How far did milk cars stray from their corner of the USA?

1) How far did milk cars stray from their corner of the USA?   Not very far.

2) Would I see a milk car from New England in Pittsburg or San Francisco?  Pittsburg might be a bit of a stretch, depending on the dairy which produced the milk and the processing plant. San Francisco would be totally out of the question!

Begs the question.  Assuming an average speed of 40 mph at what point in the route would a milk car headed west from Bangor, Maine to San Francisco, California be considered a cheese car? 

In all seriousness, this is a great topic.  I have assembled a small collection of Lionel milk cars that I plan on 2-railing as there were several local dairies on the Jersey Shore during the era I am interested in.  I love the varied graphics, but wondered as well how authentic mixed dairy names would really be. 

@GG1 4877 posted:

Begs the question.  Assuming an average speed of 40 mph at what point in the route would a milk car headed west from Bangor, Maine to San Francisco, California be considered a cheese car? 

Or a sour cream car.   They have milk in the west, so one would assume that there would be milk cars...

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Or a sour cream car.   They have milk in the west, so one would assume that there would be milk cars...

True, except NOT from "New England".

Most milk from the rural areas of New England  was shipped to New York City or Boston as far as being run as designated milk trains. Rutland shipped to NYC and B&M to Boston. There were many local dairies that produced milk. In those cases local farmers handled the milk by truck.

To be sort of prototypical. The Rutland had a few cars of their own. They shipped pretty much all Borden’s, Sheffield Farms and occasionally Dairyman’s League or a NYC car. They did handle some cars bound for Boston that they turned over to the B&M at Bellows Falls.

The B&M had there own cars, Hoods, Brookside Creamery, White Brothers, United Farmers and I believe Borden’s.

Lionel offered 3 Nicely done White Brothers cars. They only had 3. You would usually only see one in a consist. One would be at the plant in Quincy Ma. . One would be traveling north, Empty. The 3rd one would be traveling south with a fresh load.

Kalmbach has a good book covering all aspects of milk train operations.

That depends if you want to have them hauling milk or not. Some were later used to haul other commodities, like glue (see below). I would assume for the reefer style cars they may have been later repurposed to into regular boxcars by removing the interior tanks.

The Borden Company owned and operated creameries throughout upstate New York and New England. While milk originally was transported in metal cans covered with ice, later innovations saw railroad cars equipped with larger glass tanks to carry milk in bulk. One such design was the "butter dish" car, which was built by MDC (some sources say Borden itself) in 1935 (some sources say 1936), containing a pair of 6,000 gallon (some sources say 3,000) glass tanks. The nickname of butter dish is obvious. There were three different paint schemes, and the first cars had elaborate though unnecessary streamlining "fins" on the ends and top. The top ones were removed leaving just the end fins. The story goes that after milk service the cars were repurposed to haul glue. One car went bad order at a box factory and was forgotten at the customer's siding until it was acquired by the Illinois Railroad Museum, who has since restored it.

I scratchbuilt a model in HO scale and did a bit of researching into them at the time: https://dandhcoloniemain.blogs...dish-car-part-1.html

On my layout (PRR circa 1952) I've modeled the daily movement of Supplee milk cars between creameries at Huntingdon and Bedford PA, and onward to Supplee's main plant in Philadelphia.  Farmers brought the milk to the local creameries in cans each morning, where the milk was filtered, chilled and pumped into the glass lined tanks in Supplee's wood body milk tank cars.  Late in the afternoon an eastbound mail and express passenger train would pick up the loaded cars for a fast run to Philadelphia - as Supplee's milk cars were not refrigerated.  In the case of Supplee their small fleet of cars moved in a virtual closed loop routing.

I've found that modelling the PRR's daily movement of empty and loaded Supplee milk cars over the Middle Division has added quite a bit of interest to passenger train operations on the layout.  In the photo below a pair of empty Supplee milk tank cars is seen being uncoupled from the rear of an early morning westbound passenger train at Huntingdon by a locally assigned consol.  One of the Supplee cars will be spotted at the Huntingdon creamery, the other with be handed off to the Huntingdon and Broad Top Mountain RR for the run to Bedford.

H&BT train #2 returning to Huntingdon, PA with a loaded Supplee milk tank car later that same day.

