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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
The proportion on whisky to ice is important, too. Really fine whisky is delivered in barrels carried in a D/S trussrod boxcar. Carefully decanted and a bit of clear ice rubbed on the outside of the glass. Add three small cinders from a locomotive and it is ready to serve on an open observation platform. Chuck Peck
On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 2:30 PM O Fenton Wells <srrfan1401@...> wrote:
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Re: Meat reefers
Bill Keene
In my previous message (below) I mentioned that the KCRM Gift Shop was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. If the magic works there should be an attachment of a scanned slide (of questionable quality) of the WLCX 2711 at the museum.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
The car made a good gift shop. It was also the only freight car in the collection that was cleaned and waxed on a regular basis. Good old fashioned paste wax twice a year on the side shown and once a year on the side up against the KCS team track freight house. Enjoy. Cheers, Bill Keene Irvine, CA
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
So right Tony, bourbon is 100 times better over clear ice Fenton
On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 2:23 PM Tony Thompson <tony@...> wrote:
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Tony Thompson
Claus Schlund wrote: I notice that the Armour Packing Co area has a portion of the building labeled as ‘Ice Machs’ – this makes me wonder if Armour owned the ice making equipment, and then used some portion of the ice for their own needs, and if Armour then possibly sold excess ice on a wholesale basis to Marion Ice, who perhaps in turn resold that ice on a retail basis. Remember that "commercial ice" was frozen as quickly as possible and accordingly contained really a lot of trapped air bubbles, making it at best translucent and often opaque and white. The ice consumers prefer to buy is frozen slowly enough for it to be clear or nearly so. Of course some consumer ice, intended for (literal) ice boxes or making ice cream, etc. can be the cloudy ice, but people would prefer not to put that into a drinking glass. Tony Thompson
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Eric Hansmann
Claus,
The building was originally a brewery. When Prohibition was enacted in January 1919, many brewers closed or changed their business plan. Many became cold storage facilities.
The details on the Sanborn map seem to indicate the spur ran under a portion of the structure that was a National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) garage.
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Claus Schlund \(HGM\)
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 11:46 AM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your insightful reply. I notice that the ‘Armour Packing Co’ building is connected to the ‘Marion Ice Co’ by what appears to be an overhead passageway, the inscription on the map appears to maybe read ‘Passage 2nd’. Obviously ice was essential to both these commercial firms.
Having a railroad siding pass under an overhead passage connecting two buildings would be a very model-genic scene, don’t you think?
I notice that the Armour Packing Co area has a portion of the building labeled as ‘Ice Machs’ – this makes me wonder if Armour owned the ice making equipment, and then used some portion of the ice for their own needs, and if Armour then possibly sold excess ice on a wholesale basis to Marion Ice, who perhaps in turn resold that ice on a retail basis.
Claus Schlund
From: Eric Hansmann Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2020 12:15 PM Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Attached is part of a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Fairmont, W. Va. There’s an Armour branch house in the building complex on the left side. This was located on the 1.25 mile Fairmont Belt Line branch of the B&O. The B&O main can be seen in the lower right corner and the connection was just to the right off the map. Fairmont had a population around 20,000 people when this 1927 Sanborn map was created.
Based upon tales of former B&O yard workers, service for the Armour customer was a high priority. When a meat reefer arrived in Fairmont for this branch house, it was immediately switched to the spur.
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via groups.io
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Eric and all;
The attached are from my historical research files I have worked a long time on, on the Mon Valley in and upstream of Pittsburgh. These are from the South Side across the Mon from downtown Pittsburgh. The first 3 are the track side of the combined retail store and wholesale Armour Meats operation. You can still see: the Supervisor’s cupola, office and residence, the unloading dock (although the unloading rail is missing), and retail store side. This was served by a facing switch in the middle of 21st Street on which I was standing.
The last shot is the similar Swift Meats operation, right across East Carson Street. By this time, the small triangular unloading dock had been demolished, although you can see the doorway. This was served by a facing switch in the middle of 21st Street.
Cars for both originated out of 30th Street Yard in the upper South Side, dropped off by transfers from other local Pgh yards. As Eric said, they were priority switching jobs.
