Nostalgia & History > That Smell

Even empty, this cut fresh out of Clougherty Packing was a nose killer.

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Wow...that brings back memories.

We used to bring the "Farmer John Hogs" in on the NPLA2Z. We'd yard the train on the "Drott" tracks, cut off the hogs and drag them west for the for one of the Spence Street jobs to take them to Clougherty Packing before wyeing our power and putting it in the barn. IIRC, it was usually a job we called the Rocket or something like that. Smelliest job on the RR. You could usually smell it before you saw it. Cured me from eating pork for quite a few years.

Thanks for the great shot. What year was this BTW?

Trainjunkie

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Thanks for the great shot. What year was this
> BTW?
>
> Trainjunkie

Early 1985.

Other than seeing the Farmer John hog trains, the last loaded hog car I saw - actually I smelled and heard it before I saw it - was a single loaded pig car for Armour Packing in 1966 in South San Francisco. At the time I worked for Bethlehem Steel and the SP mainline and small yard were next to the shipping yard I worked at. What a smell! Whew! - Tony J.

Back during the 1980's, my dad was responsible for the MOW cars in UP's Engineering Dept. Anyway, there were these 2 contractors that he was working with on some MOW car work. My dad had to go over to the Council Bluffs yards one Saturday morning back in 85' to see these contractors about something. They were doing some other contract work for UP, which was cleaning out these damn pig cars. It looked like pretty bad work, and smelly too. I was only 12 at the time, but I made sure to keep my distance.

I always hated working the "Island Job" on the the Harbor Belt and having to switch out the Ralston Purina plant at night. The smell of that rendering facility would knock maggots off of decaying bodies. Always had to tie my trusty red handkerchief over my nose and mouth to keep breathing on the engine. Being the swing or rear helper on the beet trains was always enjoyable too, if the smell of rotting beets didn't get you, the clouds of flies around the train would. Ah, the good ol' days.

Bill

Trainjunkie: The yard job your thinking of was job 41b on duty at 2230 at night. It used to go out to 4th street and switch out Times Mirror up on the hill and come back, go to lunch and wait for the "Ladies" as we called them. With the original cars we would get from 30 to 40 a night, then when Clougherty bought the new cars we would only get 15 to 20 cars as they were 50 ft cars and held more pigs. There was also the daylight job that came on at 0700 to relieve us, or spot the hogs if they were late. The smell was the worst in summer and some of the hogs would die enroute from the heat. As such they would load fewer in a car in summer for that reason. The worst I saw was in the winter of '83, the train got stuck in a blizzard in Green River and about 600 hogs froze in the cold.
The other job you mentioned was the South Gate "Rocket" that went on duty at 0800. It went down the branch to South Gate and switched out Mcleod Metals, Purex , among other industries. It got it's name "The Rocket" as they were always late getting back to the yard and would come back as fast as the old 1000's (NW2's) and later 1200's (SW10's) would go. -BMT

They were not any better at the beginning. I worked at 'Kaw Tower' in Kansas City, I used to tell people I had a 'breathtaking view' of the stockyards.

KCCharlie

Do I see a poor brakeman haning off the side of the last car?  Wow--what a place to ride.

SOB Wrote:
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> The smell of that rendering
> facility would knock maggots off of decaying
> bodies.

That sounds like checking cars at the hide house in Oakland. If the car was empty, it was released. If there were still hides in it, it wasn't. So in the middle of the night, walk into a boxcar with hides in it or had hides in it. That smell beat the smell of livestock by a couple of orders of magnitude.

TAW