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09/29/01 9:55 |
Steve Barkley |
I was raised in Billings until I left for college in 1966. Yes,
the NP hauled sugar beets, and lots
of them in the Billings area. If I remember
correctly, many of the cars were Enterprise Gondolas with wooden
extensions. The NP also used hopper
cars. I seem to remember that the
Burlington used many war emergency hopper cars. Both NP and Burlington cars could easily be mixed in locals.
During the season, the NP ran locals
to gather beet cars. The beet factory
in Billings used an 0-4-0 saddletank steamer. A friend of mine and I rode with the engineer one very
cold night. If I remember correctly,
the temperature was below zero. Beet cars were pushed into a washer that washed the beets out of the
car into a trough below the tracks
from where the beets went into the factory. All the cars looked well weathered and used. Someone on the list should have photos.
I'm afraid that I do not.
Compiler C Frissell |
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09/30/01 7:52 |
John E. Moore |
The sugar beet harvest started with the first frost, usually in
October. Beets had to be harvested
before the ground froze solid and they could not be removed. The harvesting, once started went far into the night,
with the equipment being outfitted
with lights. Back in the 50's the beets were haul to sites through out the area in farm trucks with side tip
beds, or if close enough directly to
the factory. A large self propelled unloader was at the site adjacent to a rail spur, or siding,
for the remote sites and at the
factory. The unloader had a long conveyor belt boom that piled the
beets up into piles about three to
four stories tall, along the track. The farm trucks would drive up onto a platform that was part of the unloader,
which was also a scale. They were weighed and cables were
attached to the truck bed, and it was
tilted to the side, into a low hopper. From there the hopper fed the
conveyor belt system. Each farmer was
assigned a number by Holly Sugar which was
printed on a card taped in the truck window. This is how the various
farmers output was tallied for
payment based on the ton. The large
piles of beets would be about one to two city blocks in length and loading from those piles was accomplished
by rubber tired loaders into the
railcars. This work often lasted way into December. The harvest itself
was over in a few short weeks. The
farmers often ran sheep in the beets fields
after the harvest to graze on all the beet tops which had been cut by
the harvester and left laying in rows
in the fields. The brought another batch of
traffic to the Yellowstone Livestock in Sidney in the form of two
level Pig Palace cars which also
transported sheep to be purchased, first by the farmer, and then later back to be resold to the meat packers.
Evidently the beet tops were quite
fattening. Sidney was located between
the GN trackage coming from Fairview to the North, and NP trackage out of Glendive. Both NP and GN stationed
engines in Sidney during the beet
harvest. Since GN got out of steam before the NP I do not remember any GN steam being there. NP in
the mid-fifties had W-3 Mikes and
GP-7s and 9s stationed in Sidney. There may have even been some GP-18s
later. Nothing bigger though because
the branch trackage was light in some areas.