Old timers told me about the switching of both plants, which tied up traffic to the annoyance of locals. Many recalled the colorful reefers hosted at each, and how often it occurred.
There were similar but smaller ops upstream at Brownsville, also, and at Fairmont, IIRC on the Monongahela Railway.
When shown photos of Armour and Swift reefers, folks’ faces would light up, and they’d go, “Yeah, just like that!”.
I don’t think many realize how prevalent this was in many locales.
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Eric Hansmann
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 12:15 PM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Attached is part of a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Fairmont, W. Va. There’s an Armour branch house in the building complex on the left side. This was located on the 1.25 mile Fairmont Belt Line branch of the B&O. The B&O main can be seen in the lower right corner and the connection was just to the right off the map. Fairmont had a population around 20,000 people when this 1927 Sanborn map was created.
Based upon tales of former B&O yard workers, service for the Armour customer was a high priority. When a meat reefer arrived in Fairmont for this branch house, it was immediately switched to the spur.
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via groups.io
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: Photo: Pres-To-Logs Boxcar
Alex Huff
Curious about a billboard boxcar rather than a reefer, I did a little research. Note there are no reporting marks. I searched a 1927 and a 1944 Equipment Register. No reporting marks listed for the Presto Log Company or Potlatch Lumber Co. The car number and cubic capacity matches a W, I & M boxcar. Oddly, the W, I & M did not show assigned reporting marks in the ER, but gives instructions for per diem payments. An internet list of reporting marks assigns WIM to the railroad. The same reporting marks are officially assigned to a successor company, the Washington & Idaho. It runs on both ex-BN and WI&M track.
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Claus Schlund \(HGM\)
Hi Eric,
Thanks for your insightful reply. I notice that the ‘Armour Packing Co’
building is connected to the ‘Marion Ice Co’ by what appears to be an overhead
passageway, the inscription on the map appears to maybe read ‘Passage 2nd’.
Obviously ice was essential to both these commercial firms.
Having a railroad siding pass under an overhead passage connecting two
buildings would be a very model-genic scene, don’t you think?
I notice that the Armour Packing Co area has a portion of the building
labeled as ‘Ice Machs’ – this makes me wonder if Armour owned the ice making
equipment, and then used some portion of the ice for their own needs, and if
Armour then possibly sold excess ice on a wholesale basis to Marion Ice, who
perhaps in turn resold that ice on a retail basis.
Claus Schlund
From: Eric
Hansmann
Sent: Wednesday, April 08, 2020 12:15 PM
To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat
reefers Attached is part of a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Fairmont, W. Va. There’s an Armour branch house in the building complex on the left side. This was located on the 1.25 mile Fairmont Belt Line branch of the B&O. The B&O main can be seen in the lower right corner and the connection was just to the right off the map. Fairmont had a population around 20,000 people when this 1927 Sanborn map was created.
Based upon tales of former B&O yard workers, service for the Armour customer was a high priority. When a meat reefer arrived in Fairmont for this branch house, it was immediately switched to the spur.
