Leo and others
First you need to define GRAIN. Wheat 60 lb per bushel, Oats 32 lb per
bushel, Corn(shelled) 56 lb per bushel Some roads had lines painted in the
cars for capacity fill marks. 40 ft box cars required grain doors(an
example of loads in(Grain Doors returning) loads out(loaded grain). Wheat
would be shipped to a flour mill. Can't think of any right off on the Q.
Twin City area, Pillsbury on C&IM Springfield, Most farmers had a wheat
alotment after the Depression so could only raise so much. So wheat would
have been sold to elevator who stored till got enough to ship. Most larger
cities had flour mills. Oats used for cattle feed or shipped to Quaker Oats
Rockford comes to mind. National Oats, St. Louis, etc. Corn going to the
elevator is a modern era '70s on before then most midwestern farmers would
buy or have on consignment feeder cattle brought in from the west(reason for
so many cattle pens) and the cattle were fatten on the crop residue and corn
before being sent out. Corn was stored in Solar Corn Dryers (corn
cribs)(some also had bins for other grains)on the farm. Often the
branchlines had special trains which operated on Sundays for the Monday
markets. Elevators were much smaller 10,000 to 40,000 bushel with out the
huge drying facilities seen today. Most of these facilities also brought in
lumber and coal so the farmer could bring in a load of grain and take out a
load of coal for winter heat. Often hog buildings and gates were built by
elevator workers at slack periods for sale. Some towns with a good source
of water had paper mills where farmers could take in loads of straw which
was made into the cheaper grades of paper.
Does this help any
SJH
----- Original Message -----
From: <qutlx1@a...>
To: <brhslist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 9:48 PM
Subject: [BRHSlist] Grain Traffic
> Can anyone shed any light on where all that grain that used to move in 40
ft
> box cars actually went? I'm referring to the days when every elevator on
> every branch would ship cars to various "grain inspection trks" at the
larger
> terminals. At Cicero/Clyde I understand the grain inspection trk was in
'D'
> yard.I believe it was D-4(but I could be wrong about the specific trk.Cars
> would be billed from all the local elevators to this trk but I don't know
> what happened next.I assume the Cargills,Continentals,CPC,Clinton
> Corn,American Maize,etc came in and bought the loads but then where did
they
> go?
> Of course since the late 50's,early 60's the grain goes directly into an
18
> wheeler in the field and goes to the "river terminal" direct. I can speak
> from first hand "research" of Q documents that it was this shift in the
> business that killed many of the branch lines.
> Leo
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>
|