There was no coaling facility at Sidney, but there was a standard wood
water tank, in NP buff and brown
colors just south of the station, also in standard NP colors, about one hundred yards or so. I believe the steamer
when needing coal either had to go
the Glendive, fifty miles south, or it was replenished by a small conveyor, from a pile on the
ground. The beets were shipped either
in drop bottom gons. with wood side extensions, or standard coal hoppers with a couple of boards extending the
sides. Standard practice was for a
single geep or W class Mike to depart Sidney in the early A.M. south. It would have a string of empties in tow
and would head to the various pick up
points, along and off the Sidney branch main onto other branches. At those points the loads were pulled and the
empties spotted. The same was true on
the GN on the North end. The beet growing area was confined to the Yellowstone River Valley area where
irrigation water was available from
flow over dams on the Yellowstone. One was at Intake Montana, about thirty miles south of Sidney. Beets
required a lot of water while
growing. The return loads generally averaged forty to eighty cars per
train. It took two sometimes three
geeps to equal the one Mike when the production was at full peak with 100 car trains. Hooray For Steam! The yard at Sidney was about five tracks
wide by the station expanding to
seven tracks wide north of the station and past the Holly Sugar yard
leads Both the Holly tracks and the
yard tracks would be full of loads and empties at full production. Additional side trackage served grain
elevators on the East and west sides
of the yard and the stockyards on the East side. Crews were housed in their assigned caboose
tacked on the engine at night. The
first RVs and campsites. A wye
track was south of the depot and on the East side of the yard tracks now narrowing down before becoming a
single track mainline. With the demise
of steam the Yellowstone Livestock now occupies the wye, using it to load
and unload. Remember I'm talking in
the 1950s and 60s here now. The
Holly Sugar yard was about 8 to 10 tracks curving off to the East from the railyard with one or two approach
tracks to the yard. I seem to remember
two. Switching was done by a small either 0-4-0T or 0-6-0T steamer,
which is now on display in the Sidney
Park on Main Street. The little
engine would latch onto two to three cars at a time, and in a concert of sharp barking exhaust, steam,
and slipping drivers, shove them up
an incline to the covered unloading facility. There the beets were
unloaded by large guided streams of
water through the bottom of the gons or hoppers. That is why only drop bottom gons were used. The water
unloading started the washing process
and in the sub zero Montana winters (read 20 to 50 degrees below zero) thawed frozen loads. Needless
to say the area was full of steam,
slippery and treacherous if you didn't watch your footing. From the
unloader the beets traveled in
concrete lined ditches several feet wide and 3 to 4 feet deep in flowing water. For 50 to 75 pound beets they
floated well. reaching to factory
they were sliced and diced, and lime was added to precipitate the dirt out. From there they went into the cookers
to boil out the sugar in a thick
molasses, from which the white table sugar was extracted. On the North side of the plant was the warehouse
where shipping was by 40 and 50 foot
boxcars. Loads in would be hopper
cars of coke and limestone in about twenty car cuts and the empties out. Boxcars of other supplies to keep the
factory going, and the occasional
equipment flat or gon. By products of the factory were beet pulp and the molasses after the sugar
extraction, both used as cattle feed
additives. Again tank cars and trucks for molasses and the boxcar,
later covered hopper for the pulp.
The dried beet pulp was a dark brown color and resembled dried Lipton tea that you get in the bulk loose tea
boxes at the store. By about November
there was a steady stream of cars loads coming out, all brought to the pick up tracks by the little hard working
steam kettle. The factory could be
seen for miles in the valley due to the large clouds of steam constantly over the site and the air
could be compared to Hershey, PA with
the sweet smell pervading. By February the plant was slowing down as the last of the stock piles from the valley
were being delivered. he plant itself
had at eat three large stock piles of beets that were three to four
city blocks long from the deliveries
made direct to the plant by the beet farmers
close enough to do so. Front end loaders transferred beets from these
piles into a low concrete hopper at
the elevated railcars unloading site where they floated to the plant. A large man made lake known as Factory Lake
sat to the east of the plant. The
large amounts of water needed were withdrawn from that lake, and water was returned to the lake
from the factory. The lake had some
of the largest Carp in it I can remember due to the discharge of plant
and other food tidbits from the beet
washing. The marshes adjacent to the lake
also grew some of the largest Mesquitos I can remember due to the
large influx of warm water keeping
the lake warm and unfrozen in all but the
coldest periods. You stood still too long by the lake and you would
need a blood transfusion. With the fall livestock shipments, the
sheep shipments in the early and late
winter, the grain harvest rush (you had two per year, one from the
winter wheat harvest, the other from
the regular fall wheat harvest) the start of
the beet season, and the usual farm equipment, etc., shipments, you
had one busy little yard. Add to that
the shipments of coal to the MDU power plant
south of town and it was busy. Now you know why my modeling era will
always be the fall season. This heavy traffic kept the mainline from
Glendive well maintained and heavier
than normal track for a branch, which is why this line is being looked at as a coal traffic line between
the former NP at Glendive through to
the former GN main. M of W
requirements in that era kept a crew permanently stationed in Sidney with their speeder sheds and other out
building located close to the water
tank to the south of the depot. Every so often a cut of camp cars and
other equipment would be parked in
the yard. Passenger service was a gas
electric known as the Goose, because its rear waddled back and forth as it went down the track. This made two
trips daily into Sidney. A way
freight both GN and NP originated out of Sidney to go to all the smaller branches off the line.
