RaritanRiverRailroadFan4 posted:
Thanks Mark, this milk can was my grandpa's. He gave it to me a few days ago actually as he was given it from a pharmaceutical company he used to work for.
Now called Bristol Meyer Squibb, the company was originally called E.R. Squibb and was actually served by the Raritan River Railroad. (Which you can see puttering around in the video) Anyways, there are faded orange letters on the can saying PEN ONLY. Apparently when my grandpa worked there they used to make or store penicillin inside the milk cans.
While I was attending Cook College, which is adjacent to Squibb, in the 1970s, I often witnessed RRRR trains working the plant and surrounding area. It was usually while I was fishing Westons Mill Pond or exploring the local woods, and was more interested in those things and in railroading at the time and took little more than casual note of the trains. Oh, the regrets! One thing I don't want to revisit is the smell emanating from the Squibb plant. The livestock pens on campus (it is an environmental/agricultural school) smelled far-better!
Speaking of livestock, the dairy farm was the closest part of the campus to the plant. Considering that a milk can would be more often associated with a dairy farm than a pharmaceutical plant, I wonder if there might have been a connection.
