Beef Packinghouse

Beef are not the only stock to be processed, but we will treat various types of stock one at a time. Much of what would apply to beef would apply to other stock. Beef cattle made up about 60% of the stockcar loads.

The typical live weight of a fat steer and heifer would have been around 1200 pounds. They would arrive at the packinghouse stockyard in single deck stock cars that held 40-50 head each.

Upon arrival, the animals would be weighed, checked for any injuries or illness, and placed in holding pens. Animals would arrive in various quantities, but would be processed in a steady line, sometimes only one or two shifts a day. Therefore the stockyards would insure a steady supply of animals for the butchers. Stockyards would require feed for the animals. If the pens had concrete floors, bedding would also be required. Periodically the bedding and excrement would be removed and shipped away as fertilizer for area farms.

The 1200 pound steer would produce:
· 800 pounds of hanging meat
· 30 pounds of other meat products
· 26 pounds of blood
· 50 pounds of paunch
· 70 pounds of hide
· 200 pounds of drop

We will look at each of these items separately.

Hanging Meat

The slaughtered animal was quartered into approximately 4 equal parts. Each quarter would be frozen and shipped out in meat reefers that were equipped with ceiling rails and hooks from which quarters were hung. In the early 50s most meat reefers were 36' in length, were owned by the meat packers, and could hold 400-500 quarters, or the processed hanging meat of 100-125 cows.

In the 30s, most meat packers had their own reefers and tank cars, and some had a few stock cars. By the 50s, they owned or leased reefers and few had other types of cars on their rosters. Most plants were set up for 36' reefers.

Reefers and tank cars were steam cleaned before use at the plant. Stock and box cars, unless company owned, were usually cleaned by their home railroad back at their yard.

Trains Magazine in 1958 had an article highlighting IC's meat traffic across IA and IL at that time. The article mentioned that the vast majority of meat and meat products produced in the Midwest moved via the various gateways to eastern markets. IC was by far the largest hauler of meat and livestock at that time, since they served most of the big packing houses/livestock markets -- Omaha, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, Waterloo, Dubuque, etc. According to the article, IC's Iowa Division alone handled nearly 50,000 loads of meat and packing house products per year. That would be around 135 loads/day.

The train highlighted in the article, eastbound CC-6, grew from 16 cars leaving Omaha, to over 80 cars leaving Waterloo. That day another section of the train operated as well, handling mostly cars from Sioux City/Sioux Falls through to Chicago. Those trains together delivered roughly 50 cars to the IHB at Broadview (just west of Chicago) for their local Chicago customers as well as eastern connections. The rest of the cars continued into Chicago: about 10 were delivered to local customers on IC's lines, about 15 continued south on the IC (to the SE US towards Miami, Birmingham, Memphis, etc) and the remainder of the cars were delivered to various eastern connections in Chicago.

Other Meat Products

Other meat products would include tongue, liver, heart, cheek, brains and such meats. These would be cleaned, sorted, and frozen in cardboard boxes for shipping. The boxed products would be shipped in different ice reefers than the hanging meat. Over 3000 animals would be processed to fill one reefer with these products.

Blood

Even though an animal would have 46 pounds of blood, blood is 83% water. It would normally be cooked down to produce a blood meal of about 8 pounds per head. The blood powder would then be bagged or shipped bulk in box cars. It would take the blood of 12,500 cows to fill one boxcar.

Reports indicate that some plants did not process the blood but shipped it out in liquid form for someone else to process. 46 pounds of blood would be approximately 6 gallons, so a standard 1950s 8,000 gallon tank could hold the blood of 1300 animals.

Blood is commonly used as an animal feed additive and an agricultural fertilizer. Today homeowners in rural areas use blood powder to fertilize landscape flowers because it repels deer while aiding the plant.

