Richard/Tony ... et al,

So let's talk a bit about how products in freight cars are designated.
I do not offer the following as 'certainty' ... but I do have quite a bit
of experience in related fields since my brother was a trucking broker for
the largest part of his career.

I look forward to when Tony weighs in on this meaty topic. So here goes ...

**************

I could be wrong on this but I doubt that canned meat products would be
labeled "meat" by the RR/shippers. Canned goods are just that - and usually
they don't have any other designation when shipped. I believe that the
designation "meat" is reserved for fresh meat requiring refrigeration.
Correct?

Canned goods don't require refrigeration and they don't have to be shipped
quickly to avoid spoilage. (Neither of which means they won't be loaded
into a reefer ... I'm just 'stating the obvious' because if you don't
think about this you may miss something.)

I've been told that the reason for shipping canned goods in reefers is that
the loads are clean (boxes on pallets later but earlier the boxes were hand
stacked in the cars using a gravity/roller conveyor to get them into the car)
and they are relatively easy to get in and out of a reefer. I've also been
told that canned goods were shipped in reefers because they required a bit
more security and because they would often be a shipment that could go in the
reverse direction of the primary loads for the reefers (ie. ship produce to
the East and canned goods West). And finally that canned goods are usually
shipped in whole car lots rather than LCL.

And weren't items such as appliances and radios/TVs shipped in reefers
from time to time?

So I would think that unless there was a Hormel or other such plant in
Fairfax, Mn (where were these? Chicago? Kansas City?) isn't it unlikely that
they would have been shipping canned meat? I have no knowledge of what
shippers were in Fairfax. Fairfax is a fairly small town about 100 miles
from the Twin Cities. Meat packing plants were typically located near
a stock yard and received shipments of meat that was on the hoof. Were
there stock yards in Fairfax or some where nearby? Was there ever a time
that large enough quantities of cattle were raised in Minnesota to enable
canned meat shipped by RR?

I'm sure that shipping packaged meat in reefers happened from time to
time - but wouldn't that be the exception and not the rule? Don't packing
houses receive shipments of either on-the-hoof or slaughtered meat but not
cut and packed meat - in reefers - and then usually (almost always?) pack
and ship to -local- buyers?

Even small 'meat markets' receive their sides/quarters and cut them up
and put them in the display case. I've seen the meat hanging and being
cut into steaks, roasts, ground, etc. In the period we are interested in
on this list didn't local meat shops get their meat from a local
slaughter house. I've always thought that the reason for shipping 'meat'
on the hoof was to prevent spoilage losses by trading off the problems
associated with keeping the animals in good condition. Once meat is cut up
and packaged it has a short shelf life and needs to be sold and consumed
(or frozen in the home) relatively quickly.
When I was growing up I remember that we always bought meat and consumed
it 'right away' (within a week or so). Then the home freezer market 'took
off' and my folks got one and started to buy a quarter at a time (cut and
packaged) and put it in the new freezer we put in the utility room. In
fact, the first shipment of a quarter was actually tied to the freezer and
was done in a single package deal/payment/contract. This was in the late
50's. And it was something that happened 'all over town' at the same time.
There was a steady flow of trucks delivering freezers and meat. Before
that the freezer section of our refrigerator was so small that it was only
used for cubes and ice cream - both also to be consumed in a fairly small
amount of time ... but for different reasons than the meat in the meat
drawer in the regular section ... ;-).

I don't think frozen meat was regularly shipped by RR in the period we
focus on most on this list. Was it even possible to get an ice reefer
cold enough to ship frozen products? Was that even possible with the early
mech reefers? Even today with all of the advances in refrigeration most
frozen products are shipped in trucks and over relatively short hauls,
especially when compared to canned products. Yes, I know about the more
modern 'cryo' cars ... but they serve highly specialized markets. Yes?
And yes, I know that the frozen foods at the super market some times
travel cross country today (even often?).

One last question. It has been mentioned that very few PFE reefers
were equipped for meat service. Was slaughtered meat - in quarters
or smaller sizes but not cut up and packaged - ever shipped in reefers
in large wooden bins or something like that? It seems to me that I've
seen a pic some where of a fork lift transporting a wooden bin full of
big parts of meat - I think it was in a packing plant and not being
loaded into an RR car. I know that such bins were used to move fish
around in the canneries. Perhaps a similar bin was used to ship smaller
sizes of meat in reefers? The bins I'm talking about were appropriately
sized to be moved by a fork lift ... not much wider than the forks and
maybe 3/4ths as tall as wide and relatively square in the horizontal plane.
Heavy wooden sides and bottoms held together by steel fixtures.
If meat was shipped in bins like this then you wouldn't need a specially
equipped reefer ... correct?

