Model Forum / General / Railroads / June 2004

Yes, in dedicated milk tank cars, most of which were enclosed in
boxcars; only the lettering on the car provided any clue as to its
contents. (Liquid oxygen was and is also carried in tankcats enclosed in
boxcars.) Borden had milk tank cars of a characteristic shape, models of
which have been offered from time to time. Google on "borden milk cars"
- you should find lots of info.

HTH&GL

I've seen brass models of American milk tankers which didn't look like
regular tank cars. Don't know any details.

I suspect that in the churn era the distances would have been to long
- British vehicles ran at fast passenger speed instead of slow
freight, and were cooled by airflow through slatted or louvred sides.
It didn't get as hot as most parts of the US get in Summer, either.

Here's a link to pictures of two different styles of US milk cars.  The Borden
car was (obviously) used for bulk, while I believe the GA car was used for cans:

http://www.irm.org/cgi-bin/searchr.cgi?q=milk

Steve

    I live on Long Island. The Long Island RR for decades ran a
milk train each day.
http://www.mth-railking.com/detail.asp?item=20-5534-1

Ken (NY)
Chairman,
Department Of Redundancy Department®
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email:
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spammers can send mail to uce@ftc.gov

 Milk was supplied to US cities by rail up thru the '60's, after which
the business went to trucks.  Boston's milk came from as far away as
Wells River, Vermont.  Some was shipped in bottles, some in standard (10
gal?) milk cans and a lot in bulk milk tankers.  
 Bulk tankers saved steam cleaning, loading and returning all the
cans.  Health regs required steam cleaning of all containers before
reusing them.  It was easier to clean one bulk tank than endless 10
gallon cans.  
 Athearn and MDC offer US milk cars painted for a variety of dairies.
The Athearn car is their "express reefer", a 50 foot wood car with a
round roof.  The MDC car is also 50 foot, but a different body style, a
pitched box car like roof.  Both models have ice hatches which were not
prototypical for the tank cars.  Bulk milk was chilled at the creamery,
loaded into tanks cold and relied upon the insulation of the tank to
stay cold in transit.  No ice, no mechanical refrigeration.  Naturally a
breakdown on a hot summer day could cost you the whole cargo if it
warmed up and spoiled.  
 Externally the tank cars looked a lot like the cars used for bottles
and cans.  The tanks were glass lined for cleanliness and mounted on the
floor of an other wise ordinary express reefer.  The milk trains were
priority traffic, and moved at a good clip to make it to market before
the cargo went bad.  A fair number of milk trains were passenger trains,
perhaps one or two coaches at the end of 10 or 20 milk reefers.

David Starr

On Mon, 21 Jun 2004 15:08:33 UTC, "Beowulf" <peter.forden@swipnet.se>
wrote: 2000

Milk in the standard cans was also shipped in express cars, i.e. in
passenger or mail trains.  These were not express trains but were a
lot faster than freights and the milk was not run through the freight
yards.