The first refrigerated rail car was created in California by William Davis.
A refrigerated boxcar is a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry freight at specific temperatures.The difference between a refrigerator car and a boxcar is that the latter are not fitted with cooling apparatus.Reefers can be ice-cooled, come equipped with any one of a variety of mechanical refrigeration systems, or use carbon dioxide as a cooling agent.Milk cars may or may not have a cooling system, but they are equipped with high-speed trucks and other modifications that allow them to travel with passenger trains.
After the end of the American Civil War, Chicago, Illinois became a major railway center for the distribution of livestock raised on the Great Plains to Eastern markets.Transporting the animals to market required herds to be driven up to 1,200 miles (1,900 km) to railheads in Kansas City, Missouri or other locations in the midwest, where they were loaded into specialized stock cars and transported live.Some animals died in transit due to the tremendous weight loss caused by driving cattle across the plains.
After arriving at the local processing facility, livestock were either slaughtered by wholesalers and delivered fresh to nearby butcher shops for retail sale, smoked, or packed for shipment in barrels of salt.The inefficiency of transporting live animals by rail is due to the fact that approximately 60% of the animal's mass is inedible.The death of animals weakened by the long drive increased the shipping cost.They wanted a way to ship dressed meats from Chicago to eastern markets.
Attempts were made to ship agricultural products by rail in the 19th century.In the June 15 edition of the Boston Traveler, it was reported that the Western Railroad of Massachusetts was experimenting with innovative freight car designs that could carry all types of goods.The first refrigerated boxcar entered service on the Northern Railroad in June of 1851.The icebox on wheels was only functional in cold weather.butter was shipped to Boston in purpose-built freight cars using ice for cooling.
The first dressed beef left the Chicago stock yards in ordinary boxcars filled with ice.It was impractical to place meat directly against ice.During the same time period, Gustavas Swift moved cut meat using a string of ten boxcars with their doors removed, and made a few test shipments to New York.The method was too limited to be practical.
William Davis patented a method of suspending carcasses above a frozen mixture of ice and salt.He sold the design to George H. Hammond, a Detroit meat packer, who built a set of cars to transport his products to Boston using ice from the Great Lakes for cooling.When the car entered a curve at high speed, the load swung to one side and the use of the units was discontinued.Swift hired an engineer named Andrew Chase to design a car that was well insulated and had a compartment at the top of the car where the chilled air could flow naturally downward.The center of gravity was kept low by packing the meat tightly at the bottom of the car.Swift and Company was able to ship their products across the United States and internationally because of Chase's design.
Swift tried to sell Chase's design to major railroads, but they were afraid that refrigerated meat transport would endanger their investments in stock cars, animal pens, and feedlots.When the American roads refused his business, Swift financed the initial production run on his own, then contracted with the GTR to haul the cars into Michigan and then eastward through Canada.The Swift Refrigerator Line (SRL) was created after the Peninsular Car Company delivered the first units.Within a year, the Line's roster had risen to nearly 200 units, and Swift was transporting an average of 3,000 carcasses a week to Boston, Massachusetts.Competing firms followed suit.The SRL owned and operated 7,000 rail cars by 1920.The General American Transportation Corporation assumed ownership of the line in 1930.
The markets open to Samuel Rumph, a Georgia peach grower, were limited in the 1870s because of the lack of a practical means to chill peaches.He was able to grow peaches on a large scale and ship them to distant markets with the invention of a refrigerated railcar and crates.He was the first to do it.Georgia's fame for peaches was created by his innovations.[6]
Earl was born on a fruit ranch in California.His father, mother, and brother were all named Joseph Earl.He worked in the shipping of fruits.He was the President of the Earl Fruit Company by 1886.The refrigerator car was invented to transport fruits to the East Coast of the United States.He invested US$2,000,000 in refrigerator cars.He became a millionaire in 1901 when he sold his refrigerator cars.
By the 20th century, manufactured ice became more common.Seven natural harvesting facilities and 18 artificial ice plants were maintained by the Pacific Fruit Express, a joint venture between the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads.Their largest plant in California produced 1,200 short tons (1,100 t) of ice daily, and their docks could accommodate up to 257 cars.1,300,000 short tons (1,200,000 t) of ice was produced for refrigerator car use annually at the peak of the industry.