Most of these towns only had one sign,
you have entered on one side and left on the other depending on which
side you stood on looking at the
sign. Populations of these towns ranged from 40 to 300 at best. Sidney was about 10,000 and the Richland County
seat. It could best be described as a
place that had two saloons or bars per block and the sidewalks rolled up at night, except in front of the
saloons. The same description would
fit the other towns with one or two grain elevators, a small station, and a livestock ramp and
pens, also usually a ramp and dock
for unloading flats. the towns would have one or two churches and a
few stores. The post office/gas
station/grocery stores are found there typically. if these little towns were in the irrigated valley area you
would often find the beet loading
equipment there. Holly Sugar only
employed less than forty people year round, mainly in shipping and mechanics to maintain and
repair the plant, and in a several story
brick office bldg. in admin. jobs. The rest of the workers were seasonal workers, often farm hands who
came back year after year to work the
sugar season. As a kid I used
to ride my bike down to the railyard and to the Holly plant and to the lake to fish. One of my fondest
memories is of the little steamer at
the plant and a friendly NP Engineer who gave a kid a cab ride in that
big black monster forever hooking me
on things NP, Trains, and the Fall Season.
Things were different back then and I could ride my bike all around
the plant and railyards. Later in
High School when the little Norwegian Chemistry Teacher took us on a tour of the plant, and its laboratory I was
no stranger to the operation and
could have given the tour.
Compiler C Frissell |
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09/30/01 9:40 |
Dan Stinson |
Ayvini - Thanks for the most informative post! You've brought
back a lot of memories. I know there were sugar plants in Sidney, Billings
and Hardin. Where else were there plants? And were they all Holly Sugar? I
have always thought of the Billings plant as being Great Western Sugar
Company, but was that a later owner?
I've also heard stories that the tall concrete stack in Whitehall was
to be for a sugar refinery, but the company found out there wasn't enough
sugar beet production in the area because the growing season wasn't long
enough, so they stopped construction before the building was built. Has
anyone else ever heard this, and does anyone know the details? Compiler
C Frissell |
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09/30/01 13:23 |
Don Hoffman |
When I lived in Billings, 1965-1980, Great Western was the
operator of the sugar plant. I believe they also built it. I remember the
many gondolas and the small engine that worked them along with the many local
producers who trucked there beets to the plant and loaded the processing
waste on their truck to take home for feed. This "feed" was still
wet and dripped on the streets of Billings and the hiways going back home.
Some even had loaded this when the temperature was warm in Billings and then
the load froze on the way home. What a mess. to follow. A lot of steam and it
did smell, not sure if I would call it sweet. Drove by the plant on my way to
work many times before I learned to avoid it as the steam sometimes left a
sticky residue on the car. The one in Hardin, if my senior memory recalls,
was operated by Holly. I understand that there is talk to re-open the Hardin
plant. I remember that just north of
the Missouri river near Toston, Montana there was a large sugar beet dump and
loading site and as I learned on my past trip to Montana there was one at
then Young's Point which is now known as Park City just west of Billings. I
would suspect that sugar beets may have been grown in the Gallatin Valley.
