Stock Car (rail) - Initial Use and Development

Initial Use and Development

Rail cars have been used to transport livestock since the 1830s. The first shipments in the United States were made via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in general purpose, open-topped cars with semi-open sides. Thereafter, and until 1860, the majority of shipments were made in conventional boxcars that had been fitted with open-structured iron-barred doors for ventilation. Some railroads constructed "combination" cars that could be utilized for carrying both live animals as well as conventional freight loads.

Getting food animals to market required herds to be driven hundreds of miles to railheads in the Midwest, where they were loaded into stock cars and transported eastward to regional processing centers. Driving cattle across the plains led to tremendous weight loss, and a number of animals were typically lost along the way. Upon arrival at the local processing plant, livestock were either slaughtered by wholesalers and delivered fresh to nearby butcher shops for retail sale, smoked, or packed for shipment in barrels of salt.

The suffering of animals in transit as a result of hunger, thirst, and injury, was considered by many to be inherent to the shipping process, as was the loss in weight during shipment. A certain percentage of animal deaths on the way to market was even considered normal (6% for cattle and 9% for sheep on average, according to a congressional inquiry), and carcasses of dead animals were often disposed of along the tracks to be devoured by scavengers, though some were sold to glue factories or unscrupulous butchers. Increased train speeds reduced overall transit times, though not enough to offset the deleterious conditions the animals were forced to endure.

Some of the early railroad companies attempted to alleviate the problems by adding passenger cars to the trains that hauled early stock cars. The New Jersey Railroad and Transportation Company followed this practice as early as 1839, and the Erie Railroad advertised that livestock handlers could ride with their herds in special cabooses. These early passenger accommodations were the predecessors of the later "drovers caboose" designs that were used until the mid-20th century. Railroad operating rules for livestock and handlers that rode the trains were very limited, as the handlers were private contractors or employees of the shippers, not employed by the railroads. A 1948 rulebook for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, for example, lists only one rule regarding livestock:

... Wishes of attendants regarding care of livestock should be ascertained and assistance rendered in caring for such shipments. ... In absence of special instructions, hog shipments should be watered as necessary. Particular attention must be given to stock unaccompanied by attendants."

However, even with livestock handlers and faster schedules, many stock cars were still listed on company rosters with open roofs and very little in the way of improved conditions for the livestock themselves. Most railroads resisted the call for as long as possible from shippers for improvements to cars specifically designed to carry livestock. The railroads generally preferred to use standard boxcars because that type of car proved much more versatile in the number of different types of loads it could carry.

When the railroads and cattle industry failed to act quickly enough to correct these perceived deficiencies, the government and even the general public went into action. Claims were made that the meat of neglected animals was unfit for human consumption. In 1869, Illinois passed the first laws to limit the animals' time on board, and required them to be given 5 hours' rest for every 28 in transit. Some railroads stepped in with their own new designs at this time, such as the Pennsylvania Railroad's class KA stock car, a design first published in 1869 which featured a removable second deck for transporting pigs or sheep. However, double-deck stock cars had been experimented with as early as the 1830s on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in England. Other states such as Ohio and Massachusetts soon followed with similar legislation, though effective federal laws were not enacted until the passing of the Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906.

The first patented stock car designs that actually saw use on American railroads were created by Zadok Street. Street's designs (U.S. Patent 106,887 and U.S. Patent 106,888, both issued on August 30, 1870) were first used in 1870 on shipments between Chicago and New York City. They were designed for trips to take 90 hours between the two cities and included water troughs feed from tanks under the floor, and food troughs fed from hoppers in the roof. Street's design proved impractical as each car could carry only 6 steers. Alonzo Mather, a Chicago clothing merchant who founded the Mather Stock Car Company, designed a new stock car in 1880 that was among the first practical designs to include amenities for feeding and watering the animals while en route. Mather was awarded a gold medal in 1883 by the American Humane Association for the humane treatment afforded to animals in his stock cars. Minneapolis' Henry C. Hicks patented a convertible boxcar/stock car in 1881, which was improved in 1890 with features that included a removable double deck. George D. Burton of Boston introduced his version of the humane stock car in 1882, which was placed into service the following year. The Burton Stock Car Company's design provided sufficient space so as to allow the animals to lie down in transit on a bed of straw.

In 1880, American railroads rostered around 28,600 stock cars. With the innovations developed by Mather, Hicks and others, this number nearly doubled in 1890 to 57,300, and was nearly tripled in 1910 to 78,800. During this period, the cars' capacities also increased. In the 1870s few stock cars were built longer than 28 ft (8.53 m), and could carry about 10 short tons (9.1 t; 8.9 long tons) of stock. Car lengths increased to an average of 34 ft (10.36 m) in the 1880s and stock cars of this period regularly carried 20 short tons (18.1 t; 17.9 long tons) of stock.

Certain costly inefficiencies were inherent in the process of transporting live animals by rail, particularly because some sixty percent of the animal's mass is composed of inedible matter. Even after the humane advances cited above were put into common practice, many animals weakened by the long drive died in transit, further increasing the per-unit shipping cost. The ultimate solution to these problems was to devise a method to ship dressed meats from regional packing plants to the East Coast markets in the form of a refrigerated boxcar.