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Re: (erielack) Milk Traffic
I'm already working on anthracite.
Cheers,
Jim
- ----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Brezicki" <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>
To: "Jim Guthrie" <jguthrie_@_pipeline.com>; "EL Mailing List"
<erielack_@_lists.elhts.org>
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 4:30 AM
Subject: Re: (erielack) Milk Traffic
> 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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