Modern Conversions
In the 1960s, the Ortner Freight Car Company of Cincinnati, Ohio developed a triple-deck hog carrier for the Northern Pacific Railway based on the design of 86-foot (26.21 m) long "hi-cube" boxcar called the "Big Pig Palace." They later brought out a double-deck version called the "Steer Palace" that hauled livestock between Chicago and later Kansas City to slaughterhouses in Philadelphia and northern New Jersey until the early-to-mid 1980s on Penn Central and Conrail intermodal trains.
The Union Pacific Railroad, in an effort to earn more business hauling hogs from Nebraska to Los Angeles for Farmer John Meats, converted a large number of 50-foot (15.24 m) auto parts boxcars into stock cars. Originally built by Gunderson Rail Cars in Portland, Oregon for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, the conversions were done by removing the boxcars' side panels and replacing them with panels that included vents that could be opened or closed. The tri-level cars featured built-in watering troughs.
Strings of 5-10 of these "HOGX" cars were, until recently, hauled twice-weekly at the front of double-stack intermodal freight trains. In spite of the technological improvements in these new car designs, they were unable to overcome the advantages of highway transport of livestock. The units have since been scrapped.
Read more about this topic: Stock Car (rail)
Famous quotes containing the word modern:
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—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)