Distillery

[FCIN]

Thanks Ed for the first hand account. So I guess boxcars will be the rule for my era. I kind of expected this! I'm curious about the unloading process. I've seen pictures and videos at elevator. Was it a similar process for at the distillery?

Matt;
Although I never got the chance to actually watch them unload a box car of grain (they were few and far between) I do know the process they used to unload them - at least how they were doing it in the 60s through 70s. They used a vacuum system to unload the cars. They simply opened the box car door, placed the vacuum hose over the grain door and sucked it out. Once the lading got down close to the car floor, workmen would remove the grain door and using shovels they would move the remaining grain toward the hose to finish unloading it. Of course in earlier years, when all the grain was received in box cars (and manpower was cheaper), they'd open the car door, break out the grain door and after letting what grain would spill out on its own; they'd shovel the rest of it out into a bin located next to the track. Probably what you've seen in photos of box cars being unloaded. Ah, the good old days!

The Old Taylor distillery used the vacuum system to unload all their grain cars. Covered hoppers were unloaded by placing a metal pan under the hopper, opening the hopper gate, and as the grain poured out, the attached vacuum system pulled the grain to the top of their small elevator. The Old Crow, Old Grand-Dad and Stagg distilleries all unloaded their covered hoppers through grating between the rails.

This photo of the abandoned Old Taylor Distillery shows the now vine covered, neat little concrete and sheet metal grain elevator they built in the late 50s. I've included it as shows the vacuum pipe still in place from the headhouse down to where the grain track was located. They usually spotted two covered hoppers toward the end of the spur in front of the large concrete warehouse you see on the right and as the cars were unloaded, they used an electric cable car mover to pull the cars toward the switch. What looks like a gravel road in the foreground is the roadbed of the main track through the distillery. The piping you see going over the former roadbed was for moving the grain to the mash house on the opposite side of the track.     Old Taylor sure didn't look like this when the distillery was still in operation!