Re: (erielack) Milk Traffic

["Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>]

Jim,

It's possible some cheese did move on EL in refrigerated trailers. There's 
that oufit in Wisconsin (where else?) that used to ship dozens of TOFC loads 
of cheese every autumn. They were taken to Chicago and distributed from 
there. I'm not sure how long they'd been doing that but this is one 
possibility. It appears that you might be just the person to write that 
"macro view" account, as least as far as Erie/DL&W/EL is concerned. Milk 
traffic is a very interesting topic. How about it?

Paul B

- ----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Guthrie" <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>
To: "Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>; "EL Mailing List" 
<erielack_@_lists.elhts.org>
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 12:05 PM
Subject: Re: (erielack) Milk Traffic


>>>One thing that always perplexed me was how fast the milk traffic 
>>>evaporated.  In 1960 it was still a fairly large commodity but >>seemed 
>>>to drift away with the mail contracts.  The odd one was Becker who could 
>>>have easily trucked milk.  Were truckers >>that much cheaper?  Or, did 
>>>the railroads find milk a money looser?
>
>>Another good pun. Basically it was short-haul traffic, and once you had 
>>good highways it was unprofitable for rails at the >truck rate.
>
> Somewhat more complicated than that.
>
> The history of the milk traffic is interesting -- and no one has really 
> written in depth. There are lots of sources of data for individual 
> railroads of course. And because so many "milk runs" also carried 
> passengers, we have some good photo material. Even better, having the 
> "local" switch the creameries along the way gave 1930s-era railfans an 
> opportunity to take lots of great shots with their old speed graphics of 
> this specialized operation. Likewise, family investments in dairy co-ops 
> often spawned photo records not found with other industries.
>
> But the big "macro view" has yet to be written. One cannot understand the 
> evolution of milk on the Erie and Lackawanna without also understanding 
> the nature of the business in general.
>
> Milk filled an interesting niche -- it was the farm product of "last 
> resort" which always made the economics vulnerable. Once it became cheaper 
> to sell wheat and other grains from "the old Northwest"  in New York City 
> via the Erie Canal, milk was the result -- aided by faster means of local 
> transportation near the eastern big cities. With advances in natural ice 
> storage and technology, fresh cream and milk supplanted and replaced 
> butter and cheese to a great extent. Pasteurization and the big drive for 
> purity made milk far more popular. A large and successful lobby developed 
> to get milk into public schools so that all children -- rich and poor --  
> would have access (at subsidized prices 2 cents per half-pint when I was a 
> kid --  that's 8 cents a quart in the early 1950s!).
>
> I think every railroad coming into NY  carried milk at one time or 
> another. Looking at principal milk shed maps from the early 20th century 
> is interesting -- New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago were major 
> destinations for milk, and the business developed faster in some place 
> than others. I believe the Erie had milk on the west end into Chicago for 
> awhile, for example.
>
> All **our** favorite railroads were hugely dependent on a few commodities 
> that shaped (and mis-shaped) their histories -- consider anthracite and 
> natural ice as well as milk. But unlike the first two -- the dairy 
> industry is still with us.
>
> And the industry has been hugely influenced by federal farm -- dairy in 
> particular -- policies. States put in all manner of regulation as well --  
> mostly placating dairy farmers with a relatively expensive production cost 
> and low, unproductive margins. Farmers demand minimum price supports, for 
> example -- reflected down at your local Dairy Barn and supermarket.
>
> I've seen studies that claimed that railroads like the DL&W, O&W, LV, NYC 
> and Erie would have lost the milk business even earlier had free markets 
> prevailed, because, like the technology of the Erie Canal before, 
> mechanical refrigeration would have enabled far lower dairy farming costs 
> elsewhere.
>
> There's a thread here on E-L UPS and TOFC service; I'm not sure how much 
> the E-L received, but there were truck trailers with dairy products 
> (mainly butter and cheese) shipped eastern markets -- and still is. I 
> suspect that an analysis of the TOFC business might reveal dairy products 
> on the E-L sometime into the Conrail era -- just not in those interesting 
> and quaint old milk cars of which we're so fond.
>
> So -- yes, it switched to trucks. But the history has far more twists and 
> turns than that.
>
> Cheers,
> Jim Guthrie (who really enjoyed that ride to Branchville once upon a time) 


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