Ice has been used to preserve food in the past.Many cultures used to harvest snow and ice during the winter.Ice houses lined with straw or other insulation were used in China, Greece, and Rome.During hot periods, rationing of the ice allowed the preservation of food.Natural ice was used to supply refrigerator cars for most of the 19th century.One foot tanks were often filled with water at high altitudes and allowed to freeze.Ice was typically cut into blocks during the winter and stored in insulated warehouses for later use, with sawdust and hay packed around the ice blocks to provide additional insulation.A late-19th century wood-bodied reefer required re-icing every 400 miles.In top icing, crushed ice is placed on top of agricultural products that have high respiration rates, need high relative humidity, and benefit from having the cooling agent sit directly atop the load.Cars with fresh produce were top iced before shipment.Dead weight was added to the load by top icing.Top-icing a 40-foot (12 m) reefer requires over 10,000 pounds of ice.As the ice melted, the chilled water would trickle down through the load to continue the cooling process.It was found, however, that top-icing only benefited the uppermost layers of the cargo, and that the water from the melting ice had little or no cooling effect.The decision was made that top-icing is only useful in preventing an increase in temperature.
Men harvest ice on a lake.The ice was cut into blocks and hauled by wagon to a cold storage warehouse.
The ice blocks are placed into the reefers by hand.The blocks weighed between 200 and 400 pounds.Meat cars usually use crushed ice.
The service cycle for an ice-cooled produce reefer was sporadic and used specially designed field icing cars.
Tiffany's "Summer and Winter Car" was engraved in the Railroad Gazette just before Tiffany received his refrigerator car patent.Tiffany used a train's motion to circulate cool air throughout the cargo space and mounted the ice tank in a clerestory on the roof.
A rare double-door refrigerator car was built in 1898.The car was said to offer better cold air distribution.Less-than-carload shipments were well suited for the two cold rooms.
An advertisement for a tonic is on a reefer.The use of billboard advertising on freight cars was banned by the interstate commerce commission in 1937.
Refrigerator cars have to protect their contents from temperature extremes."Hairfelt" derived from compressed cattle hair, sandwiched into the floor and walls of the car, was inexpensive, yet flawed over its three- to four-year service life, and tainting the cargo with a foul odor.The higher cost of other materials such as "Linofelt" prevented their widespread adoption.After World War II, synthetic materials such as fiberglass and polystyrene foam were introduced.
The United States Office of Defense Transportation implemented mandatory pooling from 1941 to 1948.According to the World War II experience, the cars spent 60 percent of their time traveling loaded, 30 percent traveling empty, and 10 percent idling, while the average number of loads each car carried per year was 14.[8]
The best features of ice refrigerator cars in 1948 were listed by the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association.
In the last half of the 20th century, mechanical refrigeration began to replace ice-based systems.The personnel needed to re-ice the cars were replaced with mechanical units.P.F.E. introduced the sliding plug door.In April 1947, one of their R-40-10 series cars was equipped with one.P.F.E.The first production series cars to be so equipped were the R-40-26 series reefers.The Santa Fe Railroad first used plug doors on their cars, which were built in 1951.A larger six foot opening was provided by this type of door.The doors could keep the temperature inside the car at an even temperature.By the mid-1970s, the few remaining ice cars were used for "top-ice" service, where crushed ice was applied on top of the commodity.
In 1965, the shops of the Santa Fe Railway built five experimental refrigerator cars with liquid nitrogen as the cooling agent.If the temperature rose above a preset level, a mist was released throughout the car.Each car was capable of maintaining a temperature of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit.Some railcar manufacturers used liquid carbon dioxide as a cooling agent in the 1990s.In response to rising fuel costs, the move was to eliminate the mechanical systems that required periodic maintenance.The cargo can be frozen solid for 14 to 16 days with the CO2 system.
Several hundred "cryogenic" refrigerator cars were placed in service transporting frozen foodstuff, though they failed to gain wide acceptance due to the rising cost of liquid carbon dioxide.The rising price of fuel and the increased availability of carbon dioxide from Kyoto Protocol-induced capturing techniques may lead to a resurgence in cryogenic railcar usage.
The North American Car Company produced a one-of-a-kind, four-wheeled ice Bunker Reefer to serve the needs of specialized shippers who did not generate enough product to fill a full-sized refrigerator car.The NADX #10000 was a car that looked like the forty-and-eights used in Europe during World War I.The prototype weighed in at over 12 tons and was equipped with a 1,500 pound ice Bunker at each end.Hormel leased the car and it was used for service between Chicago, Illinois and the southern United States.The concept was not accepted by eastern railroads and no additional units were built.