Late in the afternoon the 2 loaded milk cars are coupled to the rear of PRR Mail & Express train #96 for the run to Philadelphia.  To minimize switching delays on the main the milk car will carry the markers as far as Harrisburg. 

Before modern refrigeration milk didn’t travel well. That’s the reason there were so many dairies in any given metropolitan area.

Thanks to all who responded.  My knowledge of milk car ops has been expanded greatly.

Ed R.:  Please show a side view of #37.  It looks like a very interesting engine.

Regards,

Ed

My father was born in 1907.  He lived on a dairy farm in Connecticut and used to tell me about handling milk in the teens and early 1920's.  The farm would produce milk today and store it in metal 40-quart cans that were kept in an ice-water bath.  He would get up the next morning, hitch up the horses, load the cans on a wagon and drive about 3 miles to meet the milk train at 4:15 a.m.  The train would exchange empty cans for the full ones at the milk platform.  If he had 8 cans, he got back 8 cans.

This would happen every single day!  Must have been good for him though, since he lived to be 94.

Leased (GPEX) milk cars were assigned to specific milk companies.  So they would stay local.  For example, a Bowman car would stay in Chicago and a Hood car would stay in New England.  Larger companies like Borden would assign cars where needed.

During World War II, cars were moved where needed.  So if Bowman needed extra cars to serve military bases, a Hood car might be assigned.

My grandfather operated a dairy farm outside Louisville, Kentucky, and shipped those milk cans, kept in  big concrete cooler in a milk house.  Every morning when my brother and l were there,  we rode out some distance to the state road, through three farm gates, in the bed of his 1937 Chevy pickup, among the banging and clanging milk cans to set the cans by the road to be picked up by truck and delivered  to the bottler in Louisville. The pickup was pursued, out and back, by whatever barking, yelping stray dogs happened to be in residence. I have also long wondered how western cities, such as Denver, got milk.  The Denver and lnterurban ran into town, too, so there could have been several ways milk could get to bottlers.

They had Buffalo milk out west, way back when.  

The New York Ontario & Western delivered a lot of milk from the Catskills and south Central New York to the New York City area. Here are two recently produced (MTH) special run milk cars….

Peter

A bit of milk transportation trivia.  I had to deal with a tractor trailer tank cleaning company to get access to one of the things I maintained on their property that we paid rent to keep there, and did the normal chit chat and  hobnobbing meeting the fellows and learning about the job of tank cleaning.  You can transport anything in a tank truck after a cleaning, like gasoline on one trip, clean it, and coke syrup on the next, but you cannot ship anything but milk in a milk tank truck.   You want to talk about a hot job?  They crawled in those things in the heat of August in Greenville, SC.

This US Government map shows the milk movements of New England in 1929.  As you can see traffic was shipped locally amongst the NE RRs such as the Rutland, B&M, NH and other shortlines however, a commodity known as "ice cream mix" was moved from western states like MI and WI into New England, primarily Worcester, Boston and Providence. This was known by local shippers as "western cream." So it would not have been unusual to see midwestern cars like a Frisco milk car in Boston.  In fact photo evidence of this does exist tho i cannot post it here.  An internet search might bring it up. New England milk however was not shipped west.

CALNNC, I'm afraid you were told a tall tale. In a "FOOD GRADE TANKER" you can only carry food grade products, never fuel or non-edibles. Also, you can carry any food grade product before and after carrying milk as long as you get washed out.

russ

This is an informative thread. And Keystone Ed, I don't know how I could've missed your layout as this is the first time I've seen it- it's awesome- what kind of 2-rail track is that? The wood ties make it so neat, and the rail height appears to be scale!

My experience with milk and dairies is that they stink, literally stink to high heaven! Washing equipment and the floors and everything else is a must. I imagine the same applied to the trains? I used to work in a grocery store and was the dairy manager for a while. The Lehigh Valley trucks that delivered the milk in plastic milk crates stunk bad as there were always leakers in a load. For me, it's one of the worst smells.

My questions: if a dairy wasn't nearby, and as Bob explained, the farmers bring their milk cans (10 gallons or 40 quarts) to a team track and load the containers into boxcars - 10 gallons of fluid weighs about 83 pounds! Add in the container itself and that's a muscle-builder (men had to drink the milk ).

