That other grape product

Nice article, but I did want to mention that other grape product, sometimes made by mistake. Before prohibition Missouri was the second largest producer of wine in the US, but they were also one of the major producers of wine vinegar. Vinegar was often bulk shipped in tank cars, and bottled vinegar, a much stabler product, was easily shipped in box cars. Many of the other pre prohibition wine producing areas probably also shipped a good deal of vinegar. Not that they wanted to admit it.

Beer

One beer distributor will generate 100 times more rail traffic than a winery (or a vinegar works). Just sayin.

"beer distributor will

"beer distributor will generate 100 times"  quite right but. . . . I don' have room for a Coors or Bud plant on my little pike!    Russ

Distributor

Not a brewery, a distributor.  A single story concrete block or metal building like you would see in any industrial park (like a Pikestuff building).  It would receive RBL's and reefers of beer in bottles, can's and kegs.  It could receive a couple a day from a variety of roads (RBL's are pooled between the participating carriers.).  The reefers could be in different reefers, depending on the origin of the brewery and the brand of the beer.

Modern day traffic generator: toilet paper

Wine business

  I recall surveying a new mobile home park in 1973 at San Jose and next door to it was an Almaden winery warehouse that was shipping out cases of wine in 50 foot boxcars. IIRC they had spots for 3 or 4 cars at a time. I don't recall seeing an engine there so not sure if they were on the WP or the SP tracks as their tracks wove thru the industrial areas at that time. ....DaveB

     update. I checked on google maps and the building and spur is still there, served by the SP. It's just north of pepper tree estates MHP, which is about a 1/4 mile north of Tully ave on the east side of the SP line.

Toilet Paper Loads

Joe, You forgot the combine up front and the trailing caboose with security guards!

Toilet Paper Loads - Enhanced Security

Hi all,

Turn off you seriousness button now. 

For enhanced security of your "go-to material when you have to go", you need one of these 

Have armoured train - will travel for hire - Now Covid-19 approved after installing high-grade filters on all incoming air-vents. 

Also available for hire to prevent thread hijacks. 

Toilet paper

I was going to post some stuff about a Scott TP mill (Kimberly-Clark) in Everett, WA that my dad and I picked up a load from back in '83, but I just checked.... it was closed in 2012, and the site completely leveled. It's an empty lot (not even a field) now.

I remember last seeing it in about 2008.

You can still tell from Google Maps that there were at least 4 spurs into the place, and the large BNSF yard alongside it is empty in the satellite imagery.

Back to Wine

To get back to the article itself, I've switched the winery on the author's layout.  It makes for an interesting departure from industries that are more typically modeled.  It doesn't ship many carloads at a time, but that's not necessarily the purpose.

So THAT's why there’s a shortage

So THAT's why there’s a TP shortage now. Imagine how much more TP we’d have if they were still operating. More short-sighted bureaucrats!

Why so few wine cars in HO?

Nice job, Pat!

Given that wine cars traveled nationally (even during Prohibition), I'm a little surprised that more types have not been produced in HO, particularly the common, but unique, cars with four, or three uneven-size domes. They seem like naturals for resin or high end plastic cars.

In the meantime, I would like to point out that Protocraft offers a variety of Gibson Wine Co. tank car decals (a personal favorite) in both HO and O. They also have decals for a Chateau Marin purple 1944 10' 6" AAR boxcar. I can personally attest that these decals are exceptionally high quality.

E.O. Gibson
Wx4.org

Modern Wine Service

About a year ago I worked for a short time out of Bakersfield Ca for the SVRR. I was not there long, but one night we took a string of tank cars and shoved them from the mainline all the way to Arvin to spot them at a Winery. If I remember correct they were empties to be loaded and picked up later. They were common black tank cars, nothing fancy about them like the wine cars of old. You could tell that at one time the line was very busy and the winery was probably a pretty regular customer. So, even a modern layout can move a little wine around, and not just in glasses by the operating crew. 
 

Then there are the BIG wine manufacturers

Hard to call the big manufactures wineries when they look more like a large petroleum tank farm, but they do produce a lot of rail traffic. Very interesting facility to visit.

Short sighted?

Joe. How is it short sighted that we run out of TP? It's nothing but pure greed. We have a local business that is offering TP 4 rolls for $8. And that was on Facebook, & they have banned the business from posting. But how many others are doing the same? My wife went to our local Krogers this morning. The poor kid was bringing out a cart load of TP. A couple walked up to him and grabbed multiple packs. The kid said "limit one per purchase". The couple threw the excess down and the husband grabbed one roll, told his wife to grab another and said out loud. "You buy one and I'll buy one". So, although this is anecdotal, it's reflective of our society. FYI Neither the couple nor the kid had masks on. My wife did. And gloves. And stood back to let this happen. She didn't have to say anything. And of course, with today's society, it's best she didn't. Sorry to put this out here. But it's rampant.

It's a joke

Hey, it's a joke. (wink and grin)

Back to the discussion of wine as an industry

Back to the discussion of wine as an industry

One of my daughters wined "but I wanna go to Miami!"

Micro Trains is making a series of wine cars right now....

Wine cars are special

Some of the wine cars were pretty elaborate in their operation as an individual car.  Russ  

As we got it

What is looks like now

In Fort Worth, BNSF receives

In Fort Worth, BNSF receives a few, sometimes several, cars each day loaded with wine from California. We also receive these cars in interchange from UP, but it's a fraction of the cars we get on our own.

Up until a few years ago these have been the typical beer cars everyone is familiar with, including the former Santa Fe Bx-166 and Bx-177 cars. Those 62' cars still make up a sizable percentage of the cars used, but more and more CRYX insulated cars are mixed in. It's always interesting to see what we'll get from UP. Many cars are repainted at this point, but the occasional Rio Grande, Cotton Belt or yellow UP car shows up.

When the cars are pulled from the distributor's warehouse they are either sent back to California or to Golden, Colorado for beer. I don't think I've seen any of the CRYX cars sent to Golden, only the original beer cars.