And further east of Billings until the water supply became a problem for
irrigation. Most of the area sugar beet farmers were of German/Russian decent
as this was a crop grown in southern Russia from whence many came. Looks like Mr. Phillips III could have a
story for the Mainstreeter brewing about the NP and it influence and
participation of the sugar production in Montana and the west. Compiler
C Frissell |
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09/30/01 14:21 |
John E. Moore |
In a message dated
9/30/2001 11:58:29 AM Eastern Daylight Time, dano@m... writes:
> I've also heard stories that the tall concrete stack in Whitehall
was to be > for a sugar refinery, but the company found out there wasn't
enough sugar > beet production in the area because the growing season
wasn't long enough I believe the
Billings operation was always Great Western. Irrigation was the key to sugar beets and there isn't that
much difference between where I grew
up and the southern end as far as temperature and length of season. I
also spent a few years in Whitehall
and actually went to the old grade school
there. We then moved to Richland County on the eastern side of the
state. I still remember the old
school with its neat silo type fire escape and slide that circled around inside. I used to go
up on what is called Pump Hill to
play. Full of cactus as I remember. I lived in a log house about one
block from the old school for a while
then on the South side of the tracks about
two blocks away. Whitehall was where I saw my first Yellowstone in
helper service to shove over the
divide to Butte. That was the old Butte with its streets caving in from old mine shafts underneath. Actually
Whitehall should have been nearly
ideal for beets due to the amount of moisture received there. I was told about forty-seven years ago now
that the tall stack was once part of
an old meat packing plant. Which would make sense since there were a number of attempts to break the Kansas
City and Chicago meat monopolies.
There used to be another near Medora, ND that I believe Teddy
Roosevelt was involved in. Compiler
C Frissell |
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09/30/01 16:30 |
Don Hoffman |
Great Western Sugar
Factory [Extracted from Original
Title Abstracts and Billings Gazette 24 September, 1960] Revised 24 October 2000c In 1883, the town of Billings
established an irrigation system and a created the ability to eliminate 'crop
rotation' in the fields, and the sugar beet industry was created. On March
14, 1905, articles of incorporation were filed by I. D. O'Donnell, Col. H. W.
Rowley, P. B. Moss, & M. A. Arnold of Billings, and F. M. Shaw, a
non-resident and sugar specialist. The charter called for the creation of
land plats for homes, methods for collection of money, and other business
enterprises. Many home site restrictions were created. A construction
contract for the factory was issued that month, and 5,500 acres of land were
contracted to grow beets. The investors raised $750,000 for machinery to
process the beets. Beets were originally topped in the field by hand, and the
local school children vied for a job. Later the entire beet growing operation
was mechanized. In 1932, the plant built a new chimney, a new generator,
boiler, dryer and storage bins added the next year. Carbonation and filtering
stations were added in 1934. In 1937 the boilers were replaced. Unit gas
heaters and packaging equipment were added in 1949. The factory had only one
job that was listed as 'dangerous', the shoveling of sugar in the storage bin
tops. Sugar doesn't flow, and piles up in high mounds; it also will not
support the weight of a person, and acts much like 'quick-sand'. The shoveler
was suspended by a harness from the top of the bins, and he shoveled the
sugar out flat, thus permitting more to be stored in the bins. To reach the
top of the bins, one had to ride a vertical leather belt tram that was in
continuous movement. The belt had small hardwood steps, about 4" x
16" attached to it every three feet. One grabbed the smooth surface of
one step, and placed their feet on the second one, holding on real tightly as
you ascended-or descended. Beets from
the waiting area were first transported up a ramp and into a hopper on the
second floor where they were initially sliced for the first processing
operation. The slicer was a reel-wheel with numerous cutting blades,
approximately 10 feet in diameter, attached. Beets have a tendency to stick
to the hopper sides, and had to be cleaned off the walls. This was performed
by three or four persons who were given wooden sticks to push the beets from
the sides before the cutting blades interfered with the pushing operation.
