Western Railroad Discussion > Veronica Foods of Oakland Rings In the New Year

Great news for local railfans here in the Bay Area as Veronica Foods took delivery of their first tank car of what may be imported Italian olive oil sometime last week, probably Friday night or very early Saturday morning.  

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Great to see because as we all know there's no olive oil produced in California 

Out 

Once again, I find the surroundings in your photo to be interesting.  Tons of stuff to look at besides the tank car.

Jim

Thanks Jimmies. I felt the exact same way looking at Weather's shots of the ATSF switching in San Francisco. Shot from a distance, with wide enough lens to fit in all sorts of interesting albeit non-rail stuff. That stuff ages, like a fine wine!

Lots of olive oil is produced in California, up near Corning, where all the olive orchards are.  But it's bottled, not bulk.

coach Wrote:
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> Lots of olive oil is produced in California, up
> near Corning, where all the olive orchards are.
>  But it's bottled, not bulk.

Domestic producer's share of the market is pretty small compared to importers' share, and all of the domestic production is from California I think. Well, read that via Google just now. 

I think the less time olive oil spends in a bottle the better. Veronica Foods seems to treat olive oil as kind of fine wine deal so shipping bulk and bottling here makes for a higher quality oil. 

Nice catch Parker!

It appears siding is not new so unused and but still connected?

Posted from Android

Sciabica Olive Oil used to, and maybe still does, ship the occasional tank car of olive oil out of Modesto on the M&ET.

They have some excellent olive oil, in my opinion.

If the olive oil is imported, what was it in
before it got into the tank car?

And I was being facetious about no olive oil in California, I as well prefer a couiple California brands. The producer in Corning was
one of our branches largest accounts. As to tank car shipments, there were a couple out of Corning to an eastern customer, don't
remember the name but that was many years ago. Subsequent to that the comment was made that California was taking virtually
all their oil production in the retail market, nothing to ship in bulk. 

Out

60 Minutes did a segment last year on Italian olive trees being decimated by an insect. There may not be much oil to get.

Great map Rantoul. 

At one point this area was served by a little switching railroad called the Union Belt Line. E.K. Wood Lumber was the northern most section, and the line went down a few blocks. I think it may have just been on the piers, not sure haven't researched it yet. Read about it in the 1933 Port Series document. 

ChrisCampi Wrote:
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> 60 Minutes did a segment last year on Italian
> olive trees being decimated by an insect. There
> may not be much oil to get.

Lots of olive trees all over the Middle East and North Africa not to mention places like California and Australia.
Basically, if it has a "Mediterranean" climate they can grow there.

I've never seen huge olive orchards like in southern Spain.   You can drive for miles surrounded by the tree covered hills.