Nostalgia & History > Poultry car

Does anyone have a photo of a poultry car? They were similar to stock cars and were used to transport poultry in the 20's and 30's. I have a Lionel operating poultry car, and I have found that people don't believe that a prototype existed. I would like to write an article for a TTOS newsletter about the real train and the men who had the job of keeping the cars swept clean.
Thanks.

If you do a search on the Kalmbach website of ancient MR articles, somewhere in the range of three decades ago they printed plans for a Chanticler (I tink dat's spelt rite ... duh!) poultry car.

I know it's in my achives somewhere, and if your websearch locates the article and you can tell me the issue month and year I can dig it out and snailmail a copy to you, as I'm sure it's "out of print" as far as they're concerned.

I recall something about allowing 6 square inches per chicken, and that a compartment in the car provided living(?) quarters (Can you imagine spending three weeks in a railcar with 5,000 chickens? This give YUCK a whole new meaning.) for a rider to tend to these birds on their first and last trip beyond the barnyard.

I've always felt it would make an interesting model.

Check these three links.

http://users2.ev1.net/~jssand/SFHMS/Sand/Stk/02.htm
http://www.jrjunction.com/bachmann.htm
http://www.jrjunction.com/images/18549.jpg

Africansteam

The Museum of Transport in St. Louis has a Palace Poultry Car. I'm not sure what condition it is in, but it's got to be the only one around. I'll hunt around and see if I can find the picture I took of it when it was up in Flora, IL.

I believe I saw a photo of one in of the Rail Cyclopeida reprints that come out as soft covers for modelers. I also recall one in Model Railroader or RMC. The model train magazine index should turn up something and then you can get a back issue from one of the aftermarket magazine dealers.

Either Bachmann or Model Power made a poultry car, complete with subdued silhouettes of wire screening and chickens. It is not a bad car, if you do the usual truck and coupler replacement. - - JLH

How 'bout these?

---

The third one is what either Bachmann or Model Power did, same reporting marks and car number. -- - - - --- -- -- ---- - JLH

highgreengraphics Wrote:
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> The third one is what either Bachmann or Model
> Power did, same reporting marks and car number. --
> - - - --- -- -- ---- - JLH


The third one is a sheep/lamb car, but I included it because of the offcenter location of the attendants compartment.

I also found some photos of earlier cars in my 1909 Car Builders Dictionary, but the leather binding is already broken and is in such sad shape that if I tried to lay part of it open on the scanner it would totally disintigrate. One shows a woodframe car with the coops removed, clearly showing the interior arrangement with the centered attendants compartment.

By the way, the AAR listed these among classifications of stock cars as class "SP"

Great - wrong livestock! But this is the same car they did. Suppose its easier to make chicken silhouettes than the other. - - - - - - JLH

Here is a link to a photo on the Sacramento History website.

http://www.sacramentohistory.org/search.php?imageid=1363


BaltoJoey

Those pictures are great. Thank you so much.

I'll go up to the CSRM and search the library for the history. I should have thought of that because my husband is one of the volunteers trying to keep the MTH trains running in the toy train display. It's not easy because the trains were never meant to have such heavy use and the gears wear out and the flanges become razor-sharp. The trains are set to run 2 minutes and rest 2 minutes, 7 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Lionel manufactured several versions of the car. Mine is lighted and has a man sweeping out the you-know-what. There's another version with sounds, and I'm planning to buy that, too. I think the sounds are of the chickens and not of the man expressing his opinion of his job.

One of our neighbors knew a man that had that job running out of Atchinson, KS, so I know it actually did run.

George Ann

The ALL ABOARD magazine of the defunct Frisco Museum published an article in the January 1989 issue on Frisco chick cars. PLease go to the frisco.org website and look for All Aboard magazine section.It is on page 3of the January 1989 issue.

The use of chicken cars was likely very limited. Today , Northwest Arkansas is a major poultry production area. There were early experiments with live poultry cars but they did not arrive in St. Louis , this area's principal live poultry market, until after the close of the poultry market auction. The local growers then began to use trucks that included a man inside the trailer to feed and water the chickens. The trucks were able to beat the train by hours and at lower cost. I would imagine the chicken careman needed a thorough wash by the time he arrived in St. Louis. The Shiloh Museum in Springdale, AR has images of men in the chicken trailers.

georgeann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Does anyone have a photo of a poultry car? They
> were similar to stock cars and were used to
> transport poultry in the 20's and 30's. I have a
> Lionel operating poultry car, and I have found
> that people don't believe that a prototype
> existed. I would like to write an article for a
> TTOS newsletter about the real train and the men
> who had the job of keeping the cars swept clean.
>
> Thanks.

Lionel does have a number of cars where the animals poke there head out of an opening in the roof. Just replace the rhino with a chickens head and letter the car chicken coop preservation society and waalla you have a make shift chicken stock car. There again preservation could have a number of meanings. Oh well. Imagine herding all those chickens. YeeHaw

Just kidding of course. I know some guys that would do that as a joke. Self, not included. I can't stand those cars. Perhaps, why I am employing sarcasm here. On the flip side when entertaining children that visit the layout it's a great way to get their attention and capture their imagination.

The answer to your question has been answered. May I add? It seems to me there was an older style, wood sided, outside braced poultry car used by the D&RGW. To deliver fresh chickens to some of the mineing districts. Some in narrow gauge others in standard gauge. Sorry, no pic's.

Have fun and enjoy your layout whatever, way makes you happy.

RickH