked west. Hopefully, that will change if rail temperature controlled operations grow.
The correct name of the train was California Livestock Special or, in U.P. parlance, “the CLS.” In the 1960s, when I worked for U.P., it was a long “solid” train rather than 15-20 cars heading up a manifest of mixed freight. (I never counted the cars.)
In Cheyenne, the CLS was important enough to make passenger No. 106, the eastbound City of Portland, run into the passenger yard on Two Track rather than the logical One Track. That’s because the CLS was scheduled in at approximately the same time, and U.P. wanted One Track for that train for refueling at the passenger fuel facility.
As noted above, those hogs had to get over the road. U.P. was a good passenger road right up until the end, but in this case the two-footed passengers could use the subway (and put up with the special ambience).
As it is today, there is more export (frozen) from places like Sioux City and Austin on the rails than domestic (fresh) product. The latter falling flat because of H1N1. Of the two biggest destinations for reefers out west, Tacoma is one, the other, East Oakland.
Funny you mention local hogs. In reading about he closing of Morrell (Smmithfield) in Sioux City, it was noted that a lot of their hogs were coming from Canada. Kind of odd when you are in the largest pork producing state.
During the mid-1970s, a Cheyenne carman told me that California had a state law requiring that no dressed meat could be shipped into the state. Hogs, cattle, poultry, and presumably lambs had to be “live-on-the-hoof” in order to enter the Golden State. The existence of that law (or regulation) made the operation of the CLS possible.
Was there such a state law then?
And then there are our passengers who often refer to the baggage car (our “open air” car, as the doors are open and gated so the passengers can enjoy the fresh air) the “cattle car.”
Well, I wouldn’t put anything past California legislators or voters.
But fortunately the Founding Fathers of the United States had an understanding of commerce. In the US Constitution they specifically reserved the power to regulate interstate commerce to the Federal Government. That means no state, including California, can erect trade barriers that prevent products produced in other states from crossing state lines and being sold on equal terms with products produced in state.
California may have had such a law, but it was not enforceable. Simlar to the Illinois statutes regulating how long a stopped train may block a crossing. The law may exist, but it means nothing. If it’s interstate commerce, the states’ powers are thankfully limited. Otherwise you’d have nutbag things like Wisconsin prohibiting beer brewed in Missouri from entering the state. (Protecting Wisconsin jobs from competition from the evil Budweiser.) If you think that’s farfetched, it’s not. In Canada there are (or were) provincial laws prohibiting beer from another province from being sold. This increases the cost of beer in Canada. While I have great respect for Canadians, I find them somewhat lacking when they put up with such an outrage.
The shipment of live hogs into Calfornia was determined by economics,
State laws be da*ned! Try bringing a “Big Mac” across the Canada-US border. You can’t hide it – that’s why they have those expensive ‘sniffer’ dogs. The border N**Is never feed them, so they are very good. Even your Burger King trash will have to go into a hazmat container! California did have border inspection stations for fruits and vegetables, maybe other things. They “kept California crops free from disease”. I do remember our family cars getting inspected. Don’t know what they did for commercial rigs. I think most of the inter-provincial restrictions have gone away, but I’m not sure. I can take American (if you can find any – ain’t much left) beer into Canada, even a few cigarettes. Meanwhile, the marijuana trade thrives, in both directions.
Hays
California still has the agricultural inspection stations at the border.
So does Florida both in and out!
But fortunately the Founding Fathers of the United States had an understanding of commerce. In the US Constitution they specifically reserved the power to regulate interstate commerce to the Federal Government. That means no state, including California, can erect trade barriers that prevent products produced in other states from crossing state lines and being sold on equal terms with products produced in state.
California may have had such a law, but it was not enforceable.
Unfortunately, that law IS enforcable. Anyone entering CA from another state MUST pass thru an Agricultural Inspection Station similar to a toll booth. You’re asked whether you have any fruits or vegitables, and if you say yes, you must either discard them or eat them on the spot. Obviously they’re not going to inspect your lunch for lettuce on the sandwich, but any crates will be examined. All OTR trucks are inspected also. As an aside, back in the late 80’s we were in the Napa Valley and wanted to have a case of wine shipped from a winery to NV where we lived, but the vinter (Inglenook) refused to ship because it was forbidden by NV law. Sorry guys, interstate commerce is regulated by at least two states.
One of the things that is troublesome about posting on this forum is that you can take time and very carefully write things that are correct. Then someone doesn’t understand the the full meaning. A result of such misunderstanding is exemplified right here.
Here is exactly what I said: "That means no state, including California, can erect trade barriers that prevent products produced in other states from crossing state lines and being sold on equal terms with products produced in state."
Let’s deal with the wine first.
Watching trains in the Afton Canyon area, I once got a big dose of what those loads smelled like. It was so strong, you could still smell the train after you couldn’t see it or hear it!
The Farmer John packing plant in Vernon may be relatively small, but the amount of bad odor given off there is just amazing. In the immediate area, being downwind is an unmatched experience. As for its carrying power, one day I was in the Exposition Park area (which is about four miles away) on a windy day. You could pick up that smell even there, and you wouldn’t confuse it with anything else. Mmmm.
Just discovered another use of stock cars (almost wrote cattle cars). At the bottom of page 70, left hand column, of the Spring 2010 issue of Classic Trains is this sentence:
A Pennsy switch engine was kept busy switching stock cars fitted with special racks to accommodate the fragile tomatoes.
The article tells of a Chicago transfer run on the Northwestern in 1952. The aforementioned switcher was working the Campbell’s Soup factory on the west side of the PRR tracks at 39th St.
As I had quit working for the GM&O early in 1952 and had been working in Chicago at Corwith, the story was extremely poignant; made it a very great issue.
Art
As I recall, both PRR and B&O rebuilt some steel box cars into very modern-looking (i.e., no outside bracing or horizontal slats) stock cars. These must have been rebuilt for some assignment that was expected to have staying power; perhaps it was those tomatoes, in PRR’s case.
Ever been downwind of a large hog farm? People who’ve never been around hogs have been known to lose their last few meals the first time they experienced that stench. If you’re around it enough you get to point where you no longer hurl, but it has to be one of life’s nastiest “aromas”.
There wasn’t any livestock on the farm where I grew up, so relatively mild doses of a smell were detectable. When we smelled the paper mill located 30 miles to the south, we knew it was going to rain, because wind out of the south usually brought rain.