Crystallized Sunshine Rides the Southern

Domestically refined cane sugar last year found its way to this nation's demanding sweet tooth in amounts exceeding 11 billion pounds. Nearly a third of this was delivered by refiners to users and distributors in the 12-state area in which there are Southern Railway System lines, and much of it arrived at the marketplace over our railway. Sugar, what it is and how it gets that way, and how it gets to you, is a story that begins 24 centuries ago when the sugar cane's praises were first sung in Buddhist legends.

Growing in wild profusion' throughout northern India when Alexander the Great came upon it along the delta-soil banks of the Indus River in 325 B.C., the sugar cane found its way to Europe in the packs of warriors and traders, and from there to our Western hemisphere with Columbus' brave adventurers.

Along the way it has been a tempter of queens, a cause of war between kings, an ingredient in medieval medical formulae, a spur to adventure. But for all this, the sugar cane is an unsightly "grass" with, however, one very real virtue: An extravagant habit of growth.

Raw sugar arriving in bulk at Southern's Chalmette ocean terminal near New Orleans is lifted from ship's hold to dockside hopper with a clamshell bucket. This is the initial phase of operation for the bulk unloader that was installed in 1958.

The sugar cane is but one of the many plants which contain chlorophyll, and all such plants manufacture sugar through a process called "photosynthesis" which means "building with light." It is a process which has led the romantic to dub sugar "crystallized sunshine," one way of recognizing that the amount of solar energy captured by chlorophyll-bearing plants each year is equal to the muscle in 300 million tons of coal, itself a near chemical relative of sugar.

But while the sun's rays cause all plants with chlorophyll in their leaves to combine carbon dioxide from the air with moisture from the soil and thus produce sugar, nO other plant works so hard at it as does the cane.

Thus it is today that "in Louisiana, a carefully tended belt of delta-like soil stretching 150 miles west and 200 miles northwest in a fan-shaped thrust from New Orleans is devoted to cultivation of sugar cane. Four fifths of the cane refined into sugar in the continental United States is grown there.

American Sugar Refining company's Domino Sugar Refinery at Chalmette (NewOrleans) is served by the Southern-controlled New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, whose is tracks can be seen entering the plant from the left. The Domino Sugar Refinery is located immediately adjacent to Southern's Chalmette slip (upper left) .The tallest building shown in the American complex is the refining house. Raw sugar enters the refining process on the top floor of the structure, and emerges at the bottom in its refined state, ready for shipment.

When the cane matures in November, December and January after 15 months in the ground, it goes from these producers to the 48 Louisiana cane belt mills which process the crop down into "raw" sugar .

The free-flowing white crystals which we use not only in our coffee but in the manufacture of paper and textiles as well as in commercial food and drink preparation, are anything but appetizing at this stage of their processing.

After being crushed from the cane and heated, the sugar juices flow in a dark, opaque, foam-covered stream into evaporators where most of the water content is removed and a thick syrup results. This syrup goes to machines called "centrifugals," which spin at the rate of 1,000 to 1,200 revolutions per minute, causing the syrup to be thrown off through fine mesh screens and leaving raw sugar behind.

Colonial Sugars Company at Gramercy, La., makes good use of railroad service as the box cars and adjacent railroad tracks in this picture indicate.

Raw sugar thus extracted from the cane is produced domestically not only in Louisiana, but in Florida, too. United States cane sugar refiners also render their finished product from raw sugar produced in South America and South Pacific countries. (Refiners of the sugar beet, which is grown in those states lying between the Great Lakes and California, accounted for less than a quarter of all deliveries to primary distributors last year)

Resembling slightly damp sand at this half-way point in the refining process, the amber-colored raw sugar is bitter in taste. What yet remains is to repeat essentially the same process which produced it from the cane juice. This is the refiner's job, and the first thing the refiner does is to seemingly undo all that has so far been done. He mixes the raw sugar with a saturated syrup solution and comes up with a dark mixture the consistency of freshly-poured concrete.

This syrup, however, is used merely as a "vehicle" for introducing the raw sugar into the final stages of the refining process. Carried in this solution, -the raw sugar is taken through extractors, washers and melters, emerging from these as an amber-colored "liquor" which is 60 to 70 per cent sugar .

This is sterilized and filtered into a thick, pure, water-white liquid which is boiled in. vacuum pans until the pure, white sugar crystals emerge. Washed again and dried in revolving granulators, the refined sugar crystals are then sifted through banks of screens of different mesh openings which serve to separate the sugar crystals according to their size.

The process is far different from that used by the Persians of 500 A.D., the first people to extract sugar as a solid from the cane. Today, the process described is in almost universal use by refiners.

Supreme Sugar Refinery at Supreme, La., is one of those which combines milling of cane with its refining operation. The cane being lifted in the slings is on its way for grinding and crushing.

Also universal in the sugar industry is the use of the railroads, both for shipment of raw sugar from mills and ports to the refineries and for shipment of refined sugar away from these plants to the various market areas.

In New Orleans particularly the Southern has close ties with the sugar industry. Symbolic of this is our railway's relationship to American Sugar Refining Company's Domino Sugar Refinery at Chalmette ( New Orleans) , one of the nation's largest.

Standing on 75 acres of land which was Southern property until sold to American in 1905, the refinery's 45-acre plant is served by the Southern System's New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad and New Orleans Terminal Company. It is next-door neighbor to Southern's Chalmette slip, an ocean terminal on the Mississippi River.

Southdown Inc., near Houma, also combines milling with refining. Tractors hauling cut cane from the fields come in a steady procession during the domestic cane season. Likewise steady is the removal of Southdown's refined product in railroad box cars.