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
<main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io
<main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via
groups.io
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original
Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: Meat reefers
Garth Groff and Sally Sanford
RJ, You need to order up a copy of Western Pacific circular 167-E from the CSRM (possibly the only original left; my photocopy cost about $60, and I haven't regretted the investment one bit). It lists EVERY customer served by the WP/SN/TS/CCT directly or regularly via team tracks, and also includes customers on the SP, UP, ATSF and a few other railroads in towns where a car might be handed off. The piece is circa 1957, based on what is there and what is missing among towns served by the SN . A look through this will tell you a lot about where meat packing or meat distribution facilities were. For example, the WP served a Swift & Co. facility at 3rd and Clay in Oakland, with a track capacity of two cars. Apparently this was a distribution facility for packaged meat products. Just in case you have Adam Clegg's WESTERN PACIFIC COLOR PICTORIAL v. 1, there is a shot of this building on page 26. I just rambled through Sacramento in the circular and found these possible customers: WP--Valley Wholesale Groceries; SN--Lancaster Wholesale Grocery ; SP--Armour, Swift, United Grocers, Tiedemann & McMorran (wholesale grocery); general team tracks--Maderight Sausage, Murphy Meat, Pureta Sausage. There was also a Safeway facility listed only as "produce", though I'm a bit dubious about that. There were also two packing plants at Peethill (West Sacramento) on the SN, but I think these received animals to slaughter for local sales. So there certainly were the possibilities of Swift reefers showing up in Oakland via the WP, and both Swift and Armour in Sacramento via the SP, plus the possibility of other small mid-west packers shipping to grocers and the sausage companies either in their own marked cars, or in "Plain Jane" refrigerators. Another intriguing refrigerator is a 4-hatch CN car on the SN at Lake Temescal in late 1956 (seen in James Harrison's SACRAMENTO NORTHERN GALLERY, page [24]). What was it doing there? Yours Aye, Garth Groff 🏴
On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 11:46 AM radiodial868 <radiodial57@...> wrote: So it is safe to say that meat reefers were not a west coast thing, say 1930's/1940's? I have not seen any in period pictures, but doesn't mean they didn't exist. I have a couple of Sylvan meat reefer kits I keep wondering if I should build to run on Western Pacific/Southern Pacific consists.
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Eldon the major meat packers: Swift, Armour, Wilson, Cudahy all had branch houses scattered across the country. The Branch Houses would receive carcasses, ie swinging meat, from the slaughter houses, then “process” the carcass into various meat cuts. These cuts then went to grocery concerns, meat markets, restaurants, institutions ie hospitals, prisons, etc. where they might be further cut down into steaks, chops, roasts, ground meat, etc. Some slaughter operations were full processing plants, where cold cuts, sausage, etc was made. But branch houses could also have this responsibility.
Note a branch house would only receive reefers from their respective slaughter house. However a grocery warehouse or cold storage facility would have reefers from all the meat packers.
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:27 AM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via groups.io
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: Meat reefers
Ted talk to Greedy and Singer, they created the chart, I just “borrowed” it.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Ted Schnepf
Hello Doug, On Wednesday, April 8, 2020, 10:30:34 AM CDT, Douglas Harding <iowacentralrr@...> wrote:
The Nickle Plate handled a lot of meat because it was a fast route. Meat was time sensitive and the meat packers wanted their products delivered as quickly as possible. Out of Omaha, meat packers could choose between six different railroads to get to Omaha. All roads were given meat traffic, with each road having a specific day when they go the majority of traffic. As rates were regulated, this was how the packers kept the railroads on their toes with demands for speed. The Illinois Central was the preferred route as the IC moved the meat faster than others. The CBQ had the option of going to Peoria for eastern connections instead of Chicago. East out of Chicago, the NKP was the preferred routing for meat going to NYC or New England.
I am not as well versed in meat traffic east of Chicago. Attached is a spreadsheet prepared by John Greedy and Jim Singer, which shows the meat traffic east of Chicago on various roads in the 50s.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Schuyler Larrabee via groups.io
Thanks, Doug, very interesting. That routing reflects a close tie between the NKP and DL&W. In the early days of mergers, the DL&W wanted to merge with the NKP, who declined. I’ve never understood why – I would have thought the direct route into NYC would have been very tempting, but I also figure the NKP’s membership in the Van Sweringen-created AMC was a problem.
Schuyler
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Douglas Harding
Here is a slide from my meat trains clinic, showing the movement of a meat reefer from Omaha to Boston. It went CBQ, NKP, DL&W, L&HR, NH. This was the early 50s I believe.
Doug Harding
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Re: Meat reefers
Meat packing plants in the West were located at Phoenix, Los Angeles (Vernon), South San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Tacoma. Swift, Armour, Cudahy, Wilson all had plants out West. Tovrea, Swanston, Carstens, Nuckolls were regional packers who served the West. WWII created a huge demand for meat on the west coast, to feed the military and all the factory workers who migrated out there.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of radiodial868
So it is safe to say that meat reefers were not a west coast thing, say 1930's/1940's? I have not seen any in period pictures, but doesn't mean they didn't exist. I have a couple of Sylvan meat reefer kits I keep wondering if I should build to run on Western Pacific/Southern Pacific consists.