Dry ice was used as a cooling agent in 1931 by the Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch.The compound was readily available and seemed like an ideal replacement for frozen water.Dry ice was twice as effective as conventional ice at melting at 78.33 C.The need for brine and water was eliminated.Logistical issues in loading long lines of cars made it hard for dry ice to be accepted over conventional ice.Dry ice can affect the color and flavor of certain foods if placed too close to them.
In 1969 the Northern Pacific Railroad ordered a number of modified covered hopper cars from American Car and Foundry.The cars were covered with a layer of insulation and had centerflow openings along the bottom for fast discharge.Cool air was forced into the cargo compartments by the sheet metal ducting at each end of the car.
The units were economical to load and unload due to the fact that no secondary packaging was required.Apples, carrots, onions, and potatoes were transported with moderate success.Even after wooden baffles were installed to better distribute the load, oranges burst under their own weight.The Santa Fe Railway leased 100 of the hoppers from ACF, and in April 1972 purchased 100 new units, known as "Conditionaire" cars.[13]
The cars' irregular, orange-colored outer surface was difficult to clean because it was darker than the standard AT&SF yellow-orange used on reefers.Santa Fe put the cars in more typical applications.
Many styles of refrigerator and ice cars can be found at railroad museums around the world.
There is a complete roster of 20th century cars at the Western Pacific Railroad Museum in Portola, California.
The first refrigerated cars in Japan were used for fish transport.Many of the cars were equipped with ice bunkers, but they weren't used often.Fish were packed in boxes with ice.
In Japan, refrigerated rail cars were not used for fruit and meat transportation.The short distances involved in transportation made ventilator cars sufficient for fruits and vegetables.Most major Japanese cities are located along the coast.
Refrigerator cars were damaged in World War II.Many cars were taken for their own use by the occupation forces after the war.Reefer trains took supplies from Yokohama to U.S. bases around Japan.
The "remufu 10000" type refrigerated cars were used in fish freight express trains.The "Tobiuo" and "Ginrin" trains were operated from Hakata to Tokyo.
Refrigerator trucks began to replace railcars in the 1960s.The loss of reliability and punctuality was caused by strikes in the 1970s.Reefer containers replaced refrigerated cars in 1986.
The majority of Japanese reefers were four-wheeled.There weren't many bogie wagons in the late years.There were approximately 8,100 Japanese reefers.The peak of refrigerated cars was in the late 1960s.The mechanical refrigerators did not see a lot of use.
There were no private reefers in Japan.Because fish transportation was protected by national policies and rates were kept low, there was little profit in refrigerated car ownership.
Due to the shorter distance to be traveled in the United Kingdom, the need for refrigeration was limited to specialized goods, which could be transported in express-train format - mostly run overnight to avoid delays from passenger traffic - in less than a day from the area of production to processing.
Similar cattle, fish, fruit and farm-fresh produce shipping requirements existed, but the need to chill was often mitigated by the use of non-stop express train service to the required destination.The London Midland and Scottish Railway ran specialized express trains from meat producer hubs in Scotland and the North of England to the Smithfield Meat Market in London, with a dedicated goods station located below ground level directly into the market's slaughtering house.The LNER ran express fish trains from Fleetwood to Broad Street.It was [13].
The big four railway companies standardised within their networks their own ice-chilled wagons, which were built with more insulation to reduce the need for mechanical refrigeration.The Great Western Railway designed and built their ownventilated and non-ventilated vans for express produce trains, with ice supplied by the original product producer.
The milk train was a form of fresh produce train that existed in the UK until 1981.
Similar to many railways around the world, modern UK railways ship specialized refrigerated containers on intermodal trains, with such trains now taking-over the roll again from long-distance trucking on hub-to-hub routes to reduce carbon foot print.DB Cargo UK runs Europe's longest-distance single-operator handled train from Valencia, Spain to Barking in East London twice weekly.There are no comments at this time.
Fruits and vegetables with less than 14 days of shelf life are often used for standard refrigerated transport.Human blood, fish, green onions, milk, strawberries, and certain pharmaceuticals are some of the goods that express reefers transport.