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RE: (erielack) Milk Traffic
Thank you Rusty( and everyone else as well), that was very informative.
I had just thought that milk was basically a bulk product. I didn't think that it would be shipped in small quantities. I figured local farmers would accumulate it somewhere much like a grain elevator for shipment to cities. And not all urban areas have milk production near them so in some cases I believed it could be a pretty good haul. But it sounds like milk on trains suffers the same problem vegetables, meats and other perishables do. They need to get over the rails in a short amount of time and railroads seem to have trouble doing that. To have something like a whole days layover in a yard everytime a car needs to be switched is unacceptable for time sensitive things like this. They need switching time something more like an hour <laugh>. It would seem inprobable that milk could be shipped by dedicated unit trains like grain to make it more feasable.
It seems ironic that loads like coal, which are not time sensative at all (power plant just needs it before they run out), can be shipped in a quik manner. Coal logically moves well in unit trains that never need to be switched. load at the mine, run to the powerplant, dump unload , turn around headback empty, wash rinse repeat. The empty haul being the only downside.
Brad
ELHS 3900
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