I'm not talking about the years before 1930. I would guess that most of
what I offer/speculate above would be true for any time after WWII ...
everything was different before 1935 or so when compared to after the war.
In so many, many ways ...

Singing gleefully "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm ..."
(Yes, I know that was a WW-ONE song ... still applies, even today.)

- Jim in San Jose

Jim,

The basic commodity description was "Meat and Packing
House Products". This covered a lot of territory and
canned meat was commonly shipped in reefers, although
not always in meat rail types. When making a count
on a train, food products even in "RB" type cars, were
counted as "Perishables". In the Winter they may have
needed heater service.

During the 50's the fleet of FHIX and WHIX cars were
built with the capability of shipping frozen loads and
before the mechanicals were widely available were used
as such, as in frozen turkeys or chicken.

Boats unloading bananas at Gulf ports often also had
canned meat from Argentina or Brazil. Since reefers
were normally the only cars supplied for loading they
were used, refrigerated or not.

Reefers were loaded by the freight houses in the Chicago
area, most heavily by the AT&SF.

Another common back haul was magazines, catalogs, and
other bulk mailing items. These could be shipped with
multiple car rates and were dense enough to compensate
for the smaller cubic capacity.

Do not think many butchers would want meat that had not
been hanging. Pre cut boxed beef did not move in any
quantity until the days of mechanicals and even then
was not widely accepted. It takes time for that kind of
business to change. When you shoot a deer even after
it's been gutted and skinned it is usually left hanging
for a couple of days so it cools evenly.

As to PFE not getting heavily into meat rail cars the
long hauls was what they were looking for. Most of the
packers had their own car fleets anyway.

Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa were filled with
packing plants. Do not know where "Fairfax" was located.

Since the people in Minnesota would want California type
produce just as much as anyone else there would be PFE's
in Minnesota, proportional to the population and demand.

Russ

--- In STMFC@..., "Russ Strodtz" <sheridan@...> wrote:

Southern Minnesota and Northern Iowa were filled with
packing plants. Do not know where "Fairfax" was located.
Russ

Fairfax is west of the Twin Cities. The beer was probably from brewers
in the Cities. The meat was LCL probably out of S St Paul.
Clark Propst

Jim,
The cars on the Fairfax list are from the Agents seal book. He would
remove the seal from the reefer the locals would remove their packages
and the agent would reseal the car.
Sometimes there were reefers asigned to these LCL runs, but you can
see after I posted the rest that they used any reefer handy for these
runs.
Clark Propst

Clark,

Very good information. I can recall keeping a seal book
although it was seldom used. The bigger shippers got
seals from the Railroads and kept their own records.
Only time the book was used was when the Agent or a Clerk
actually sealed the cars.

I think the best thing those records illustrate is the
relative populations of various reefers that were available
for loading at "The Cities" at that time. The packing plants
had their own car fleets and would not want to use them for
LCL service.

As to the beer it might have been forgotten that then, as
to some extent today, beer is purchased F.O.B. at the brewery.
While I know that some of the bigger brewers had company
owned distributors and acquired cars for their own loadings,
(as in Busch, Miller, Hamms, in the Midwest), most of the
smaller brewers had no use for a leasing arrangement since
they were not paying the freight bill. A distributor that
preferred rail shipment got whatever car the railroad made
available for loading. RB or RS cars were the usual solution.
If heaters were needed in the Winter they were the right type
of cars. I have seen beer shipped in RB or RS cars in the
Winter where heater service has been declined. The Tariffs
did allow for this and it was at the shipper's or consignee's
risk depending on who was paying the freight bill. (This was
also true of canned goods). It was incumbent on the part of
the railroad to provide the requested type of car but once
they had done that they were free and clear if the customer
choose not to pay for any services.

As it is today the kegs, bottles, and cardboard cases were
saved and shipped back in one car for free on the basis of
a certain number of prior shipments.

There were a lot of truck farms in the area around Ripon WI
and the canners there almost always loaded the non-fan older
URTX's. Even in the dead of winter they seldom requested
heater service.

Russ

Jim, the list Clark cited is from a Fairfax MN (MSTL) Seal Book 1947 - 48, a
record kept by the local agent showing every car for which he affixed a car
seal. Fairfax is west of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis/St. Paul) on the M&StL
mainline to South Dakota. Fairfax is a small rural community. There were no
packing plants in Fairfax, though there were a number of them in the Twin
Cities.