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Eric Hansmann
Attached is part of a Sanborn Fire Insurance map of Fairmont, W. Va. There’s an Armour branch house in the building complex on the left side. This was located on the 1.25 mile Fairmont Belt Line branch of the B&O. The B&O main can be seen in the lower right corner and the connection was just to the right off the map. Fairmont had a population around 20,000 people when this 1927 Sanborn map was created.
Based upon tales of former B&O yard workers, service for the Armour customer was a high priority. When a meat reefer arrived in Fairmont for this branch house, it was immediately switched to the spur.
Eric Hansmann Murfreesboro, TN
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:27 AM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via groups.io
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: Meat reefers
Ted Schnepf
Hello Doug, thanks for the chart. You better put the Milwaukee up there with the IC, in fact two years the Milw hauled more meat than the IC. And in the east, the NYC modelers clearly need meat trains, leaving all other eastern railroads in the dust. Ted Schnepf 126 Will Scarlet, Elgin, Ill. 60120 847=697-5353
On Wednesday, April 8, 2020, 10:30:34 AM CDT, Douglas Harding <iowacentralrr@...> wrote: The Nickle Plate handled a lot of meat because it was a fast route. Meat was time sensitive and the meat packers wanted their products delivered as quickly as possible. Out of Omaha, meat packers could choose between six different railroads to get to Omaha. All roads were given meat traffic, with each road having a specific day when they go the majority of traffic. As rates were regulated, this was how the packers kept the railroads on their toes with demands for speed. The Illinois Central was the preferred route as the IC moved the meat faster than others. The CBQ had the option of going to Peoria for eastern connections instead of Chicago. East out of Chicago, the NKP was the preferred routing for meat going to NYC or New England.
I am not as well versed in meat traffic east of Chicago. Attached is a spreadsheet prepared by John Greedy and Jim Singer, which shows the meat traffic east of Chicago on various roads in the 50s.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Schuyler Larrabee via groups.io
Thanks, Doug, very interesting. That routing reflects a close tie between the NKP and DL&W. In the early days of mergers, the DL&W wanted to merge with the NKP, who declined. I’ve never understood why – I would have thought the direct route into NYC would have been very tempting, but I also figure the NKP’s membership in the Van Sweringen-created AMC was a problem.
Schuyler
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Douglas Harding
Here is a slide from my meat trains clinic, showing the movement of a meat reefer from Omaha to Boston. It went CBQ, NKP, DL&W, L&HR, NH. This was the early 50s I believe.
Doug Harding
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Meat Reefers - assumptions about loadings
Schuyler Larrabee
This is very interesting. It would appear (though I realize just how dangerous this sort of assuming is) that in Buffalo, the NKP traffic was more or less split between the DL&W and the ERIE. The physical connections between the NKP and the other two roads were more-or-less equally convenient, though that’s of limited importance to carload routing. I am assuming that for the most part, meat traffic that reached Buffalo via the NYC simply continued on NYC further east, other than that set off for Buffalo or other NYC locations.
But I see a further correlation between the DL&W share and the New Haven loadings, generally matching up year over year.
A good share of the ERIE’s loadings either went to NYC or local destinations, but I note that B&M’s loadings run 5-7 thousand carloads below the ERIE’s. The D&H isn’t in the chart at all, but then, given the paucity of destinations on the D&H between Binghamton and Mechanicville (essentially Schenectady/Albany) That correlation seems significant to me, here in Boston, 60-70 years later.
Schuyler
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Re: Meat reefers
Richard Townsend
No, not safe to say. Meat reefers ran just about everywhere. Maybe only one at a time on branches, but they ran.
toggle quoted messageShow quoted text
On Apr 8, 2020, at 8:46 AM, radiodial868 <radiodial57@...> wrote:
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Re: Meat reefers
radiodial868
So it is safe to say that meat reefers were not a west coast thing, say 1930's/1940's? I have not seen any in period pictures, but doesn't mean they didn't exist. I have a couple of Sylvan meat reefer kits I keep wondering if I should build to run on Western Pacific/Southern Pacific consists.
