Moving Milk on the Railroad
Milk cans are visible on the carts at center in this view of the Leslie, Michigan, railroad depot in 1910. / THF204974
Many Americans consider milk an essential part of daily life. For more than a century, milk’s production has followed the same basic pattern. Raw milk is gathered at dairy farms, it’s taken to processors for pasteurization and bottling, and then it’s distributed to consumers. But milk is a perishable product that spoils quickly. In the 19th century, transporting raw milk from countryside farms to urban processors was a task beyond the limited range and speed of horse-drawn vehicles. Railroads rose to the challenge and developed a steady business moving milk.
Unsanitary production conditions and an unpleasant taste tainted city milk. Consumers preferred milk shipped in from the country. / THF703416
The Erie Railroad is credited with handling the first large-scale railroad milk shipments in the early 1840s. The company’s track connected New York City with rich dairy lands north of the growing metropolis. The city’s residents preferred milk sourced from rural farms over that from metropolitan producers — and not without reason. City producers fed their cows with low-grade feed like used distillery grain and mash, giving city milk an unpleasant taste that earned it the nickname “swill milk.” Likewise, unscrupulous urban dealers were known to dilute their milk with water or whiten it with added chalk. “Swill milk” was unpalatable to adults and downright dangerous to infants. Country-sourced milk from grass-fed cows had better taste, texture and color. The Erie and other railroads soon discovered that urban consumers were willing to pay for a premium product shipped in from distant sources.
An idealized rural dairy farm, illustrated circa 1874. / THF705089
By the time of the Civil War, the basic system for wide-scale dairy production began to take shape. Creameries were established in smaller cities and towns, and they served as collection points where area farmers would take each day’s yield. The consolidated raw milk was then carried by railroad to urban processing and distribution points. Pasteurization and bottling emerged in the 1880s, and the Babcock quality test arrived in 1890, all improving the safety and quality of milk. By the turn of the 20th century, bottled milk was being delivered door-to-door to urban customers by horse-drawn wagons on a daily basis.
The 10-gallon milk can was the standard container for transporting milk by rail. / THF172118
Well into the 1920s, most raw milk was shipped in standard 10-gallon cans. Made of heavy-gauge metal, the cans were handled roughly at every step of their journey, and they quickly took on a battered appearance. But they were durable, stackable and relatively easy to clean. When filled, each can weighed around 110 pounds — about as much as one person could handle. Typically, railroad freight-fee arrangements for shipping full milk cans included free return of the empties to the origin point.
Railroads built special milk cars, insulated to keep cans cool. But unlike fully functional refrigerator cars, milk cars generally had no ice bunkers. Milk only traveled for a few hours at most. Apart from ice chunks or wet blankets tossed over the cans, supplementary cooling wasn’t necessary. Railroad milk cars had another distinction, too. Most of them rode on higher-speed passenger car wheels.
Passenger trains offered the fast schedules and frequent service required to move milk dependably. / THF204906
Perishable milk couldn’t travel aboard slow-moving freight trains. Instead, milk cars were moved in fast-running passenger trains to ensure delivery before spoilage. In the Northeast, where cities like Boston, New York and Philadelphia consumed enormous quantities of milk each day, some railroads operated entire trains carrying nothing but raw milk. Typically, dispatchers gave these early-morning trains the highest priority to avoid delays. By the 1920s, railroads in the Northeast increasingly shipped raw milk in bulk using special tank cars. These tank cars proved far more efficient than traditional milk cans.
Dedicated milk-only trains and cars weren’t so common in the Midwest. At cities like Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis and Minneapolis-St. Paul, cans of raw milk arrived on fast passenger trains. The cans rode alongside satchels and steamer trunks in a train’s baggage car. Smaller short-line railroads sometimes loaded milk cans onto combination cars with space for cargo, passengers and mail all under one roof.
Electric interurban railways siphoned milk traffic away from railroads in the early 20th century. / THF104077
As the 20th century dawned, railroads experienced the first threat to their dairy trade. From about 1900 to 1925, electric interurban railways were built to connect large cities and small towns. These new lines used self-propelled railcars operated on frequent schedules, and they typically charged less to riders and shippers than did railroads. Interurbans were especially widespread in the Northeast and Midwest — right where the railroads’ milk business had flourished. Farmers, who had felt the pinch of rising railroad shipping rates, championed interurbans as a more affordable alternative for moving their produce to market. Not only were interurban rates lower, but service was also more convenient. Conventional railroad trains limited their stops to depots and designated collection points, but an interurban car could — and often did — stop right at a farmer’s property to load a shipment of milk cans.
Trucks began hauling raw milk in the 1910s. / THF277311
Railroads and interurbans soon faced a common enemy that wounded the former and destroyed the latter: motor vehicles. Trucks offered enormous flexibility compared to rail-based transport. They could be driven wherever and whenever needed, unlike trains and trolleys running on fixed routes and schedules. Initially, flatbed trucks carried raw milk in traditional 10-gallon cans. But by the late 1920s, tank trucks — more efficient for loading and unloading fluids — took over moving raw milk from farms to processors.
Horse-drawn residential-delivery wagons remained in use for a surprisingly long time. Together, a horse and wagon formed something akin to an autonomous vehicle. The horse knew the daily route as well as its driver, so the driver could walk beside the wagon, dropping off bottles on doorsteps, while the horse kept pace from one house to the next. But certainly by the 1920s, the writing was on the wall for equine operations. Horses simply required too much feed, care, cleaning and special equipment to compete with motorized delivery trucks. Residential milk delivery itself became a memory with the spread of home refrigerators and the rise of supermarkets.
Milk is a staple in every supermarket and convenience store. But now it travels by truck. / THF703471
Railroad milk traffic began to disappear in the 1930s. The Great Depression didn’t help — people still drank milk in those difficult years but in smaller quantities. The bigger challenge was an expanding highway network that allowed motor vehicles to go farther and faster. As travelers moved from rails to roads, the passenger trains that carried raw milk were canceled, effectively conceding dairy traffic to trucks. Some big-city milk traffic continued to move by rail into the 1960s, but those shipments were exceptions.
Processed dairy products like butter and evaporated milk continue to move by train, but the days of raw milk on the railroad are over. That said, milk trains left a legacy to our lexicon. To this day, “milk run” describes a routine trip that makes every stop along the way. Ironically, the phrase even conjures thoughts of a leisurely journey in no hurry to end. But the railroad milk runs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were made by some of the fastest and most carefully scheduled trains ever to run on American rails, morning after morning.
Matt Anderson is curator of transportation at The Henry Ford.
