(erielack) Milk Traffic

["Richard Recordon" <recordor_@_comcast.net>]

Brad wrote:

"Ah, so the milk was not refrigerated so it could be hauled long distances then."

No Brad the milk was refrigerated starting at the farm and kept that way to the consumer through every stage of the milk business right on through to the current "system." Milk must be kept below ~50 F or bacteria will begin to grow that will eventually sour the milk even if it is refrigerated back below 50F.

In the can era a farmer cooled his milk in a spring or ice house before transporting it to the local milk station (for further transport as raw milk) or the bottling plant (for further transport in cases).

At the milk station the arriving cans would be checked for temperature and butter fat content, weighed and placed in railroad cans which were kept cold till train time in vats of brine ice. Once in the railroad milk car the mass of the chilled milk and the insulation of the car would keep the milk cool through transport. In some cases ice was shoveled over the cans when the car was full.

Once mechanical refrigeration became reliable enough milk stations switched over to cooling the milk mechanically and filling their cans with it that way.

Bottling plants would work much the same way, keeping the filled bottles refrigerated in cold rooms by ice or mechanical until loaded into the milk cars.

With the introduction of the railroad milk tank car, milk received at the milk station would be cooled and stored in refrigerated tanks till train time. Big enough stations would have milk tank car/s spotted for loading while smaller ones would pump their cargo into a car on the milk train. The two 3000 (commonly) gallon tanks in each car would keep the milk at loading temperature for 24 hours without mechanical refrigeration.


Oh yeah, bottled milk lasted on the EL right up till the end of milk shipment by rail.
Bottled milk was shipped by rail from the Sealtest Homer plant (Syracuse side of the DL&W S&U branch) into the EL era. At the end Sealtest shipped milk in cartons in refrigerated trailers on piggyback cars. Usual load was four trailers on two flats. Trailers were loaded while on the flats spotted on the Sealtest siding.

In it's heyday the Homer Sealtest (Sheffield Farms) daily shipped two to three cars of bottled milk in LV milk cars for exchange at Cortland Jct. and 3+ on the Lackawanna routing through Binghamton to Hoboken.

Rusty Recordon

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