Nostalgia & History > The smelly side of things.

Railroads hauled some "stinky" freight including cattle, hogs, chickens, sheep, horses, and cowhides.  T&P cars for all those  are shown.  The first was a double deck with split doors on each side.  The 2nd floor could be raised or lowered on these cars.. These cars carried the small animals but, by raising the floor could handle cattle too.

The other two pictures are simply cattle cars.  I do note a early attempt at bulkhead  flat cars with ends on them being cut down from a boxcar next to the last cattle car.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/15 13:48 by tomstp.

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Very interesting.
Do not remember ever seeing many on trains.
However, do remember seeing stock cars at the Bourbon Stock Yard in Louisville KY as a youngster.  There was one siding that paralleled Melwood Ave.  
ALLEN
 

I still remember standing on the platform at Maplewood,MO depot almost every day in the summer and watching MP 2200s with cattle trains.   Ahhh, the smell.  Coal smoke, steam engine and manure.

A litttle "Country Air" as my dad would say it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/15 21:31 by wabash2800.

Thanks for the interesting rolling stock photos.

The last regular shipments of livestock by rail were the "Farmer John Specials", groups of 8 to 12 cars of hogs on a UP fast freight running from Nebraska to Los Angeles.  They were scheduled to run through the Mojave Desert at night, so they wound up coming through San Bernardino around midnight.  When I worked night shift in San Berdoo, I'd get off duty and go over to the station to check out the action.  Depending on the wind direction, we could sometimes smell the piggies before we saw them.  About 20 years later, my wife and I were driving cross country from New England and stayed overnight in Grand Island, Neb. Next day we followed US 30 westward, and came upon some drovers loading porkers into green livestock cars with HOGX reporting marks at Gibbon.  As C. W. McCall would say, "Them hogs was gettin' mighty intense" so I got a few photos and we moved on.  This by then unique operation ended a few years later, but I found that Farmer John still brings the oinkers out to Vernon CA live when I spotted a rig with a livestock trailer on I-210 near Glendora CA while heading home from Orange Empire.  Usually you'll see cow noses in one of these critter carriers, but this time I saw pig snouts, and thought "That's a big 10-4 Pigpen--I know where you're going, and some of your passengers will be going to a baseball game--as Dodger Dogs."

DNRY:  I really enjoyed that!

Thanks.  Just be glad I can't post smells along with photos.