Timing was tricky, and most of these people used their hands instead. Most
had lost one or more fingers as a result. By definition, this was not
considered to be a dangerous job. All mechanical operations were performed by
a series of leather belts, from one central drive unit. In 1906 the factory was nearly complete,
and processed 55,000 tons of beets, making 161,000 bags of sugar. The initial
production rate of 712 tons of beets processed per day had been increased to
over five times that amount, making this factory the largest producer in the
world for many years. From 1906 to 1960 the factory produced some 4 billion
pounds of sugar. Edmund Schunter was founding manager, with Fritz Schunter as
superintendent the first year. They were succeeded the next year by W. S.
Garnsey, Jr., and E. F. (Doc) Ogburn. Great Western took over the factory on
April 27, 1918. In 1906 the factory
bought $50,000 worth of cattle and sheep to fatten them on the silage waste
pulp. Other local ranchers saw no value to use beet pulp for this purpose, or
for that matter, even to raise beets. They quickly reversed their thinking
after seeing the results. Within five years beets were being transported from
northern Wyoming, and the land holdings had grown to 15, 694 acres. Compiler
C Frissell |
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09/30/01 16:45 |
Jim Woodward |
Yes, Whitehall did, and
probably still does, have a tall, steel
reinforced concrete stack, originally built in conjuction with a plan
to build a sugar refinery there. The street leading to that part of town is
known as Sugar Beet Road. Although I don't think the sugar plant ever really
got going, I believe the stack is still there. By the early 1950s all that remained was the stack. Some
farmers in the Jefferson Valley
between Whitehall and Twin Bridges still grew sugar beets in the 50s, although not in huge quantities. Occasionally in the 50s and 60s, (and
maybe still today) some high school
students, or others with time on their hands, would pile old tires in the base of the stack and burn
them, resulting in smoke emanations.
To the best of my knowledge, that's the only type of smoke that has ever come from the top of
the stack. The stack was stoutly
constructed. It survived the Yellowstone-Hebgen earthquake in August 1959,
when a lot of masonry structures
around town crumbled (or at least cracked). Someone once told me it would take a lot of dynamite to
take it down, so it will probably
remain for some time. Compiler C Frissell |
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09/30/01 23:38 |
Dan Stinson |
Don pondered, "I
would suspect that sugar beets may have been grown in the Gallatin
Valley." I don't ever remember
seeing or hearing of beets being grown in the Gallatin valley when I was
growing up in Bozeman. But I do remember there were large fields of them for
miles on both sides of Toston. They were watered by the Crow Creek Project
which lifted water for irrigation out of the Missouri at Toston dam and
allowed for irrigated crops on much of that ground. Yep, I sure remember
seeing those beet trucks at harvest time when I'd go to Helena. They ran back
and forth from the fields to the beet dump and scales all day and well into
the night. I remember the beet dump being on the west (north?) end of the
overpass at Toston, where the grain / seed bins are now. Compiler
C Frissell |
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10/02/01 0:37 |
John Barrows |
Re: Sugar Beets on the NP
Wow... excellent exchange and such good information! I remember as a
boy my Dad and I would go to Sidney (1960ish) and watch the sugar beet
factory crew switch cars with a small tank engine (0-4-0 Porter c. 1884, made
for the Milwaukee originally. The engine is still in the Sidney park. It had
been chopped down from a standard switch engine and made a tanker. The crew
even let this 14 year old pitch a few scoops in the box... some fun for a
young railfan. Hamilton also has a
stack, similar to Whitehall, with the same explanation... great plans gone
bad. Missoula had a substantial plant, out by Reserve Street and part of it
has been converted for other businesses. It was operating into the 1960s...
