The 1941-1945 ICC steam RR annual reports break "animals and products" into 22 categories.

While livestock movements are only a portion of that category, it is interesting to see the relative proportion of Livestock freight movements compared to the overall "animal and products" category.

In 1941, for the US overall, horses, cattle, sheep, goats and hogs were:

610,074 car loadings, representing 49% of all "animals and products" car loadings

6.7M tons, representing 40% of "animal and products" tonnage

$55M in freight revenue, representing 30% of all "Animal and products" revenue.

While the tonnage for "fresh meats, N.O.S." was only 1/2 of livestock tonnage, the revenue was $52M, only about 6% less than livestock revenue.

Perhaps an interesting number for modeling purposes is that, nationally, 2.3 stock cars were loaded with livestock for every "fresh meats" car loadings, which one would presume were meat reefers.

Specific to some railroads:

The PRR handled 1.3 stock cars with livestock for each car load of "fresh meats", which one would assume to be meat reefers.

For the ATSF, this carload ratio was 9.5 to 1.

For the NYCentral, the ratio was 0.79 to 1.

For many of the mid-size and smaller eastern roads, "fresh meats" outnumbered livestock moves by significant amounts - ratios of 5 to 10 to 1 or even higher the further east the road.

According to the ICC report, in 1941 the Illinois Terminal RR only handled 15 car loads of livestock and one car of "Fresh meats", while the CB&Q handled 67,207 carloads of livestock, and 22,474 carloads of fresh meat.

Not sure the percentage changes within Illinois tell the full story.... Perhaps the Illinois report counted cars moved in interchange by a terminal RR differently than the ICC did?

Dave Evans


---In STMFC@..., wrote :


"Animal products" is a huge category -- from hides, bone meal, tallow,
whole animal carcasses, milk, butter, cheese to processed meats, etc --

A total of 183 cargo categories according to the July 12, 1941 "Report on
the Alton Railroad Company".

Total Originating in Illinois (on 12 major railroads) --

  1928-1920 inclusive: 4,098,376 tons
  1937-1939 inclusive: 2,225,570 tons -- average decline 46%

The largest percentage declines are shown for several railroads that did a
great deal of business in Illinois: ALTON 68% CB&Q 58% WABASH 61%.

A lesser decline is shown for IC - 37% - which by 1939 was originating more
"animal products" in Illinois than any other railroad. The CB&Q had been the
leader in the 1928-1930 period.

Only one railroad shows an increase in originated tons: Illinois Terminal.

Tim O'Connor

I have been meaning to try Future, have some, and have a couple of cars to decal.�  How long after spraying Future on the car should one wait for it to dry or cure or whatever it does?�  An hour?�  Day?�  Week?
 
Schuyler

---

From: "golden1014@... [STMFC]"
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 9:58 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Depression era / pre-WWII Covered Hoppers?

Hi John,

They most certainly would be prototypical.  I'm also interested in early covered hoppers because they come in a fascinating variety of stylesunlike hte later 1958 cuft cars and later PS cars which all looked the same.  I have collected a small file of photos at work of B&O, NYC, PRR and other early covered hoppers and I'd be happy to share the photos with you.  E-mail me offline at Golden1014 at Yahoo.com.

I just ran across a photo of a NKP car, rebuilt from a USRA hopper, that I'm dying to model next in HO.   RCW makes decals so it should be easy using a Tichy car to start with.  I recently finished kitbashing an HO model of a C&O car (300-series) which was easy to rebuild using the Intermountain car.

I'm sure these cars generally saw captive service on their home railroads but we could justify one showing up from time to time.  

John Golden

O'Fallon, IL

---

From: "devans1@... [STMFC]"
To: STMFC@...
Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 5:42 PM
Subject: [STMFC] Re: Livestock through Chicago

Ray,

Interesting that ICC data does not substantiate a reduction in animal traffic due to trucks prior to and through WWII (and trucking within the US was frowned upon during WWII - see the earlier thread on WWII tank car utilization and an attempt by the ODT to limit trucks to only very short hauls of oil and oil products - they were trying to conserve fuel and tires for the war effort.)

For all animal and animal products, the steam RR's hauled an average of 24.5M tons per year for 1928-1930 (before the depression hit). During the depression it bounced around between 14.7M and 20.4M between 1932 and 1940, with 1938 being the minimum. Not sure if that is from in-roads by trucks, or by economic distress (My guess since the oscillations appear to correspond to the false economic starts that occurred in the 30's). In 1944 traffic hit 25.4M tons, so I would say the real transition to trucks likely started post-war, not pre-war. In 1945 it dropped to 23.7M tons, the last year I have data for.

Not sure why the USDA and the ICC data conflicts, or more likely, what the difference is in the data reported by the two that appears to indicate a conflict.

I heartily concur with the benefits of modeling WWII - traffic levels were off the charts. Only down side is that heralds were kind of bland through the war - billboard reefers were gone and most RR's hadn't started using their own cars as billboards....

Dave Evans

---In STMFC@..., wrote :Hi Tim,

I fully realize that, and that the trend had started LONG before the 1950s. Farmers, especially those intimate with the Grange movement in the Midwest, HATED the railroads and did all they could to avoid them, starting in the early 1920s. As soon as the internal combustion engine became common, cheap and reliable, farmers jumped on them and moved as much of their product as possible themselves.

The USDA reports that by 1938 fully HALF of all livestock was moved by truck. Calves and especially hogs were hardest hit, with farmers being willing to drive stock several hundred miles to a major brokerage yard. In Illinois this meant that by WWII hogs would have been rail shipped from Peoria to Chicago, but if a farmer lived in LaSalle he'd just drive them directly to Chicago. The USDA tried to convince farmers that it was more economical to rail ship their stock, but farmers generally trust the Feds a little less than railroads.

(as an aside, there's a great film on the IL pork industry in 1956 on Internet Archive, featuring the hog brokerage yards in Peoria: https://archive.org/details/PorkPeop1956 )


SNIP...

Regards,
Ray Breyer
Elgin, IL

I have been meaning to try Future, have some, and have a couple of cars to decal.  How long after spraying Future on the car should one wait for it to dry or cure or whatever it does?  An hour?  Day?  Week?

 

Schuyler

2f. West Coast gas refinery cracking process in WWll
    Posted by: "Andy Carlson" midcentury@... midcentury@...
    Date: Wed Oct 14, 2015 4:28 pm ((PDT))

Not limiting my interests to simply trains (can I get away with using "simply"?), I also like old gas pumps. My grandfather worked in the Ellwood Beach oilfield up the coast 10 miles from Santa Barbara which was the only mainland US target of axis shellings during WWll, in this case by a Japanese sub. The oil company was the Barnsdall Oil Co. which was a somewhat big player in the West as the "Rio Grande Oil company" 

I mention this because the Rio Grande Oil Co was an early proponent of catalized cracking refining. so much so that they bragged about it on their gas pump face art with the logo "Cracked" diagonally across the shield.

Anyone interested; I have a scan of art Jerry Glow created for my 1944 Bennett 546 gas pump, which I can share by simply contacting me off-list at .

-Andy Carlson
Ojai CA