Weight of Ice Falling into Reefers

[jimsabol]

I am told that the blocks of ice poled into reefer bunkers from raised platforms along the icing tracks could weight as much as 300 pounds.  A railroad car is a stout piece of business, but  300 pounds of anything free-falling ten feet or so is one tremendous force.  How did they keep from blowing out the bottoms of ice bunkers and floors of refrigerator cars with the first few blocks of ice falling the full distance?  In the pictures I've seen, there are no "choppers" visible for reducing the size of the ice blocks.  Jim Sabol

[Dave-the-Train]

Good point... never thought of this... but they knew what to expect so the cars would have been built for the job.  thick wood... were the ice compartments zinc lined?  Thick zinc?  after the first load there was probably soem water in the compt. which would break the fall of the ice... i've never noticed anything about drain holes... so where did the melt water go?  Pushed out ny the heavier new ice dropping in?  Maybe they placed the 1st ice carefully (ish) with ropes and then dropped the ice into water which would have slowed the rate of decent.

One of those things that may get lost in time

[jecorbett]

I worked in an ice house many years ago and did a lot of moving of those 300 lbs. blocks. We would slide or tip them so we never really had to lift them. Retail customers would usually want smaller blocks so we would score the blocks and they could easily be broken apart into 50 lbs chunks in a few seconds with an ice pick. I wouldn't be suprised if that was done to initially load the bunkers. After that, it would be a matter of topping off the bunkers in route so they wouldn't need to be dropped the full distance. I think I saw a photo of ice being loaded into the bunkers with ice tongs and it didn't look like they were the 300 lbs blocks. Probably 50 or 100 lbs.   

[ndbprr]

After doing damage to a couple of cars I would think a procedure would be instituted for initial filling.  Don't know but I also suspect that there were drain holes for the water to leak out as it was generated so I doubt a cushion of water was involved.  Therefore I am led to believe that a couple of inchs of crushed ice could be dumped in first to cushion the free fall of the first layer. Succeding layers would not have as much impact since the ice would not be falling as far.  Alternatively the bunker had to be well constructed as water weighs 8# per gallon and the weitght would add up quickly.

[doctorwayne]

There were drains at all four corners of the car - models from Intermountain and Red Caboose include them in their kits, and there seem to be two versions in each kit: one version has the scupper folded in an "up" position, while the other has them extended.  Cars that used salt with the ice, for colder temperatures, had the drains arranged to direct the melted brine away from the running gear.  I can't picture a 300 lb. block of ice fitting through an ice hatch in one piece, let alone someone being able to tilt and direct it through the opening.  Dock workers used a trident-like tool to cut the blocks into more manageable sizes.

Here are a couple of photos of models showing (barely) the bunker drains.  The drains are located inboard of the corner dropsteps, and roughly over the outer truck journal boxes.

 

Special thanks to Doug for providing the info, in this Forum, to enable me to do the FGEX car.

Wayne 

[Anonymous]

Wayne,

Great looking cars and a very believable scene that you have created. I was glad to help.

[cacole]

I have serveral railway videos that show reefers being re-iced.  The 300 pound blocks were broken into smaller chunks with large harpoon-like hooks that were used to maneuver the blocks to the hatches, right before they reached the hatch.  In later years, crushed ice was loaded by automated conveyors.

Rock salt was also put into the bunkers during the icing process.

[Sperandeo]

"cacole" was exactly correct. The 300-pound blocks of ice were broken into smaller chunks before being dropped into the ice bunkers. Most of the time this was done manually with ice-breaking tools, but from the early 1950s to the end of the ice-reefer era, roads that handled a lot of reefer traffic installed icing machines that broke up the ice in the process of feeding it into the bunkers. In addition to not wanting to drop big cakes of ice through the bottom of the basket-like ice bunkers, railroads knew that breaking the ice into smaller chunks increased its surface area and therefore made it more effective as a refrigerant.

So long,

Andy

[RutlandRay]

I believe that there were two types of icing operations.

Meat reefers needed to be colder and hence the salt being added. This lowered the temperature. I read that there was a pair of single track bridges somewhere in Pennsylvania and the eastbound one rusted out quicker than the westbound one because the salt brine dripped from the meat reefers on the eastbound trip. The cars returned empty or with a shipment that did not need the salt treatment. This would make for a neat detail for you rr.

The produce reefers needed to be cooled but not so cold as to freeze and damage the produce. They were iced, but no salt please!

I've seen photos of icing platforms where large wheelbarrow type cart was used to load what was probably chopped ice into the hatches.

[jimsabol]

Thanks, Andy, and to all who responded to my question.  The concensus is that the ice making plant produced 300 pound blocks of ice which were manually "poled"  ormechanically nudged along the elevated platform runway, then were bladed/chipped into more manageable chunks before being shoved onto ramps and in to the bunker hatches.  Jim Sabol 

[wjstix]

One thing that I came across the other day...and of course now that I start writing this, I can't think of where I saw it...was that they could get about 10% more chipped ice into the bunkers than they could chunked up block ice. I suppose that would be a factor in what they used.