Stockyards were always big business in cities and with railroads. Where are they now and how do they move cattle? Is rail still used? I have never seen a revenue stock car.
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Trucks!
Why did they go with trucks over the volume a train can carry.
Plus I honestly do not see that many cattle trucks either.
Improvements in refrigeration doomed many of the stockyards.
I'm pretty sure it's much less time, money and trouble to ship refrigerated dressed beef via truck or train than live cattle across the country nowadays.
Rusty
Rusty has it dead on right.
The gigantic industrial complexes that existed in Chicago and Kansas City are gone. They have been replaced by many smaller facilities that are in the areas where the animals are raised. Livestock go in by truck and the finished product goes out in reefer trailers to regional distribution centers and local stores.
The meat industry is like the airline industry. There aren't many DC-10 or 747 flights out of major hubs anymore but there are vastly more direct flights between many more points on smaller aircraft.
Let me add that in the previous era, the carcasses were shipped in refrigerator cars as halves and quarters to a distributor. From the distributer, they were shipped to a local butcher shop, where a butcher cut them for the housewife to buy. That is shipping a lot of bone, excess fat, etc. Now, the meat is packaged as steak or hamburger at the slaughtering plant. Much more efficient for the supermarket and shipping.
ChipR
At one time, a lot of livestock moved across Canada in stock cars . I believe the Railway had to stop , unload and feed them every so many hours.(24?) No money in that nowadays.
Cattle were once moved by special trains. Area ranchers would round up herds of cattle and drive them to small stockyards along the tracks. A train would come and pick the cattle up, and the ranchers would ride in the caboose (called stockman's car) back to the main packing house in places like Kansas City, Omaha, Chicago etc. The cattle had to be let out into pens along the way for food & water every 18 hours or so. I know a rancher who was on the last cattle drive in South Dakota and he told me about them.
Beginning around 1950 trucks got more power and could be bigger. They made the trailers double deck so they could haul more at a time. There wasn't as much need for the beg mega sized packing houses, so they put them closer to where the livestock is raised. These are cities like Sioux City NE, Sioux Falls SD, Garden City KS, Albert Lea MN etc. It's much more efficient. Trains around here do still haul beef and pork, but it's frozen in reefer cars. Most of that is going to export to China, Japan etc.
Kent in SD
What initially killed the big live stock urban centers was unionization. Slaughtering was moved out closer to the field where the stock was raised. Much of the slaughter work is done by non-union labor these days. As far as I know, railroads never made any money hauling livestock. If the stock was not delivered within federal time guidelines, the railroad was fined. Additionally, stock was very frightened while in transit and would lose 10-15% of their weight. The Burlington, and I would imagine other railroads did the same, maintained a facility for off loading and fattening up stock, in Montgomery, IL, just outside Chicago.
The car that was assigned to the cowboys who accompanied livestock in transit was called a "drovers car". It's origins are kind of humorous - railroaders didn't want the smelly cowboys in their waycar! And the railroad didn't want those smelly cowboys stinking up a passenger coach, hence a designated car!
Back in steam era days (1940's, 1950's), on the Burlington, in Wyhog's territory, on the Alliance and Sheridan Divisions, when there was a large stock movement of 30 or more cars, they were run as a special livestock express train. These trains had the highest priority and had special designations, such as:
YLSX - Yellowstone Livestock Express, originating in Hardin and Big Horn,
MT
PRLSX - Powder River Livestock Express, from Gillette, WY
BBLSX - Box Butte Livestock Express, originating in Alliance, NE
SHLSX - Sand Hills Livestock express, originating Antioch to Seneca, NE
This information was contained in a Burlington Route Historical Society publication titled "Stock Cars and Livestock Traffic" and was provided by retired, and now deceased, Alliance Division dispatcher Joe Hardy. Alas, that publication is currently out of print.