Here is the original message posted to the MSTL list about the origin of
this list:
I purchased a seal book that is from 1947-48 for Fairfax, MN. It gives the
train number, car number and seal number plus where it is going to or from
in Fairfax.
There are reefer cars of meat that have a seal on when they arrive and a
different seal when they leave. Were these lcl cars for the grocery stores?
Or would the ice hatches have seals? A few have a note that says made empty.
One train was extra 620 which would mean that the 2-8-2's were used on this
line, probably at least to Morton. Sam

To which Clark responded:
Sam,
The agent would have resealed the cars after the locals (people) removed
their goods. That would hold true for the reefers as well. Usually reefers
had icing instructions, but no seals on their hatches. Sounds like a very
interesting book. It sure would be nice to put it into a computer spread
sheet format and add it to the group's files.
Clark

As to the origin of the meat in the PFE reefers. Southern Minn had a number
of meat packers, South St Paul was a meat packing center. And canned meat
was quite common before the advent of home freezers, and still is, ever have
canned ham? Or Spam? The Hormel plant in Austin MN was the first to can
hams, and Deckers in Mason City (on the M&StL) was the second. Spam is a
Hormel brand name. Many of these meat packers were more than slaughter
houses, they prepared meat and meat products that would be shipped in boxes:
ie bacon, lard, luncheon meats, and so forth. All would have needed to be
refrigerated, but not need meat hooks/rails

We saw a large number of produce reefers (mostly SFRD) on the M&StL because
the of the direct connection with the ATSF at Nemo, Ill. This connection was
a major source of produce for the Twin Cities, and Minnesota in general. The
same list shows a number of SFRD cars at Fairfax with the same loads, meat
and beer. I suspect that the Twin Cities also saw a large number of PFE
reefers, perhaps they came up on the Omaha line from it's connection with
the UP at Omaha. No doubt local agents "borrowed" the reefers for meat
loading.

Doug Harding
Iowa Central Railroad
www.iowacentralrr.org

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Russ, this is also some very good information that I am sure
many people on this list would find interesting. Let me see if I
can add some things here that may help to sort out some of the
information that has been already stated.

It should be stated that the reason that refrigerator cars
were the best choice for can goods shipments was to prevent
the load from freezing during the colder months. A shipper was
entitled to CPS (Carriers Protection Service) by tariff
stipulation from October 1st. until April 1st., if he desired
to use it to protect his load from freezing. Most railroads
kept the seal records, as you stated, to keep track of the
necessary opening up of the car for heater fueling and
inspection. If they incurred a damage claim on the load,
for what ever reason, they had proof that the CPS tariff was
protected.

The shipper did indeed have the right to wave CPS on a load
if he desired to do so. He also had the right under the tariff,
and the carrier (railroad)had the right also, to provided him
a car that was not a refrigerator for his load from April
2nd. thru September 30th. It should also be said the some
shippers, the brewers of beer certainly being one, always used a
refrigerator cars year round to protect the load from any
temperature swings that might effect the quility of the product.

Regards,

Jerry Stewart
Chicago, Ill.

Russ Strodtz wrote:

As to PFE not getting heavily into meat rail cars the long hauls was what they were looking for. Most of the packers had their own car fleets anyway.

The second reason is the right one. PFE was approached by a couple of the packers with requests for more meat cars, but PFE realized that they would only be backups for the packer fleets and would thus mostly be idle. They declined to add to their rather small fleet of such cars. This is all documented in the PFE correspondence at the UP Railroad Museum.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Jim Betz wrote:

I've been told that the reason for shipping canned goods in reefers is that the loads are clean (boxes on pallets later but earlier the boxes were hand stacked in the cars using a gravity/roller conveyor to get them into the car) and they are relatively easy to get in and out of a reefer. I've also been told that canned goods were shipped in reefers because they required a bit more security . . .

Possibly these are minor, contributing factors. The main reason was to protect against temperature extremes, the exact same reason canned goods are shipped today in insulated box cars.

I've always thought that the reason for shipping 'meat' on the hoof was to prevent spoilage losses by trading off the problems associated with keeping the animals in good condition.

At one time this was true (before 1900) but packing houses strongly decentralized throughout the early 20th century, exactly to AVOID as much shipping of live animals as possible, and instead to ship hanging meat.

Was it even possible to get an ice reefer cold enough to ship frozen products? Was that even possible with the early mech reefers?

Man, you gotta read the PFE book, Jim. Yes, frozen food was shipped, using ice plus salt, long before there were mech reefers. Temperatures can be as low as 10 deg. F. And the early mech reefers were BUILT for frozen food. Produce shipping in such cars came later.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tony,

As best as I can recall only meat PFE's I saw loaded were out
of Greeley, Lexington, and Cozad. I do not know if Monfort
at Greeley ever did have cars of their own.

Swift at Grand Island was on the UP but had the standard
SRLX/URTX assignments to work from. If they ran short they
would get a MNX from the "Q". I don't think it was a very
big plant. Hormel at Fremont did most of it's shipping via
the "Q" and "Nort'western". They usually had a good supply
of NADX's.

Russ