hi guys. Not to sure if this is where I ask this or not? But when was the last time that railroads used stock cars? What year roughly? That's in both US & Canada? Thanks.
Hi August I am not sure about Canada stock car traffic. But in the u.s. it was the late 60 s to the very early seventies. There was one execption that I know of and that is the U.P. They ran a train dubbed The Farmer John Express into the early 90s. These stock cars (usuailly 10-20) were put on their hottest stack train from Wyoming to Los Angles (the city of Vernon) where the were dropped of at the FarmerJohn meat packing plant. They would run these cuts of cars about two or three times a week. They would time it so these cars would be on a train (an APL) leaving Salt Lake City around sunset for a early a.m. arrival at Farmer Johns, because of the daytime desert heat. About 1985 or so the U.P. scrapped these cars an bought 100 new ones dedicated for Farmer John service. These cars were 60ft. double deckers painted in the railroads weird MOW green. The reporting marks were either H.O.G.X. or H.O.G.E.X. I can not remember which. Overland Models came out with these cars several years ago. One thing funny, my wife an I have driven past the FJ plant a few times. They are very close to a lot of low income houseing so what they did was to put up a 10ft high sheet metal fence that surounds their 3 or 4 block facility. Now picture this, the whole fence was painted white, and on the white was painted these 6 or 8 foot high pigs dancing, partying, laughing, frolicking in other words they made it look like it's Miller Time!!! Well my wife an I used to go to Vegas alot an stay at the Union Plaza hoted (now the Plaza). I would always get a room on the 18th to the 20th floor looking over what else?, the U.P. yards. Looked just like H.O.!!! Well on one of our stays, one of these pig cuts came tru on a W.B. I called my wife to look at the new Farmer John pig cars an she said " whats so special about that"? I said " nothing really. but can't you see the cars swaying side to side"?? I continued " thats becaus the pigs are dancing, partying, laughing, and frolicking their way to Farmer Johns!!! She slugged me! Well so much for my rant, August. I hope some of this helps. Tim from Wisconsin b a
Here in Queensland, Australia, there are still stock cars in use. There is a meat works a few suburbs over from where i used to live, and i caught the train past it's unloading facility alot. The cattle trains dont smell at all pleasant when they roll by.
I was in LA in Dec. 1977 and caught a UP local spotting 4 stock cars of hogs at an industry whose name I cannot remomber.