One of the principal import commodities handled across this Southern-owned slip is unrefined sugar extracted from cane grown in such places as Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Mexico.

Prominent in this view of Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation (which also Shows raw sugar being discharged at the plant's docks on the Savannah River) are the three white silos rising above the refining house. Used for storage of refined sugar, they were the first such ever built when erected in 1935. They have a combined storage capacity of 9,000 tons of granulated sugar.

Southern's efficiency in handling such raws at Chalmette was greatly, increased in 1958 with installation there of a bulk conveyor system. The conveyor system is our railway's recognition of sugar as the number two import in the Port of New Orleans, second only to coffee and worth $120 million annually. Important in the necessary low-cost, efficient handling of imported raws, the belt-conveyor takes such raws lifted from ship's hold to dock-side hopper and transfers them to waiting Southern box cars at the rate of 150 tons per hour.

Once loaded, these bulk raws -and raw sugar in bags received at Chalmette's other dock -move out over one of seven service tracks feeding into the slip. Destination: Perhaps your kitchen table, by way of a Louisiana refinery.

Chief among those who receive imported raw sugar at Chalmette are Henderson Sugar Refinery, Inc., and National Sugar Refining Company's facility at Reserve, La.

Another plant which combines milling with refining is The South Coast Corporation's "White Gold" refinery at Mathews, La. The cane shown on the right is crushed in the building nearest it, and the raw sugar which results is then refined in the next building over towards the water tower.

Located within the city limits of New Orleans, Henderson is served directly by the New Orleans Public Belt, a local-service railroad. National at Reserve is served through Southern's connection with the Louisiana & Arkansas. .

Three Louisiana refineries receive their imported raws over the Perry Street wharf, which is operated by the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans, a state agency. They are Southdown, Inc., at Southdown, La., The South Coast Corporation's Georgia division refinery at Mathews, La., and Supreme Sugar Refinery, at Supreme, La.

Colonial Sugars Company at Gramercy, La., maintains its own dock facilities, as does American's Doillino refinery at Chalmette.

National Sugar Refining Company at Reserve, La., and some of the railroad tracks which serve its transportation needs. National is one of the two refineries that receive part of their imported unrefined raw sugar over Southern's Chalmette slip. The other is Henderson Sugar Refinery, Inc., located within the city limits of New Orleans.

Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation at Port Wentworth, Ga., the only refinery between New Orleans and Baltimore, also has its own deep-water docks for delivery of imported raws. Located on the Savannah River about five miles north of Savannah, the 80-acre plant is rail-served, too -by the Savannah & Atlanta, a subsidiary of the Central of Georgia.

During the three-month domestic cane harvest season, these rails play a critical role in getting to the Savannah plant the raw sugar which has been extracted from cane grown in Florida. And as it is with Savannah, so it is with the Louisiana refineries during the domestic cane season. America's Domino Sugar Refinery, for instance, is largely dependent on the 15 Southern storage and service tracks which enter its property for delivery of domestic raws produced in the great Louisiana cane belt.

Arriving in railroad box cars at Savannah Sugar Refining Corporation's plant at Port Wentwort, Ga., this domestic raw sugar from Florida is a long way from being fit for your morning coffee. But it will be by the time it reaches the end of Savannah Sugar's refining process. And it is at this point that the rails are again called into play, this time to move the refined product to market.

It is, however, in the movement of the refined product to market that the rails play their prime role. The Gulf refiners in general find their market in the Mississippi Valley and eastward as far as Cincinnati and the western portions of Georgia and Florida; westward they go into Texas, Kansas and even Minneapolis-St. Paul. Much of the refined sugar shipped into this area funnels through the New Orleans switching district and onto Southern trackage.

Southern's rail movement of refined sugar from Supreme, South Coast, Southdown, Colonial and National begins at Shrewsbury, where the NO&NE interchanges with the Texas & New Orleans, the Illinois Central and the Louisiana & Arkansas, the originating roads.

One of a pool of Southern's Airslide cars used by Louisiana refiners is pictured at the bulk loading shed of American Sugar Refining Company's Domino Sugar Refinery at Chalmette (New Orleans).

Refined sugar shipments from Henderson which come north over our system originate on the Public Belt, while it is the Southern's NO&NE which originates rail movement of refined sugar from American's Domino refinery.

At Savannah Sugar, rail shipments originate on the S&A, coming over to the Southern at Central Junction in the Savannah switching district for shipment into the nine-state area in which Savannah Sugar markets: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

Sound familiar? It should; they're all Southern served states.

The picture at left shows how the bulk sugar is loaded.

Helping it provide" the service expected of it, Savannah Sugar maintains a fleet of specially-constructed railroad cars similar to Southern's " Airslides," a pool of which we keep at New Orleans for the use of Louisiana refiners.

Resembling conventional covered hopper cars, the " Airslides' " all-steel bodies have a 70-ton capacity and feature an air-activated device which makes unloading nearly automatic (see Ties, June, 1957).

It is partly because of our railway's alertness in providing such equipment ~ this that the South's sugar industry has come to rely heavily on us.

Raw sugar arriving at Southern's Chalmette slip is carried on a belt conveyor system across the dock at the second-floor level and into the box-and-pipe arrangement shown suspended from the conveyor frame. F1Qwing steadily out the bottom, the raw sugar is then hurled evenly throughout the box car by a "slinger."

Another reason for the trust the industry has in Southern, however, is indicated by one sugar man's guess that no one in the business exceeded a net profit of 12 cents per 100 pounds in 1960. At that rate, good, dependable distribution to the right markets at the right time is the measure of success.

That, of course, requires good service.

And good service is what the Southern gives in moving refined sugar to market -rapidly, dependably, and economically.

Just ask any sugar man.