-- ------------------- RJ Dial Mendocino, CA
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Re: Meat reefers
The Nickle Plate handled a lot of meat because it was a fast route. Meat was time sensitive and the meat packers wanted their products delivered as quickly as possible. Out of Omaha, meat packers could choose between six different railroads to get to Omaha. All roads were given meat traffic, with each road having a specific day when they go the majority of traffic. As rates were regulated, this was how the packers kept the railroads on their toes with demands for speed. The Illinois Central was the preferred route as the IC moved the meat faster than others. The CBQ had the option of going to Peoria for eastern connections instead of Chicago. East out of Chicago, the NKP was the preferred routing for meat going to NYC or New England.
I am not as well versed in meat traffic east of Chicago. Attached is a spreadsheet prepared by John Greedy and Jim Singer, which shows the meat traffic east of Chicago on various roads in the 50s.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io [mailto:main@RealSTMFC.groups.io] On Behalf Of Schuyler Larrabee via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, April 8, 2020 10:04 AM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Thanks, Doug, very interesting. That routing reflects a close tie between the NKP and DL&W. In the early days of mergers, the DL&W wanted to merge with the NKP, who declined. I’ve never understood why – I would have thought the direct route into NYC would have been very tempting, but I also figure the NKP’s membership in the Van Sweringen-created AMC was a problem.
Schuyler
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io> On Behalf Of Douglas Harding
Here is a slide from my meat trains clinic, showing the movement of a meat reefer from Omaha to Boston. It went CBQ, NKP, DL&W, L&HR, NH. This was the early 50s I believe.
Doug Harding
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Re: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Gatwood, Elden J SAD
Gang;
It was amazing to me when doing research on my area how many community meat wholesale operations there were, literally all over the place. In my area, mostly Armour and Swift, but also others. They were where the reefers arrived with sides of beef, etc., and where they processed the large pieces into smaller cuts for trucking to local butchers. Look into this, and you may be astonished at what you find. I was!
Elden Gatwood
From: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io <main@RealSTMFC.groups.io>
On Behalf Of Richard Townsend via groups.io
Sent: Tuesday, April 7, 2020 9:30 PM To: main@RealSTMFC.groups.io Subject: [Non-DoD Source] Re: [RealSTMFC] Meat reefers
Not necessarily lost or misdirected. Swift, for example, had hundreds of routes that it sent individual meat reefers up, as often as daily. They would go to a central distribution warehouse for larger towns, and might make stops at individual depots or team tracks for smaller towns, where grocers or butchers would pick up their orders. One car might serve an entire branch that way.
So, see? You now have dispensation to run meat reefers regularly on your Kansas branch line, prototypically. Richard Townsend Lincoln City, OR
-----Original Message----- The gift shop of the Kansas City Railroad Museum was housed in a Wilson meat reefer. It was my weekend “home” for several years. This part of my life has given me a fondness for meat reefers.
Unfortunately, I model a little known Santa Fe branch line that once operated in east central Kansas. Meat reefers on this 50 miles of track would have been a rare event. Most likely if one were to arrive on the line it most surely was a very lost or somehow mis-directed car.
Cheers, Bill Keene That’s the beauty of modeling part of the Erie Main through Pennsylvania. I can get most of them <grin>. Brian J. Carlson
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Re: Meat reefers
Ted Schnepf
Hello, My point is that geography does play a role in what cars you will see on the railroad you choose to model. If you are modeling Frankfort, Ind on the NKP, it would be rare to see a reefer from Hormel, Dubuque, Oscar Meyer and other packers in the northern region of the corn belt. Modeling Bellevue, Oh on the NKP those reefers would be plentiful. In my case modeling west of Mississippi, I need to carefully choose my reefers. Ted Schnepf
On Wednesday, April 8, 2020, 09:56:39 AM CDT, Douglas Harding <iowacentralrr@...> wrote:
Here is a slide from my meat trains clinic, showing the movement of a meat reefer from Omaha to Boston. It went CBQ, NKP, DL&W, L&HR, NH. This was the early 50s I believe.
Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
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