A great little vignette was writen up in "Classic Trains" a while back, by photographer Bob Jack. About 1954, he was out along the Q awaiting steam train activity. He was in Kewanee, IL, crossed the double iron and saw a smudge of smoke on the horizon. He turned his auto around to get in position for a photo. But the gates were beginning to come down. The train was coming a whale of a lot faster then he thought. He got his car turned and "wham", the train was flying across the road crossing. The locomotive number didn't register initially, the train was relatively short, about 15 cars, all of which were stock cars, moving at near Zephyr speed! Then the locomotive's number registered - it was a Hudson! That's why the Burlington called them "Livestock Expresses"!!
there are unions at the small plants too.
Originally Posted by wb47:
there are unions at the small plants too.
Are you sure about that? There are now large Hispanic populations living in the communities where this work is done. I suspect they are there, and employed, because they are receptive/accepting of low wages, unpleasant working conditions and non-union status. Employers have gotten pretty sophisticated in union prevention.
Originally Posted by mark s:
What initially killed the big live stock urban centers was unionization.
<snip>
As far as I know, railroads never made any money hauling livestock. If the stock was not delivered within federal time guidelines, the railroad was fined. Additionally, stock was very frightened while in transit and would lose 10-15% of their weight. The Burlington, and I would imagine other railroads did the same, maintained a facility for off loading and fattening up stock, in Montgomery, IL, just outside Chicago.
Hmmm... Four good reasons why metropolitan stockyards became impractical. (How's about the smell... Reason #5? Especially on a hot, summer day?) Add in the previously mentioned advances in refrigeration, that's #6.
Yet the demise is because of unions...
Rusty
Not only did the meat business change, but the railroads wanted to get out of the livestock business and seized the opportunity to do so at the same time packers were decentralizing their operations. Thus the railroad could close its stockyards (and, on western railroads, every medium or large yard had one) and get rid of the stock cars. One by one, they cancelled their livestock tariffs.
Union Pacific stayed in the business later than most other roads, because they had a fleet of very modern stock cars and a livestock movement that was a sure winner. They loaded hogs in Utah, whisked them to Los Angeles in less than 36 hours (thereby avoiding the 36-hour law which would have required unloading and watering the hogs) and delivered the cars to Clougherty Packing (Farmer John). Normally, they were handled at the rear of a piggyback hotshot, and even the yard engine that took them from East Yard to Clougherty, less than a mile down the San Pedro branch, was a hot move.
Originally Posted by Wyhog:
... In early evening we shoved the train into Gillette and it was embarrassing. All the grimy creosote stained section guys were in the cattle cars with their hands outside the slats and "Moo-ing" loudly as we slowly went over the crossings. Many puzzled looks on motorists faces stopped at the crossings.
Now that was wrong. Funny, but wrong. 
Ya, unions had nothing to do with it, it was refrigeration - specifically, the development of mechanical refrigerator cars. With iced reefers, you couldn't get the interior of the car to freezing, the best you could do was 33-34F...so you could keep cold things cold, but couldn't keep frozen things frozen. Because of that, it was safer to ship live cattle to stockyards in Chicago, Kansas City, South St.Paul etc. - where the meat packers were.
Once mechanical refrigerator cars became common around 1950 or so, it began to make more economic sense to slaughter the cattle locally - nearer where they were raised - and then send frozen sides of beef to the meat packing plants for final processing (cut up into steaks or ground into hamburger etc.)
Here's a little tidbit gleaned at a Protoype Modellers Seminar a couple of years ago. Henry Ford got the idea for his auto assembly line technique from watching a slaughter house operation, wherein cattle are dis-assembled! He thought let's just do this in reverse! The Armour and Swift slaughter houses employed animal "horse power" where the livestock walked up ramps to the 5th floor of the plant, where they were killed, then employed gravity conveyor lines to move down the dis-assembly line, floor by floor. Spooky efficiency!
With iced reefers, you couldn't get the interior of the car to freezing, the best you could do was 33-34F
Right. That is why ice cream was invented after mechanical refrigeration. 
One word...
SALT!
Ya, unions had nothing to do with it, it was refrigeration
The UFCW seems to think that the move to smaller decentralized plants and illegal immigration have weakened the position of union meat workers.
