Livestock generally was shipped from west to east, south to north. Each spring, the PRR forwarded a large stock train that originated from the King Ranch in Texas to the King Ranch's stock farm at Doe Run in southern Chester County (Nr. Philadelphia, PA). The purpose of this movement was to bring stock east and fatten them up through the summer months for eventual movement to the eastern slaughterhouses in Philadelphia (Cross Bros.) and the New York area. These cows were delivered in cars of the T&P, Santa Fe and SP. Interchange rules forbade empty movement of Pennsy cars to Texas.

This stock train was still operating into the spring of 1966. The cars would be brought from Enola (across the river from Harrisburg) east to Pomeroy, Pa. (26 miles east of Lancaster, Pa.), where it would be taken down the Newark & Pomeroy Branch to Doe Run to be unloaded. The empty cars would then be returned to Enola for disposition west.

Typically Texas cattle would move out in April-May to a place like the Flint Hills of Kansas where they would spend the summer getting fat. Around September - October they would be shipped off to market. Slow branch lines which might only see one local a day might see 5-6 stock extras per day during the "cattle rush."

On the Grand Canyon line, sheep and cattle were often shipped out in the fall, especially if a severe winter was forecast.

In the 1940s, livestock could move from Denver to Chicago in 31 hours with no stops necessary. However, to reach the East Coast would require 80 hours and two rest and feeding stops. The trip from Texas to Los Angeles took an average of 6 days, which means the stock would be rested three times on the way.

Most local stockyards had only one or two car chutes. It was standard procedure for empties to be loaded at the last moment. The local freight or switcher would arrive at the stockyard. Empties may have been spotted at the yard in advance or have come with the train. The cars would then be loaded one at a time, in sequence as the engine moved each to the chute. Alternately the rancher might load empties spotted beforehad, pulling them to the chute with a tractor, and having most loaded just in time for the local to pick them up. Then they would move immediately to the yard or interchange where they would be expedited to their destination. Santa Fe said, "We can not bring live stock into a terminal, permit it to stand several hours before being taken to the stock yards, or while making up an outbound trains, and reverse the process after the stock has been fed and watered..." When loaded cars were delivered to a stockyard, they would be unloaded immediately with the locomotive moving each car in sequence to the loading chute. The empties might be left at the yard or might continue on the same train. In any case, the locomotive was often necessary to the loading and unloading process. Unloading 5 cars of sheep required 35 minutes, 7 minutes per car.

When stock had to be unloaded for feeding, it was standard procedure on the Santa Fe to load them back into the same cars they arrived in or into home road cars if they were available and to send the foreign road cars home empty. Not all railroads replaced foreign cars with home road cars, but that appears to have been a Santa Fe practice.

However home cars might not be available. An example from The Warbonnet concerns Train #53 from Lometa to San Saba, TX, in September, 1947. The train included 17 loads and one empty plus a combine. The five stock cars of sheep in the consist included two ATSF, and one each from LN, CN, and ACL. The San Bernardino analysis in these pages include cars from ASEX (Armour), B&O, CBQ, CDX (Cudahy), CNW, GASX, GN, LN, MILW, MKT, MP, MSCH, NcStL, NP, NYC, PRR, RI, SLSX, SP,TNO, TP, and UP. An "Interline Freight Received" report at Willard, AZ, dated 1959, listed 3 RI, 1 TNO, and 3 CBQ cars on one train. In railroading it is risky to say, "those cars would have never...."

If more than 15 carloads were shipped together, Santa Fe might operate a stock extra. Caretakers were permitted to accompany the stock in route and rode in the caboose. If there were 6 or more caretakers on a single train, a special drover's car was provided. These might be cars built for that service or older passenger cars. Drover cars were usually placed directly behind the locomotive(s) and stayed with the stock cars. After the shipment was complete, drovers were given script for a coach ride home on regular passenger trains.

When horses were shipped by express, free tickets were provided for attendants accompanying them. The number was based on the type of horse (race, polo, or show) and the number being shipped. See Santa Fe circular 33-S, Instructions for Trainmen governing the Handling of Transportation for more details. Free attendants could also accompany car loads of live animals, birds, and live fish. The Santa Fe excluded women and minors from this privilege.

Car movements remained sizable until the late 50s when a steady decline began. In 1971 there were only 427 carloads and the Santa Fe moved to discontinue livestock transportation in early 1973. They only had 766 stock cars on the live list at that time. Tom Birkett reported switching 2 cars of stock from the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City in the summer of 1972, wondering if these were the last two cars shipped from there. It was estimated that by January 1, 1974, only 68 cars were still serviceable. On February 27, 1974, the ICC authorized the cancellation of the carload rates on livestock in the west.

An exception was the "Big Pig Palace" HOGX cars of the UP which continued until the summer of 1993. These were 86' cars designed specifically for hogs and ran from eastern Nebraska to California.

Jim Hollis wrote, "Livestock shipments on the former NP and CB&Q parts of BN lasted until 1978. This was due to an age-old agreement between Montana ranchers and the NP/later BN. The last shipments were a real pain as most of the loading/unloading pens were gone and it made any trains with these cars very hot. The last shipment I can remember for sure was in the fall of 1978 which ended in a failed drawbar on the lead of three cars near Belmont, Nebraska. When the drawbar came out it took the whole end of the car with it, which in turned derailed the second car and scattered bovines all over the right of way. These were on cattle from Montana to eastern Nebraska. BN very wisely used this incident to end livestock shipments for good."