Paunch

Cows have 3 stomachs. They eat grass then regurgitate it for further processing. We call it "chewing their cud." As a result, the stomach contents of an average cow at processing weighs 50 pounds. This material is washed and sent to farmers for use as fertilizer. Most paunch would be moved from the plant by highway trucks for local use.

Hide

A cowhide weighed approximately 70 pounds. However, before it could be shipped, the hide must be preserved by the replacement of the water content with salt. Hides were packed in approximately 40 pounds of rock salt and cured for 30-40 days. At the end of that time, approximately 20 pounds of salt could be recovered for reuse while 20 pounds displaced the water in the hide. The hides were then bundled and shipped via boxcar to tanneries. The oldest wood sheathed cars were used for this purpose, and once a car was used for hides it was always used for hides as the stench was unmistakable. These cars were usually labeled "for hide loading only." One car would hold about 1400 hides. On some roads including GN and RI these boxcars had hatches on the roof so that hides could be dropped in from a conveyor. I have no evidence of this being done on the Santa Fe.

Drop

Drop includes head, feet, intestines, fat trim and a small amount of hide trimmings. Condemned and dead stock carcasses would also be included. This mixture contained approximately 47% water, 35% fat and 18% tankage. After grinding, cooking, and separating, the drop would amount to 70 pounds of tallow (fat) and 38 pounds of tankage per animal.

There are two types of tallow: edible and inedible. Edible tallow would be used in various oleo products, confectioneries, chewing gum, leather working products, animal and poultry feeds and fertilizer. Inedible tallow was used for candles, textiles, lubricants, glycerin, soaps, cosmetics, animal and poultry feeds and fertilizer. An interesting graphic on the Darling International web site illustrates the uses of byproducts.

Both varieties of tallows would ship out in tank cars which could be heated for loading and unloading. The recommended temperature for loading and unloading was 160-170 degrees F. A full 8000 gallon tank car would hold 59000 pounds of fat or the product of 845 animals. Drums could also be used for shipping.

The tankage was dried and ground to a dirt-like consistency. It was originally sold as fertilizer. In the early 20th Century it was discovered to be high in valuable nutrients, so it was finely ground and added to poultry feeds. When combined with dried blood it was called digester tankage and was a feed ingredient for hogs. This dry tankage was shipped in 50-100 pound bags in bulk truck and carload quantities. At some plants it was pressed into large cookies or smaller pellets for shipment in boxcars. Again due to the stench, once a car was used for tankage, it was dedicated to that purpose. Today, 20% of most dry dog and cat food is meat and bone meal - a modern description for tankage. (Emporia, KS, hosts the IBP meat packing plant and a Safeway pet food plant just a mile away.) Around 2600 head must be processed to supply enough tankage to fill one boxcar.

Today edible cow bones are very desirable by the Japanese market.

Kurt Stoebe wrote, "Rath Packing in Waterloo, Iowa was often described as the largest pork packing plant in the country. Apparently, part of the by-products from the plant had no market and gondolas of offal were moved 100 miles west to the junction of Tara, Iowa, where the Council Bluffs and Sioux City lines diverged. There was a yard there... not much of a town. The railroad section unloaded the gons with a clamshell on the west end of the yard and buried it."

George Walls obtained a list of commodities received and shipped from Cudahy Packing in Bedford, IA, circa 1955. Items received by rail included: sugar, salt, coal, sawdust, ammonia, fiberboard, cans, and soda ash. Items shipped in addition to the meat were: canned meats, hides, tallow, tankage, lard, bone meal, and grease.

Sheep & Hogs

Hogs made up about 24% of the stock car shipments, sheep made up 14%.

I suppose sheep would be shorn either at the their point of origin or at the auction house before delivery to the packinghouse.

A double deck car would hold 250-300 sheep, 150 hogs.

The meat was shipped out in cardboard boxes since the carcass was so much smaller than that of a cow.

The major by-produce change is the use of fats for cosmetics with sheep, and several other things with hogs.

Introduction

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Model Operations

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