In the old days milk was carried by trains to the creamery. The cans would always make it back to the right farm
That is the world evolving and changing. Happens everyday.
Rich
One of the mainstays of business on the Newburgh, Dutchess & Connecticut Railroad was the milk business. The local freight would stop by the various milk platforms, spaced along the 53-mile line, and collect the milk cans that were dropped off by local farmers. These [filled] cans were taken to Hopewell Junction where there was a large Borden's Creamery. Many smaller creameries served the local population (such as LaGrangeville). A tag on the can indicated to whom the can was to be returned...a policy that wasn't 100% accurate.
Railroad officials had to be vigilant as the creameries would tend to overload the refrigerator cars with bottled milk - bound for New York City. Much of this operation is discussed in Bernard Rutberg's book "Twenty Five Years on the N.D.& C." As a youth, I can remember storing feed in an old refrigerator car body we had on the farm (from a previous owner). Sadly, that car has been removed/destroyed years ago.
The Borden's creamery, and the N.D.& C. (cum Central New England Railway, cum New Haven) are all long gone with the tracks north of Hopewell Junction, NY being torn up in 1938 (most of the scrap rail was sold to Japan...who returned it during WW II).
Ray
The Borden Company had their own milk tank cars. I'm sure that other companies also did the same thing.
HP Hood was a Boston company that had a fleet of milk cars
Yes, Woody, Borden's did have their own milk cars...although they weren't used on the N.D.&C (or at least weren't at/before the turn of the century). Perhaps the Hopewell Junction Borden's creamery was too small to warrant the use of company cars. Picking up/hauling milk was a major revenue base on many rural branchlines.
Ray