and was the site of the last revenue steam on the NP... at least I think so,
the 1361, and was featured in Trains magazinage about that time (1960). When I worked on the NP in the mid 1960s
as an agent-telegrapher, sugar beets were still big business in the
Bitterroot, with solid beet trains not being uncommon.... many of them
loading at the Victor station. Even after the Missoula mill closed, beets for
a number of years were sent to Billings/Hardin... I remember doing a story on
one of the last rail shipments for the Ravalli Republic newspaper sometime in
mid 1970s I think. If memory serves
me right, one day, while I was working at Missoula Yard, we cleared up orders
for a work extra, a beet train and a stock special... Grand Central
Station! Again, great exchange... it
sure brings back a lot of memories and fills in some blank spots, too. Compiler
C Frissell |
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10/02/01 19:15 |
Norm Metcalf |
A Burlington Bulletin a while back covered CBQ/CS sugar beet
operations, including material on sugar beets in Montana. Compiler
C Frissell |
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10/12/01 17:31 |
Bill Seeberger |
You need to call my father Nick Seeberger in Glendive MT he
worked the beet job in Sidney many years and can answer all your questions
his number is 406-365-3180
Compiler C Frissell |
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10/12/01 23:07 |
Jim Fredrickson |
U and I Sugar had a big plant at Scalley on the Washington
Central Branch. Sugar beets were loaded at various central Washington
locations and from about the end of July to November gons and hoppers were
taken from company gravel service to fill the need for cars. When the government discontinued subsidies
the plant was closed. Compiler C Frissell |
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10/21/01 9:04 |
Verne Alexander |
I just ran across a
picture in the January 1947 Trains of sugar beets being loaded on Bass Siding
on the Bitteroot branch that ran down to Darby. Trucks were dumping the beets
into a hopper, from which they rode a conveyor into another hopper on a
tower, and then over a second conveyor that dropped them into a gondola with
wood side extensions. No date was given. The reproduction is of poor quality,
so I can't read any of the letters or numbers on the gon. A string of gons
down the track looks as though the cars had no end extensions, which makes no
sense to me at all. Compiler C
Frissell |
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10/22/01 9:57 |
Jim Betz |
I don't remember seeing
the beet gons on the NP (if I did I was too young to pay attention - if I did
see them it would have been around Moses Lake in the late 50's). But I have
definitely seen them on the SP/UP here in
Cowafornicatia and they do have end boards. And the end boards are not
"removable" as far as I can tell - so I don't think that what you
are seeing is some kind of "put them back in place during the
loading" thing (although it could be). I can tell you this - the beet
loads are loaded to a level that would be called "level with the top of
the boards". If you were loading the cars from the center only without
moving them then the end boards would not be needed - but here in Cal Central
the cars are moved by a cable puller during loading to get the maximum load
possible. An interesting side
question is "were the beet gons used for other loads at other times of
the year?" - I have seen long cuts of beet gons just sitting on various sidings during the
"off season" but that doesn't mean that they weren't used at all
..Compiler C Frissell |
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11/03/01 18:45 |
Bob McCoy |
For those who followed the
recent postings on Montana sugar beet loading, the August photograph in the
2002 calendar might be of interest. The subject is No. 2 at the Ravalli
depot. To the right and behind the depot is shown a portion of a sugar beet
loader. From this, it would appear that Ravalli was a sugar beet shipping
point in the late 1940s.
Compiler C Frissell |
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11/27/01 15:14 |
Blair Kooistra |
I have copies of several
Walla Walla Union-Bulletin newspaper
clippings about sugar beet harvest in the Walla Walla Valley. It seems that through the late 50s and into
the 60s as many as 3000 cars a
"campaign" were shipped out by UP and WWV (NP) en route to U&I Sugar's Moses Lake factory. UP loaded their beets at Touchet; WWV at
Zigman, between Stateline and College
Place, and on the branch at Baker-Langdon. WWV would ship between 1400-1800 loads of beets a
year--at the time, about 20-30% of
their total tonnage. The
articles state that UP cars would hold about 40 tons of sugar beets; NP cars could hold 50 tons. I assume UP just used standard GS gondolas
with no side extensions. NP also used
GS gons, I'd imagine, but were they unaltered GS gons, or were they outfitted with side racks?
