Re: Grain Loading boxcars

pd3463 Wrote:
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> This is a subject worth checking out. I for one am
> curious if “flour sugar and beans” were
> shipped in stacked burlap 50# sacks? Wheat was not
> grown in the area (or was it) but were beans and
> sugar (as in beets)?

Sugar beets, yes. Particularly around Montrose and in the San Luis Valley. From what I've seen in pictures, beets were usually shipped in gons.Big part of the reason the Montrose - Cedar Creek section wasn't included with the Black Canyon/Cerro Summit line in the 1947-48 abandonment case. D&RGW had enough problems fighting the sheepmen, didn't want to take on the beet growers at the same time, I guess.

Beans. Pinto beans were a large item on the RGS, hauled into Delores by truck from Dove Creek & such places, until the post WWII $5 surcharge convinced the farmers to just run the trucks on into Durango. ISTR hearing there was PB traffic from points on the main between Durango & Arboles too.

You get up to places like Gunnison and pretty much the only crop was hay.

Hank