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Re: SW Iowa Packing Plants

To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: SW Iowa Packing Plants
From: "G. Walls <glw@r...>" <glw@r...>
Date: Mon, 09 Dec 2002 04:58:54 -0000
In-reply-to: <104.21711bd9.2b255be2@a...>
User-agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
Hi Folks,

I want to thank all that helped answer my questions about the packing 
plants. 

I am planning on modeling the line between Creston and Red Oak, set 
in the early 1930. I have a lot of family that lived in the Nodaway 
area. Does anyone have a picture of the Nodaway or Villisca depots. I 
have a picture from a 1918 newspaper of the Nodaway depot but would 
like to find a better picture and a little more current. I think the 
depot was torn down around 1933 but not sure. The picture I have has 
milk cans setting on a rack outside. Which train would have been 
picking up milk. And where would it be going? Omaha to one of the 
creameries? What trains would have been hauling perishables in this 
time frame? and where would it have orgainated? Were the meat reefers 
iced at the packing houses or iced somewhere else and delivered to 
the packing houses? Were trains iced at the UP iceing dock in Council 
Bluffs?

Any help with these questions would be greatly appericated.

Thanks,
George




-- In BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com, PSHedgpeth@a... wrote:
> George...I did get Bedford checked out and it was a Cudahy plant 
there...You 
> asked about traffic on the Creston Division...Bedford was on the 
> Amazonia-Creston sub and was a part of the St. Joseph Division.
> 
> As to other traffic on the Creston Division the largest on line 
shipper I can 
> think of are the seed houses at Shenandoah Earl May, and Henry 
Field and a 
> couple of others.
> Their outbound business was largely nursery stock which moved via 
railway 
> express.
> This was seasonal begining in about February and extending through 
the 
> planting season.
> 
> The Red Oak-Hamburg local would take several baggage cars of this 
stuff to 
> Hamburg to move on No 26 and perhaps 27 or 23...I recall seeing 26 
at Langdon 
> with up to 5 cars of nursery stock on the rear end through the 
1950's. The 
> local would set the nursery stock on a track adjacent to the main 
line at 
> Hamburg and 26 would back in on the cars and carry them on the rear 
end...Had 
> to move in passenger trains because the NS had to be kept from 
freezing, and 
> was carried in baggage cars equipped with steam lines. 
> 
> The northbound local would take cars to Red Oak where they were put 
on the 
> mainline trains in the same manner as at Hamburg.
> 
> I don't remember any other packing plants on the St. Joe or Creston 
Division 
> except of course at St. Joe proper where all of the major packers 
had 
> opertations 
> 
> Pete
> 
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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