Lots of good thoughts on this subject. Coming from a livestock background, let me add a couple.
As Tom mentioned, the last major move of livestock by rail was the Clougherty hog move by Union Pacific. I believe this move last until the mid to late 90's. By then, UP's fleet of stock cars had mostly been replaced by the HOGX cars. These cars were triple deck and side were shutter-like in that the could be opened and closed like the vents on your home. In my travels, I've stopped at the hog buying stations in Schyuler, NE and Marysville, KS. When loaded, these cars were usually pick up in transit by the hottest of the hot piggyback trains and on a schedule usually to cross the desert areas at night. These cars also had watering troughs in them and were filled prior to departure and also watered intransit. I heard from several sources that when UP failed on service and didn't get it correctly that Mr Clougherty wouldn't call Omaha, he would just would show up.
In my area, not sure when that last move occurred on the Southern Railway. White Packing (which is now closed) in Salisbury, NC is/was located on the Salisbury to Asheville line did receive cattle years ago by rail. Last time I was in the area, siding had been long removed, however, on holding pens and unloading ramps was still in place.
Of course, today rail activity around and near slaughter houses is miminal. When I was in Schyuler, NE, there was an Excel plant nearby and of course live cattle arrived by truck. With many kill plants locating in close proximity to the feedlot, really no need for rail. The Excel plant and the Hormel plant in Fremont, NE both had sidings which loaded tank cars which consists primarily of inedible tallow or blood. If you're processing 2000 head of fed cattle per day, it won't take long to load out a tank car.
The plant at Gaffney doesn't have a rail siding into the plant, but a couple of miles down the road, located a bone meal facility and receives hopper car loads of bone meal from packers such as Monfort and Packerland Packing. If there's ever any spillage of the bone meal from loading and it gets wet, everyone knows it.
The livestock and meat packing industry is surely destined for more change. A new company has emerged on the scene over the last few years and has been purchasing some of the larger plants in our country. I watch cattle sales via internet all across the country, and he's buying cattle everywhere and paying top dollar.
When cattle ever move by rail again? Never say never, but it will be hard to stack a pot belly trailer, but watching Boyd and stacking the flat bed decks, who knows.
Here in SW Kansas within a 100 mile radius we have 4 large packing plants, Excel(Dodge City),High Plains Dressed Beef(Dodge City),National Beef(liberal),Tyson(Garden City). All kill 5-8000 head per day 5 days a week. All the meat leaves in boxes, no swinging beef anymore. Very little leaves by rail. They do use a few reefers, but almost all leaves by truck. They use covered hoppers to rail out bone chips, tanks to rail out edible and inedible tallow.
It is cheapest to truck in small(400#) cattle to the feedyards(local) Feed them on local grain then short haul them to the plants. The hide(leather) pays for most of the cost of the animal, the sweet meats pay for most of the processing cost, and the meat is the profit.
The workers are union and almost all Hispanic.
Tomarrow I will be at Tyson working on parking lot lightpoles.
Originally Posted by archdalecurve:
(1) The Excel plant and the Hormel plant in Fremont, NE both had sidings which loaded tank cars which consists primarily of inedible tallow or blood.
(2) A new company has emerged on the scene over the last few years and has been purchasing some of the larger plants in our country. I watch cattle sales via internet all across the country, and he's buying cattle everywhere and paying top dollar.
1. At the IBP plant I worked in, the blood was boiled down to recover the iron in it. That was then used in fertilizer. If you pass a packing plant and it REALLY stinks, that's probably the blood boiling unit. I never got used to that smell.
2. The Chinese have bought up a major hog packing operation, Smithfield Foods.
Kent in SD
Two23, always thought that 'stink' was the smell of money.
You're very correct on Smithfield being purchased by the Chinese, which causes great concern.
The company purchasing U S beef plants is JBS from Brazil.
Yesterday, due to harsh cold, slaughter cows were in tighter supply, and went thru the roof. JBS, Brown and FPL Foods paid top dollar and then some.
