Re: Fwd: [CBQ] Re: Stock Cars on the C&I

[STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net>]

Bob
There are a lot of us old farts around.
Hogs take 3 month, 3 weeks and 3 days to gestate.  One reason for all the wild hogs in the woods.
That was the joy of working in the Galesburg Dispatching Office we got out of the Chicago Suburban area and could have a piece of land out in the country.  Our neighbor farmed 2000+ with both a cattle and hog operation.  I use to work part time for them and the reason they liked me to work is I would work in all areas.  They held cattle drives around the neighborhood right down the roads between pastures.  Working in the Hog confinement operations was smelly but easy as the sows were kept in the pens for about two weeks then taken for a walk every day while we worked the pigs.  As they grew they were sorted and kept in pens from day one till we ran them in the trailer to take to (at the time) Wilson's in Monmouth.  One day we were sorting pigs and the Dad said put this one in the back of my truck.  It was a runt and I wound up with about 6 from that sort.  I took them home and put them in my pen where they had space,  good food and sunshine and about a month later the Dad stopped by and we were talking when he looked in my pen and said where did I get the nice looking pigs.  He was shocked to see his cast off runts.  My kids later showed them for 4H and his son wanted us to let him take them to the State Fair.
After all the cattle drives We got moved to Ft. Worth Texas and it took some years to get out of there
Retired in the hills of SC.  Just got to convince my wife we can have some animals
Steve

---

From: "herrick@krausonline.com" <herrick@krausonline.com>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tue, November 29, 2011 9:46:58 PM
Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Re: Stock Cars on the C&I

 

An old fart should never trust his memory. Dug back in my notes and the information about cattle fattening at Rochelle came from Russ Repetto, who as many of you know, was a conductor on the C&I for years.

Russ talked about the heavy stock traffic in the fall. He recalled solid trains of stock off the T&P--60 to 70 cars that were unloaded at the Q's stock chutes at Rochelle, a job that took forever, he said.

Russ said the cattle were fattened adjacent to Calpak plant #110, which was located on the north side of the main. They must have been shipped to the Chicago slaughter houses in trucks, he thought. Russ also remembered a big stock show held in Chicago in the fall.

I'd have to dig further in my notes to determine when Del Monte purchased Calpak.

Bob

--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, qutlx1@... wrote:
>
> Bob,
>
> I don't know where stock would have been unloaded other than at the the
> stock pens by the depot. Your post is the first reference I have heard or seen
> concerning Del Monte feeding stock. I do not recall anyone on the RR ever
> mentioning it.
>
> One thing I do recall is the Rochelle stock pens were large and the two
> stock tracks were rather long. We stored odds and end and work equipment on
> them in the 70s.
>
> Leo
>
>
> Leo,
>
> Do you recall where the stock was off-loaded at Rochelle? The retired Del Monte employee told me--I think--that it occured at the Q's stock chutes east of the depot. Assuming that this did not necessitate a cattle drive through downtown Rochelle to reach Del Monte, trucks must have been involved, or, he was mistaken and the stock was set out at Del Monte proper.
>
> Bob Herrick
>
> --- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, qutlx1@ wrote:
> >
> > Bob,
> >
> > You are correct. Del Monte and silage were synomous well into the 80s. The
> > silage pile was west of the can plant and was primarily the corn
> > shocks,etc. It turned from light green to brown as it fermented. By the 70s it was my
> > observation that it was trucked out to farms as silage feed. As the pile
> > was dug into for shipment it released one of those many smells that made
> > Rochelle famous.
> >
> > Leo
> >
> >
> > Rich and listers,
> >
> > I once talked to a retired employee of the canning plant about their side business of fattening cattle on the by-products of vegetable packing, i.e. the discarded vines et al. He said the cattle came in by rail and left by truck for Chicago after they were suitably fattened for slaughter. I think RR told me he recalled seeing piles of sileage at the canning plant. This process must have ended long before Leo worked for the BN or I'm sure he would have mentioned it.
> >
> > Bob Herrick
> >
> > --- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, rgortowski@ wrote:
> > >
> > > List,
> > >
> > > I'm modeling 1950, and I'm wondering if you would see live cattle inbound from Minneapolis/St. Paul heading east to Chicago? Also, would you see NP or GN stock cars heading east on the C&I? I could certainly see empties heading west to get them back to the home roads.
> > >
> > > Also meat related - the Swift plant in Rochelle received live beef/hogs from where?
> > >
> > > I appreciate any answers I can get.
> > >
> > > Rich G.
> > >
> >
>

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