Could they have used any of the
converted woodchip cars, or were these in woodchip service only. Online research states that both Toppenish
and Moses Lake factories closed down,
along with almost all the other U&I factories, in 1978. Did the NP (WWV) beet haul last that
long? Compiler C Frissell |
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11/27/01 19:14 |
David Lehlbach |
Blair, I have documentation of beet blocks moving EB on the
ex-NP through MT headed to a processing facility in Laurel (GW) in 1974. I
haven't found billing for the empty cars yet, but I am pretty sure these
loads came from your neck of the woods. The loads moved in company ballast
cars and old open hoppers. Again, this was BN era (1974 to be exact), so may
not necessarily be applicable to your modeling period. Compiler C Frissell |
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11/28/01 12:13 |
James C Dick |
Blair Kooistra - wallcloud@m... wrote: from clippings from
Walla-Walla Union-Bulletin, The articles state that UP cars would hold
about 40 tons of sugar beets; NP cars
could hold 50 tons. NP also used GS gons, I'd imagine, but were they unaltered GS gons, or were they outfitted
with side racks? Blair, (and others) here is some
information that may provide answers to SOME of your questions. (From Pres. Sub. Files ) Letter to
C.E.Denny St.Paul,Minn. Sept 14,1946
Mr.C.E. Denny Your letter of the 13th // with Mr.Berglund about using
Hart convertible cars in sugar beet loading: As has been our practice
heretofore, we plan to assign the
several types of open top car equipment to best economic advantage
considering the situation as a whole and our program was set up some time
ago. We estimate racking about 535 50-ton drop door door type gons plus the
Harts and other open type equipment which can be used to advantage in
this movement will take care of the
present crop. We do not propose to assign all 70-ton Hart cars which can be
taken out of ballast service for
handling sugar beets as part of them will make money handling Rosebud
Coal. It costs about $3.50 to apply the racks to a 50-ton gondola and the racked car has a cubical capacity level of 2735 as compared with
2505 for the Hart selective. If all the Hart cars are put into the sugar beet
movement, we will have to use 50-ton drop bottom gondolas for handling
rosebud coal for hauls up to one thousand miles. (unable to decipher
signature) Another letter of May
17th, 1954 lists that "during
the sugar beet season all types of open top equipment will be in
service and active demand. Our 50-ton Hart cars formerly used for company
service such as emergency gravel,
scrap, ties, and supply train
operations have practically disapeared and older type must be used for this
purpose." The use of gondola
cars in the coal-vs- ballast line usage -vs- sugar beet needs were noted as
early as 1924. The summer season in these Northern states is a very finite
time period so ballast usage in track
maintenance was a very high priority for these cars in the summer. Of
course, in the fall came orders for
coal delivery and the sugar beet
harvest at the same time.
Compiler C Frissell |
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11/30/01 22:25 |
Jon Bratt |
I wish we could get Warren McGee on this list. I am modeling
Laurel Mt yard and the main west to Mission wye, then up the Shields river
branch to Wilsall. Also south from Laurel to Red Lodge and the connection to
the Montana Wyoming & Southern at Belfry. So I rely on Mr. McGee a lot as
he actually worked these lines. I spoke with him tonight and asked him about
sugar beet traffic as all the talk on the list had me wondering if this took
place near Laurel. I report that the Livingston to Laurel local would pick up
loaded drop bottom gons at Columbus, Youngs Point and Park City on the
eastbound trip and deliver them to the Laurel yard for delivery to the plant
in Billings. Mr McGee reports this traffic was heaviest in Sept into Oct and
Nov. I am near to laying out the towns of Greycliff and Big Timber on my
layout and could really use track diagrams. Does anyone out there have them
or know where I could find them. I would love to correspond with anyone with
knowledge of or interest in this area. And you would be more than welcome at
work sessions and eventually operating sessions on the layout. Please contact
me off list. Compiler C Frissell |
|
11/21/02 1:31 |
John Phillips |
Within the past 12 months there was a very nice discussion on
the Northern Pacific and sugar beet
traffic. Recently, I purchased a 1966
issue of _Pacific Northwest Quarterly_, which featured a brief article on the Utah and Idaho Sugar
Company's works in Washington. I was
very surprised to learn, and I hope Al Currier and Roger Burrows are as well, that from the early
1930s through about 1941 U and I
operated a beet refining plant on the outskirts of Bellingham, Washington. In addition to recruiting
farmers in the Mount Vernon to
Bellingham corridor, U and I also brought in beets from the
Yakima Valley. At various times prior to World War One U
and I operated plants in North
Yakima, Sunnyside, and (twice) Toppenish. I presume, though I yet to see any proof, that U and I must
have moved beets from the dry side to
the Bellingham facility (as stated in the article) via the NP.
