Livestock Car Loadings - ICC Report - 1950

Interesting info, Ken.

Thanks for the clearing that up.

My first thought was, dang - that's a lot of cars!

 

Ken,

How does that compare to coal or sand or any other car loadings, do you have other figures?

Thanks,

Tom

 

Here is a sheet that the Frisco published for its 1955 Investor's Special Train.

It's qualitative. I will post the quantitative figures tomorrow.

 

That's great Karl.

Seems as livestock wasn't that big a part of the revenue considering the extra care required.

Thanks,

Tom

 

Karl,

That brings us back to the elusive 1955 Investors' Special Train!

Ever find out any more information about it?

Thanks,

Tom

 

Like so much about the transportation business, it varied dramatically by time and place.

Livestock traffic was particularly vulnerable to motorized highway competition, and the railroads started to lose much of their stock business in the early 20th century. Note that, according to the figures Karl provided, the Frisco's livestock tonnage dropped by over half between 1935 and 1954. And this was starting from an already-weakened position.

The midwestern railroads had already lost much of their livestock traffic before 1935, especially in short-haul markets where good roads existed. The abandonment proceedings for the former KCC&S, which took place in 1934, indicate that most of the livestock traffic from its service area (southwestern Missouri) to Kansas City was then moving by truck. Frisco maintenance forces were tearing down stockpens along the Clinton sub in the 1950s.

In the early days, before effective highway competition, it was a different story. 19th-century freight loading data from the KCC&S shows that originating livestock traffic varied from a high of 35,110 tons (25% of total) in 1891 to a low of 14,160 tons (12% of total) in 1900. It's not a straight decline, by the way, but an apparently random series of up-and-down bounces from one year to the next.

This was kind of a special case, since the KCC&S provided a direct connection between a major livestock-producing area and the Kansas City packing houses. But I think it's safe to say that livestock was a substantial percentage of traffic on the Frisco and other midwestern railroads up into the early twentieth century, and declined thereafter.

There were lots of other factors that caused year-to-year fluctuations in the livestock trade, such as droughts, changes in traffic routings due to new railroad construction or shifting inter-railroad traffic alliances, changes in the organization of the meatpacking business, etc. Even overseas wars had an effect.

One 19th-century KCFS&M annual report attributes a boost in horse traffic to the British Army's need for cavalry horses! Unfortunately, I can't remember whether this was attributed to the Second Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, or some other war.

 

Additional data.

The Statistical Abstracts of the United States indicate that the livestock tonnage originating on US railroads peaked in the late 'teens and early '20s.

It had fallen by about one-half from that point until the mid 1930s.

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html

Obviously this is nationwide data, not Frisco-specific, but it illustrates a trend that the Frisco, like all other railroads, was subject to.

 

Here's a peek at Frisco freight traffic from the 1909 Annual Report.

 

Here is a more comprehensive look at Frisco tonnage, 1935-1954

 

I find it interesting that the best return on either per car or per ton in 1954 was animals & products.

 

What category would petroleum products be under?

Mines?

Or something else?

Lots of oil, gasoline and diesel was hauled on the Frisco.

Thanks,

Tom

 

"Animals and products" included the following subcategories. In addition to livestock, it included several types of perishable food products which required special handling and/or refrigeration.

Horses and Mules
Cattle and calves
Sheep and goats
Hogs
Fresh meats
Other packing house products
Poultry
Eggs
Butter and cheese
Wool
Hides and leather
Other animals and products

 

Petroleum and its products were split between two categories.

Crude petroleum and asphaltum were counted as products of mines, but refined petroleum products were counted as "manufactures and miscellaneous".

I'm getting the categories and the nationwide data from the online Statistical Abstracts of the US, which for many years included a table of total rail freight tonnage by category. The data came from the annual reports filed by the ICC. The page and table numbers varied from year to year, but can usually be found by looking in the "Transportation" section of each annual volume.

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/statab.html

 

I always wanted the Lionel yellow "cattle car" for my 027 train but Santa never brought one. It is interesting that only 1 Live Poultry movement is recorded for 1950. Must have been a prized bird, pre-KFC too!

On the Frisco line between Sherman and Irving where the line crossed the old Valley View Road in Farmers Branch there was a cattle guard installed on the track. I never saw any livestock roaming around but the black and yellow covered wagons always had to work in both directions making the sound of music to my ears. The line climbed from Carrollton south and from Irving north, cresting at FB.

In 1949 after late winter rains, a Frisco freight hit a washout at the branch, giving Farmers Branch its name I understand. My grandmother saved the Dallas Morning News with the flood pix but it got lost in her last move. It was country back then. Just look at the area today!

How many modelers have cattle guards on their pikes? This appears to be seldom modeled on layouts I have seen.

Joe Toth