Bulk shipment of corn
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thisisr@...
Hello Group: My name is Richard Stallworth and I am an old member who just returned to model railroading. Parenthood distracted me for a long time. Anyway I've been following the conversation about bulk commodities in the form of malt and cement. I know wheat was shipped in boxcars, but what about corn? Were ears of corn complete with husk shipped in bulk in boxcars? Thank-you. Richard Stallworth |
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Richard, grains of all sorts were shipped in boxcars, including corn. But the corn was husked, shelled and dried before shipping. All photos I have seen show the dried kernels being loaded into boxcars. Boxcars were used for shipments traveling some distance, ie to a large terminal elevator, or a river barge, or to a port for overseas shipment.
The one exception where corn with the husk on was shipped by rail would be shipments of fresh picked corn going to canneries, but that would have been in open gons. Much like a farmer hauls corn with husks in open wagons. Corn canneries were equipped with husking sheds where the husks were removed as part of the processing to can corn. And canneries would not be receiving dried corn.
Of course practices today are quite different from 50-75 years ago. Today the only corn that is not shelled as it is picked, is sweet corn or seed corn. And both are specialty items going to local processing facilities the same day they are picked.
Doug Harding
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Corn was often stripped from ears for feed or for industrial processes. Corn on the cob would be shipping a lot of waste product if the primary interest was the kernel. Then it would be shipped like other grains. Sent from Dave Bott' iPhone On May 26, 2015, at 11:53 AM, thisisr@... [STMFC] <STMFC@...> wrote:
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sherman4863
in the 50's a company used the old flour mil in Franklin, MN to grind corn cobs and shipped them by rail to either Chaska or Shakopee to be bagged for use as floor dry. sam
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