Stock cars were usually placed at the head end for a variety of reasons. The main was to reduce slack damage. All lame, gored, or otherwise damaged stock had to be accounted for. Other reasons were to expedite switching them out at feeding stations or the operation of watering poles, and to lower the odors which crewmen in the caboose must bear. Of course empty stock cars could appear anywhere in the train.

Santa Fe reported, "Kicking or dropping cars containing livestock is against the rules of our company and must never be done. So far as possible live stock should be handled on the head end of the train and should not be switched with."

For more information, see these attached document:

• Livestock, Now That its In Our Care... (ATSF)
• Methods for Loading and Handling Livestock (AAR)
• Livestock Shipping (UP)

An often forgotten stock shipment was the LCL (Less than Car Load) shipment. It was the practice of the Santa Fe to operate a weekly LCL stock car on its locals in certain parts of the country. That car might pick up two cows at one station, a couple of mules at another, a horse at another, while delivering newly acquired stock to yet another station. This was a regular occurrence at certain times of the year on the Howard Branch.

In the west where Open Range Laws were common, livestock owners grazed their herds without restriction and without fences. It was a landowner's or railroad's responsibility to fence livestock out, not the stockman's job to fence his stock in. It was cheaper for the railroad to pay for a dead cow than to maintain fences. If a cow was hit on the track, the crew would stop, seek its brand, and fill out the appropriate report so the owner could be reimbursed. The crew must be prepared for the wrath of the enginehouse crew when they got home with a dirty engine.

Several things worked together to cause the demise in stock cars.

GC&SF San Saba District

Matt Zebrowski has published the contents of a conductor's book for the San Saba Branch of the Santa Fe. This branch ran from Lometa to Brady, Eden, and Menard, TX, an area known as one of the largest producers of wood and mohair in the US. The district forwarded 744 cars of livestock during 1944 and 647 in 1945.

Documenting a 3 week period in 1947, the record shows 4 cars of stock moving from San Saba to Purcell, OK; 2 cars of cattle moved from San Saba to Friona, TX; 4 cars of cattle loaded in Eden headed for Monmouth, IL; 2 loads of calves from San Saba to Braunstown, IN; 3 cars of cattle from San Saba to Amarillo; one from San Saba to Windsor, MT, and 1 from San Saba to Hillsboro, OH. During the same 3 weeks, 9 loads of sheep were delivered to the branch. A total of 60 different stock cars were moved on the branch in 3 weeks, 56 from the ATSF and one each from SP, CN, LN, and ACL.

Retired ATSF conductor, Gordon Locke, gives the following report:

"When I hired out in 1958 a kid born and raised in Houston I thought being sent to Lometa to work as extra board brakie on #53/54 local was like going to Colorado. Brownwood crew on the local. Black cowboy hats and cowboy boots. While switching around at the stock pens in Brady when one jumped off a stock car and started dancing and hoping around I thought he was crazy. He was killing a rattlesnake.

"Locomotives on my first few trips Lometa to Eden with side trip to Menard was one geep 2860. Later years as tonnage grew it was 2 geeps.When the sand plants came online in Brady it became 3 geeps to handle the tonnage. I have seen 4 unit F units in spring going out to Melvin and Eden with 100 empty boxcars for grain loading. Grain extras operated during wheat harvest.

"Back in the 50s and 60s on the Santa Fe Southern Division here in Texas livestock was a very big business. Every evening TSF (regular freight west from Temple) usually stopped at Lampasas and would pick up one to five cars of cattle. Most days they were already loaded from trucks backing up to the cars on the stock track. Further west at Lometa cattle would be loaded and cars spotted to the chute by TSF, usually 3 to 5 cars. Then TSF pulled down to the west end of the small yard at Lometa and on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday would pick up the connection from 53-54, the San Saba District local. This would include 20 to 40 cars of livestock (both cattle and sheep). Livestock was always carried on the head end to prevent injury from slack action. However I remember lots of trips on TSF with a 5 unit 100 class (FT) units and 140 to 150 cars out of Lometa to Brownwood. The slack action on the hogbacks there with that many cars and that old power had to injure lots of cattle."

"The San Saba District Local was another story. It was mostly livestock. Eden and Menard were big time cattle and sheep country. There was a man contracted to load stock. He had a 1947 Plumouth Coupe. He had a Judas goat that sat in the front seat with him and chewed tobacco. This guy drove ahead of the train and was ready to load when the train arrived at a station. The Judas goat would run up the chute into the cars and the sheep would follow. When they were loaded the guy whistled and the goat ran out over the backs of the sheep. This train usually brought about 40 loads of stock into Lometa."

"Every spring the Owens Brothers Ranch in San Saba would load several trains of yearlings to Colorado to summer pastures. This was fun. There was a caboose hop with 2 geeps out of Temple at 0400. It picked up 75 empty stock cars at Lometa and ran out on the branch to load cattle and eat BBQ all day. It would return to Lometa and run to Brownwood in 16 hours. They can not get over the road today like we did."

William Osborne has written a thorough history of the San Saba District including information on stock movements.

See also An Analysis of Stock Movements at the Purcell, OK, Feeding Station, 1939. Also see an analysis of movements at San Bernardino, 1943.

For some photos of stock movements in the 30s and 40s, go to <http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsaquery.html> and search for "stock railroad," "sheep railroad," "cattle railroad," and "hog railroad."

Paperwork

Compiled by J. Stephen Sandifer