Doug Harding writes:

A railroad stockpen with a history of disease

was avoided by farmers like the plague, with good reason. And railroad
revenues suffered accordingly. So yes they were cleaned.

In my study of ICC valuation reports of RR stockpens, I often saw notations
that showed the larger setups had a hard surface of some sort, which made
cleaning easier. Only the very smallest stockpens and/or the ones that were
seldom used had a "dirt floor".

Hmmmm. The pen I modeled is actually quite small. In fact, the real one I modeled was at Sherman, itself. Another was at Hermosa but since I modeled Buford [ population of one...the station agent ], I exercised modeler's license and moved it there.

Out west,

where it is dryer, I suspect you see more "dirt floors".

I had assumed as much but now I guess I'll have to take another look.

Rural stockpens, esp. here in the

Midwest, received livestock as well as shipped them out.

Now here you raise an interesting point. As far as I can figure it, I think the small pens on Sherman Hill were for shipping rather than receiving although I wouldn't bet much on it. One rather odity is a photo in Turbines Westward showing a turbine switching the Hermosa pen. For those that don't know, swiching with a turbine would be about as economical as using one of those open pit drag cranes to pull a box car. The turbine was basically a zero or a one...off or full bore. Anyhow, the Sherman pen could handle 28 cattle, horses, hogs or sheep, had one chute and no water. This last part is important because, obviously, stock trains were not stopped there for cooling with water. Incidentally, the Laramie pens could handle 760 cattle or 1046 hogs or sheep. Those pens had 29 loading chutes.

Mike Brock