We have talked in the past about lists of preserved equipment. I stumbled across this list yesterday which I thought some of you might find of interest:

http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/Sandife ... resStk.htm

Mr. Sandifer seems to have done a pretty good job in compiling the list. He told me that stock cars and their operations, is his main interest. The list is part of the Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society website.

Les

Does anyone know when the last shipment of cattle by rail happened? I remember once in the mid 60's that a local farmer had a shipment of prize cattle shipped to Hoopeston IL. on the N&W ex Nickle Plate. I was talking to the conductor on the local that delivered the car & he said this was probably the last cattle shipment he or I would see by rail & he was correct.

Dave Huffman

Much later than you might think. Conrail had livestock cars tagged on to the end of some TV trains on the former PRR mainline up till around 1980.

What's amazing to me is if the inventory is accurate and if I counted correctly, there are less than 30 standard gauge stock cars remaining out of the thousands upon thousands that roamed the country until after WWII.

Not to belabor the whole thing, but I'd bet that if you asked Joe or Jane Sixpack what a stock car was, they'd respond that they saw some just last weekend--they race them at the local speedway every Saturday night. This Bud's for you!

Sic transit gloria mundi.

Thanks!

QR National (which is the new name for Queensland Rail since it went national) here in Australia still runs block stock trains in the very large Queensland outback- and they claim them to be profitable!

Stock cars in preservation seem to have gone the same way as yours- not very fancy so have seemingly been forgotten. There are some in preservation here but I couldn't put my hands on a list.

Wes

Jim -

According the Mr. Sandifer, the Santa Fe still had 7,880 stock cars on the roster as late as 1954! Reading his comments on the subject is quite fascinating and here is the connection to those pages:

http://www.atsfrr.com/resources/Sandife ... Stk/02.htm

The various pages include:

Stock car loads
Stock yards
Feeding stations
Bedding
Operations
Paperwork
Model opeations
Models (N and HO)

What would be interesting for those rail museums lucky enough to have at least one car, would be a way to educate the general public about some of these things.

Les

The Union Pacific was hauling hogs in stock-cars to the Los Angles area in the 1980s. Big John brand?

-Hudson

The AT&SF stock car at Orange Empire has been restored, repainted, and most of the lettering redone (see picture of John LePrince lettering). It will have center bench seats to haul human stock and maybe someday it will be mated with the museum's AT&SF drover caboose.

Actually, that list is FAR from complete. Two weeks ago Steve asked for surviving stock cars on another list; his at the time consisted of fewer than 15 cars. It took me an hour with the "Mighty Power of Google" to find him another 35 cars to add to his list, half of which were Colorado narrow gauge cars.

Give me another five or six hours and I should be able to raise the tally to 100 or so. (I'm NOT actually going to; I'm just sayin'!)

The last regular shipments of livestock by rail were the "Farmer John" cars on Union Pacific. They were loaded with hogs in Nebraska and probably Iowa, and came into Southern California on the former LA & Salt Lake line. Their destination was Clougherty Packing Co. in Vernon, so the last few miles may have been on the LA Junction Ry. When my wife and I drove through Nebraska in June 1990, we saw a stock car with HOGX reporting marks being loaded, and this was near the end for the "real pig train". Alas, none of these cars were preserved.

Awwww, c'mon Ray....do it! Those of us interested in historic freight equipment would like the additional cars! No rush. Just whenever you can squeeze it in!

Les

There should still be several cars in Alamosa, over by the wye. Last time I was there in '09 there were about 9-10 standard gauge, steel cars, with no trucks.....
Probably Rio Grande? As well there were a number or narrow gauge cars, mostly stock cars with maybe a couple box cars, also missing trucks,couplers etc. They are on private property, with several old buildings.
Also, just outside of town, along the branch to Antonito there are three more steel/standard gauge cars being used as coops or perhaps hog pens, they are buried in the ground about halfway.
There should be several narrow gauge cars in the town of Monte Vista, right next to FEC 148, these were reasonably complete, but rough.
I'll try to find some of my pictures to post......

And for something somewhat different don't forget the poultry car at the Museum of Transportation near St Louis. This is Poultry Transportation Company (PTCX) #423, built in 1921, and thought to be the only such car to survive.

Ron beat me to the Poultry car. I don't know of any others still surviving. Still has the original poop in it (or did last time I saw it).

Another car that should be included in the "Horse Cars" section is ATSF 1992 at the Los Angeles County Fairgrounds in Pomona.