Does anyone have any information on pre-World War Two beet
traffic on the NP? I would suppose
this traffic was hauled in gons, with or
without side extensions. Comments solicited. Compiler C Frissell |
|
11/21/02 11:03 |
Al Currier |
I appreciate your note on
the Bellingham sugar beet facility, John. I have written a detailed historical article on the refinery,
published in the Bellingham Business
Journal. The refinery was served by the Great Northern and I believe photos show the beets
arriving in GN gondolas. I'll double
check my sources, as it has been about 3 years since I wrote the
article. My first impression is to to
doubt that the beets arrived in Bellingham on the NP. I can't remember
if Bellingham was an official interchange point for NP/GN. Even if it was, the interchange would have
been awkward due to track
arrangements. However, I have verbal accounts of NP in later years
carrying traffic in and out of
Bellingham from industries located on both Milwaukee and GN.
I will be glad to post further info after I've checked, and I'd be
glad to provide any information I can
on the Bellingham U&I facility. Interested persons can either post on the list or contact me off list. The
smokestack still stands as a
landmark, as done one small building of the complex. The BNSF currently serves industries located
where the refinery used to stand.
Compiler C Frissell |
|
11/21/02 13:24 |
Marc Entze |
I do not know if the early
beet traffic in the Walla Walla Valley
was directly related with U&I or not, but certainly it was in
later years. I have uncovered
research that shows the Walla Walla Valley
Ry handled sugar beet loads as early as the late 1920s, presumably from the stateline area of Washington and
Oregon. At this date, it was but a
few carloads, and amounted to perhaps 100 cars per year by the early 1930s. The apple industry went
great-guns in the teens and twenties,
but saturated the market and taxed the transportation of both the WWV and Union Pacific, thus in
part initiating the alternate crops
of which sugar beets were one. Several orchards were cut down to grow crops for canning (asparagus, peas) as
well as sugar beets. As for the type of cars in use initially,
one early source mentioned something
to the effect of "special company cars with drop bottoms." So gondolas of some
variety. I do not have my research
material here in Cheney....
The beet industry in the Walla Walla Valley exploded in the late 1930s and during WWII. Acreage doubled for
consecutive years. By the mid-50s
this amounted to as many as 1500 cars per year on the WWV-NP and several hundred more on the UP
(UP's traffic was originated along
the Wallula branch, principally in the Lowden and Touchet areas). By far the majority of the beets were grown in
the Stateline area and moved out via
the WWV-NP. Compiler C Frissell |
|
11/21/02 17:55 |
Roger Beckett |
I was in Walla
Walla/College Place in the late 50's and beets on the WWV were still a big
deal. Two trains a day all in NP drop bottom gons as I recall. UP was still
loading in the Louden area. Compiler
C Frissell |
|
11/22/02 18:56 |
Michael Seitz |
Numerous photos show GS
(no extensions) gons used to ship beets from the Bitterroot Valley to the
American Crystal Sugar refinery in Missoula. Another photo (I can't quote the
source--Frey and Schrenk's book series? but I believe it was a derailment at
Warm Springs in the '50's) indicates the train ran into the siding and struck
a string of hopper cars loaded with sugar beets. Perhaps hopper cars were
preferred on longer line hauls or for faster transit speeds. Compiler
C Frissell |