I remember my mom had a milk can out front (I guess for display) and the milk man would leave glass bottles next to it and take the empties. I am pretty sure he drove a Divco truck - they were neat-looking! And regarding the Lionel milk cars with glass-lined tanks, in real life were these only used in dairies that pasteurized their milk and could pump it into the tanks? Obviously, glass is resistant to bacterial growth. I am wondering how else milk would be transferred into those tanks? They'd either have to pump it, or have a loading platform high enough to dump it into the tank?

I surmise most milk trains were a combination of milk cars, mail cars, and passenger coaches? This would make a neat hotshot train. I bet they moved at a very fast velocity?

@pennsyfanman posted:

CALNNC, I'm afraid you were told a tall tale. In a "FOOD GRADE TANKER" you can only carry food grade products, never fuel or non-edibles. Also, you can carry any food grade product before and after carrying milk as long as you get washed out.

russ

Guess I better be wary of CocaCola's sold in the South then.  This was over 30 years ago though.

In the Rutland’s case. They were listed on the passenger schedule. Ran across upper NY state, down through Vermont and back into NY to Chatham. Passengers were handled from Norwood NY to Rutland. From Rutland south to NY. A combine road the rear with the crew with basically just one stop to pickup cars. It left Rutland in the early afternoon and arrived at Chatham in the early evening. After a brief layover for the crew. They returned north with the empties from the Central to start the cycle over again.

If your creamery handled say 2 cars per day. You pretty much needed 6 cars to do the job at some points. At any given time they would all be at different points along the route.

In California, Southern Pacific, Santa Fe, and Pacific Electric carried milk only in cans in baggage cars

@Paul Kallus posted:

And regarding the Lionel milk cars with glass-lined tanks, in real life were these only used in dairies that pasteurized their milk and could pump it into the tanks? Obviously, glass is resistant to bacterial growth. I am wondering how else milk would be transferred into those tanks? They'd either have to pump it, or have a loading platform high enough to dump it into the tank?

I surmise most milk trains were a combination of milk cars, mail cars, and passenger coaches? This would make a neat hotshot train. I bet they moved at a very fast velocity?

Paul

Some additional info in answer to your questions.  Alot of this info is summarized from a friend of mine who assembled an extensive paper on the shipment of milk on the New Haven railroad, Mr. J. Horvath.  First, there were/are several terms used in the classification of "milk".  The term "Fluid milk" was used by the railroads for what is now known as "raw" milk (un pasteurized). Note that the term Fluid milk is now used in the US to mean processed for human consumption.  At first raw milk was shipped to bottling plants in the 40 quart metal milk can that weighed approximately 100 pounds when full. These cans were picked up at station platforms or elevated platforms along the line and typically moved to processing plants in milk can cars that were refrigerated  with ice distributed across the tops of the cans. As also noted above, baggage cars or combination cars were also used on occasion to ship milk cans. Later milk cans were still used but primarily for the shipment of "ice cream mix" to ice cream processing plants.

Around the 1920s, there was a change to consolidate milk shipments from individual farmers within some geographical area to a single rural source called a creamery or collecting station. These collecting stations weighed the raw milk and measured its cream content (a farmer’s compensation was based on both weight and cream content of the raw milk) and also pre-chilled the raw milk. The pre-chilled raw milk was then shipped to processing plants using cars called milk tank cars like Lionel's Pfaudler models. As you've seen, these cars were equipped with two large steel tanks inside the body. Each tank typically held 4,000 gallons in the postwar era for 8,000-gallon capacity. The milk was pumped into the car tanks from the creamery holding tanks.
Some info refers to the tanks inside of milk tank cars as being ‘glass-lined’ but the lining was not ‘glass’ per se but a porcelain enamel coating that was applied to the interior wall of a tank. The Pfaudler Corporation in Rochester, NY pioneered this process on a large-scale commercial basis and dominated that aspect of the milk tank car business. In later years, stainless-steel tanks were used. Also of note is that these milk tank cars were thermally insulated but NOT refrigerated. Studies at the time indicated that milk tank cars could adequately transport the pre-chilled raw milk the required distances in all types of weather. One source cites an extreme example of regular shipments of raw milk from Wisconsin to various locations in the Southeast, distances of the order of 1,000 miles and taking days, where the temperature of the contents did not increase by more than one degree Fahrenheit during transit. On the other hand, can cars required icing in all but the coldest weather.

