Does UP continue to haul livestock?

overseer wrote:[
Vary Interesting. I would assume that the railroads will build or make Stock Cars when the need for them calls for them? So it would be almost safe to say that althow the last of the mass haul of live stock such as Pigs, Sheep, Cattle, Chickins, and Live Fish may have ended in the 1980's. The railroads on occation will turn old boxcar(s) into live stockcar(s) when the call for them comes for there use?

Live stock hauling did not end in the 80's- it was still happening in the 90's.

Hi All,

Okay, now you REALLY have gotten my attention. Are you telling me that you cannot ship Umpteen Dozen Cattle from wherever to Secaucus or somewhere else by UP or any other RR ??? That is incredible. That was one of UP's and others, really good source of revenue.

Reminds me of another, similar, sad story. General Dynamics, Pomona, CA, division. when I was on the Engineering staff there, used to ship the Phalanx weapon system to Norfolk, VA, via UP flat cars. One fine day, I see an 18 wheeler, with a depressed center trailer loading a Phalanx system. I spoke to the shipping manager and he told me that via truck was more economical. The loading dock and the spur from the UP tracks were never used again Very sad story, and that was the end of my yearly brand new Union Pacific Callendar every year. Could this also be the story behind the stock cars ???

Pennsy

Could be what happened with the livestock car movements also. Nobody on this thread has seen any since the mid nineties.

The cars, and the ability to ship them still exist. The biggest problem would be, where to water the animals. There are laws, stating how ofter livestock must be watered, fed and allowed outside of a car. Most facilities that handled those chores, are gone, or have fallen into a state of disrepair, making them unuseable. Local ranches, refrigerated trucks, and freight cars, and the ability to buy your cattle at auction, have them slaughtered, and prepared/packed and shipped quickly, kind of eliminates the need to provide a steady stream of cattle, to a few large processors. Grocery stores, with their meat departments, also spelled the end, of the corner butcher shop, and the local cattle yard/abbatoir, and the need for regular shipments of livestock. Regards

Here's a little blurb which covers a little more of what we have already discussed in this thread in regards to the HOGX hauling, and includes a few images.
http://www.trainweb.org/nrmrc/taprototype.html (toward the end of the page - search for 'Cattle Shipping').

I do remember seeing one or two of these stock cars in Kearney passing the yards on the PATH from Jersey City to Newark - this was the late 1980s, consistent with other people's observation in this thread

Hi All,

That certainly is a good angle. It would be simpler to butcher the animals where they are bought and ship the forequarters, hindquarters, etc. etc. in Reefers to where they are to be butchered into those T bone steaks and whatever else. The Abattoir aspect stumped me for a moment, until I remembered seeing trucks in the Koschiosko section of Brooklyn heading for the fat rendering factories near the creek. They had the word Abattoir written on their sides. As I remember it, those around me complained of the fat rendering smell in the air. Found out from the fellas there that you could buy some interesting products from them that the girlfriends would love. Funny how such smells became perfumed objects that the ladies used. As an aside, there were also some older gentlemen that had gone through the Holocaust and had some major difficulties with the odors from those factories.

Sir Ray wrote:Here's a little blurb which covers a little more of what we have already discussed in this thread in regards to the HOGX hauling, and includes a few images.
http://www.trainweb.org/nrmrc/taprototype.html (toward the end of the page - search for 'Cattle Shipping').

I do remember seeing one or two of these stock cars in Kearney passing the yards on the PATH from Jersey City to Newark - this was the late 1980s, consistent with other people's observation in this thread

That HOGX Car is the same photo that I have seen. The fleet listed about 8-10 of them being last used by Burlington Northern in the early 1980's. But I am willing to take into the possable thought that maybe a few did last longer that the 1980's by pure luck on the minds of the what if question in some corpare office on some railroad and ended up being stuffed on some back track in a Yard someplace for furture use if the need came calling to move live stock by rail again.

Sir Ray wrote:Here's a little blurb which covers a little more of what we have already discussed in this thread in regards to the HOGX hauling, and includes a few images.
http://www.trainweb.org/nrmrc/taprototype.html (toward the end of the page - search for 'Cattle Shipping').

I do remember seeing one or two of these stock cars in Kearney passing the yards on the PATH from Jersey City to Newark - this was the late 1980s, consistent with other people's observation in this thread

Gosh, I felt like I was rolling by Dry Lake! It looks the same. Except the house is now gone. The water tanks are still there and on the other side of the tracks are a couple of abandoned trailers. The watering stands and hoses are still there but deteriorating badly.

Anyone know were we can post photos? It might be kind of cool for those of us who work in the biz to take a photo for a question and reference that photo to go along with the answer.

Why not just post them right in your post, in whatever topic you are responding to. Dump your pix into a host, such as http://photobucket.com/ and then just snag the Img, add it to your post, close the tags, then enter your post. should pop right up, like this:

Nice Geep Golden Arm Maybe with the rising fuel prices we will see livestock on trains again...........