Model Railroading > A load of tallow...

 Having worked in the old Stockyards area of Chicago,  it was (and still is) common to see tank cars assigned to tallow service. Various cars are marked Edible Tallow, Inedible Tallow, Not Fit For Human Consumption Tallow, Beef Tallow, etc... What this means I don't know---however I know for a fact it's a stinky odor!

Regardless, I decided to weather a model for this type of service..........



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/20 14:37 by ghemr.

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Wow, very nice car!  Is it an Athearn, Walthers, or other?

Rich

PasadenaSub Wrote:
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> Wow, very nice car!  Is it an Athearn, Walthers,
> or other?

It's an Atlas Master 25,500 gallon car which is very accurate including top and bottom fittings for tallow service.

Looks real good there Ghemr.  The tallow streaking down is "kinda gross" if you think about it too long.  Nice job.

Jim

Nasty. They are not fun to ride either, or climb on to spin the handbrake. The entire car becomes slick and waxy with a fine layer of grease as the rendering plants vent steam into the surrounding air while cooking off the animal fat. There are several rendering plants south of Downtown Los Angeles that both the BNSF and UP service. I've been around many tallow tanks.

Mr. MRL

Back during my car distribution days, when I had a moment to chat with the traffic manager at a large slaughter house, I asked him what the difference was between edible and inedible tallow. His answer was the edible was from fat trimmed off of a carcass (and presumably tossed into a sanitary bin). The inedible came from what was swept up from the floor.

Incidentally, I asked him how many heads of cattle that they slaughtered a day. Eight thousand is the number which sticks in my mind.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/21/20 18:15 by ts1457.

Great modeling

Posted from iPhone

MrMRL Wrote:
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> Nasty. They are not fun to ride either, or climb
> on to spin the handbrake. The entire car becomes
> slick and waxy with a fine layer of grease as the
> rendering plants vent steam into the surrounding
> air while cooking off the animal fat. There are
> several rendering plants south of Downtown Los
> Angeles that both the BNSF and UP service. I've
> been around many tallow tanks.
>
> Mr. MRL

Yeah the Grease Buyers who buy used oil and grease from restaurants and fast food places are like that too.
Everything is slimy and slick and that wonderful smell!  You want to lose a few pounds, just go by one of those places just before lunch.
Just one sniff and you will lose your appitite!

MrMRL Wrote:
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 There are
> several rendering plants south of Downtown Los
> Angeles that both the BNSF and UP service. I've
> been around many tallow tanks.
>
> Mr. MRL

Takes me back to the mid=1980's. One of those plants was a client for the accounting firm I worked at. I handled their coporate taxes for a few yaers, and always had to be out there on hot summer days. You get used to the smell! I know they abutted back up to the tracks, I think Santa Fe, near Hobart Yard, on Bandini Blvd. (I never asked for a plant tour). Interesting RR fact, the company was once owned by Canadian Pacific, before beng spun off!

Extremely nice looking car... From the recently replaced wheel set to the labeling... Neat!

Andy

If you think the cargo is gross, remember that the next time you eat a bag of chips. Lots of Frito Lay plants are full of these things. 

 

The Wabash had a train nicknamed "The Hide and Tallow".


Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com

Bandini Fertilizer and the rendering plants along with other industries were in what the U.P. called (the) Bandini (switching district).  The track ran east from the U.P. just south of Hobart Tower.  When the computer came Bandini became Zone 10. 

It was switched joint with the ATSF.  The ATSF came from across 26th St.  I don't know what the ATSF called it. 

With the livestock and packinghouse business, fertilizer, and especially the rendering plants, it was a foul smelling part of Vernon.  Back around what must have been 1950 the residents of nearby Maywood made enough of a fuss to force some improvements, so it smells nothing like it did 70 years ago.  The eventual loss of almost all of the livestock business also made a big difference. 

Some of the other switching districts in Los Angeles were joint with the S.P.  Sometimes the switch crews would bring in mty cars that had been spotted by the other railroad.  One of the clerk's jobs that dealt with interchange would get questions from Omaha about cars suddenly showing up in Los Angeles with no previous record.  The joint switching districts were the first place to start the search for where the car came from. 

Eugene Crowner

I think you'd find that the cars at Frito Lay are Veg. Oil Tank cars not Tallow.
I you want to see Tallow cars check out the Tyson Packing plant that was in the news on google maps
it's in Dakota City NE, . Just south of Sioux City IA.
Also check out Sergeants Bluff IA just down river for the CF industries plant (nitrogen) and also
the Gelita USA plant south of town. If you need a destination for those rust band acid tanks.

Lots of "edible tallow" tank cars in my pix from Sherman TX and elsewhere, ar least as late as 2000. May have switched a bit to healthier fats since then, but Frito Lay in Binghamton NY still gets animal fat tankers. 

Nice modeling!

Spot on! Those cars smell like roadkill come summer time.

march_hare Wrote:
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> Lots of "edible tallow" tank cars in my pix from
> Sherman TX and elsewhere, ar least as late as
> 2000. May have switched a bit to healthier fats
> since then, but Frito Lay in Binghamton NY still
> gets animal fat tankers. 

I am trying to find which products use the tallow so that I can get something with taste.

At Sherman, it was Doritos.