Milk trains could either be all milk (with a rider coach at the rear) or milk cars could be placed on passenger trains.  As an example, raw milk to Providence RI's Hood Creamery was picked up by the B&M at several locations in New Hampshire and Maine, shipped to Boston (one well known route being the Cheshire branch through Keene NH), backrouted to Ayer MA, routed to Worcester, and placed on a local NYNH&H passenger or thru freight to Providence RI for delivery to the plant by 7am.  Additionally, in the post-war era, raw milk from Maine was shipped to Worcester MA via the joint B&M-NYNH&H train "State of Maine" to Worcester MA (via the B&M), then on to Providence RI (via the NYNH). Bottled milk from the Bellowsfalls Creamery however, was shipped to their distribution warehouse in Providence via specially equipped bottle cars.  Again, these cars were placed on local freight or passenger trains to Providence.

I think i'll go have a glass of cold milk...

I stumbled across this on You Tube a while back. Not a lot of RR action. But a pretty good documentary of what was involved in the process to get milk to market. Some good action on the B&M to Boston.

https://youtu.be/qgj1yOHCK70?si=p5hXEyd8R3yOsySy

This is a fascinating and informative thread - thanks to all who have helped educate me!!! As a kid growing up in Brooklyn, we had a milk box sitting on the front stoop and milk in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers was dropped off every couple of days. Our milk company was Renken’s, so I couldn’t resist this offering from METCA a couple of years ago. I never knew everything that was involved in getting my morning glass of milk!!!

About moving those 100 lb. cannisters - I seem to recall seeing a video of a worker tipping it a bit sideways to move it. The cannisters were round, so by tipping it a bit you could rotate it and roll it on it's base to get it where you needed, rather than picking it up to move.

Ben

The Borden company had 35 or so Milk Tank Cars made in the late 1930s to transport whole milk from small rural train stations to the creamery.  The Borden’s Company press release of February of 1936 noted, the ‘Butterdish Car’ is “the first all-metal, stream-line milk tank railroad car ever built”.   Dairy farmers must milk each cow daily and transport the milk with tank trucks or hauled it in 10 gallon cans to the train depot each day in the Northern Midwest and Northeastern states.  Fresh whole milk can last 24 hours if kept cool.  Borden’s cars had two 3000 gallon glass lined tanks mounted on a flat car.  The cars were designed in an Art Deco style popular at that time.  The tanks had a insulated tanks or insulation under the frame which was made to surround the tanks and the cars were not refrigerated.  These cars were picked up daily and transported to nearby creameries.  Only one Borden’s Milk Tank Car, the BFIX 520, still exists and it has been restored and is in the Illinois Railway Museum in Union, Illinois.

NOTE:  Please remember that the "real trains" forum is for prototypical discussion and not for posting of model trains.  Thanks for your understanding.

Good information Farmer Joe and Dave, very good reading and video information. It makes sense that the milk reefers containers were porcelain enamel coating...I had always wondered how glass would've held up without cracking.

Any time questions on the dairy industry come up, I feel obligated to point out this great book by Robert Mohowski, The New York Ontario & Western Railway and The Dairy Industry in Centrsl New York State: Milk Cans, Mixed Trains and Motor Cars. One of my favorite railroad books.

Tom

I believe mail trains and milk trains wouldn't be combined. Mail contracts were a huge part of the railroad's profits. They had to get the mail where it was going in a timely manner, or the Post Office could/would move the contract to a competing railroad. In a pinch, a "Fast Mail" train would even have priority over the railroad's top passenger train. Milk trains had to make many stops at small towns and rural loading platforms to pick up mail, so even if they went fast between stops, their overall speed was pretty slow.

On the PRR’s Middle division daily mail and express train #96 pick up Supplee milk cars at Huntington, PA.  That was one brief stop on the route between Altoona and Harrisburg.  To minimize delay a local switcher simply tacked the milk cars on the rear of the eastbound train.