Back in the era of my first job in my idle moments I'd dig out a thick book
called the Uniform Freight Classification (commonly known as the UFC) and
page thru it looking for the weirdest commodity that could be shipped by
rail. The winner by a long shot was:
Wombat hides, green, in bales.
Thank you kindly,
Mike M.
Downers Grove, IL
-----Original Message-----
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Mark
Heiden
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2005 1:49 PM
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] Re: Hide Cars
Hi Denny,
Those must have been some memorable summers! How big would a hide
be? I realize this would vary according to animal, but would a hide
be removed in one piece or cut into parts as needed? Could one
person move a hide, or would this be a team effort? Lastly, how
high could you pile these things? I imagine that at some point the
hides would be so deep that no one would go into the boxcar to add
more.
Thanks,
Mark Heiden
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Denny Anspach <danspach@m...> wrote:
>
> On most railroads hide cars were commonly wood sheathed cars near
the
> ends of their lives. In my experience green hides were most
commonly
> piled in loose interleaved with layers of salt to keep the hides
from
> spoiling. As you might expect, the hides made the cars unsuitable
> for other uses, and the salt did nothing good for the car
structure
> (hence the preference for wood cars).
>
> On the cars I have been familiar with, none seemed to have any
other
> special attributes or appliances beyond "For Hide Service Only".
>
> I spent summers years ago working in an Iowa meat packing plant,
and
> as the "lowest of the low", I often inherited the job of working
in
> and around these cars (in this case RI single sheathed beaters).
>
> This subject has been discussed extensively on the Steam Era
Freight
> Car List several times, I believe most recently in about 2003. If
I
> recall correctly, even some retired wood ice reefers were
> occasionally drafted into hide (or salt) service at the ends of
their
> lives.
>
> Denny
> --
> Denny S. Anspach, MD
> Sacramento, California
>
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