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Last post 08-28-2009 1:34 AM by faraway. 23 replies.
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08-25-2009 8:51 PM
Offline tbdanny
Not Ranked
Joined on 06-26-2009
QLD, Australia
Posts 417

Reefer Icing?

Hi,

I am currently in the process of fine-tuning of my operations, and I'm having a bit of trouble figuring with one aspect.  I have an eastbound reefer block transiting my yard in New Mexico en route from California, and the reefers need to be iced at the yard's ice house.  The catch is that due to design limitations, the ice house is on a stub-ended track that can only hold two 50' cars at a time.  The total length is 10 reefers.

Does anyone know of any prototypes that faced this problem, or can provide suggestions on how to manage this operationally?

Thanks in advance,

tbdanny

08-25-2009 10:07 PM In reply to
Offline dehusman
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 09-20-2003
Omaha, NE
Posts 5,424

Re: Reefer Icing?

tbdanny:
Does anyone know of any prototypes that faced this problem, or can provide suggestions on how to manage this operationally?

The prototype wouldn't have that problem because a 2 car reefer icing dock would be virtually useless.  They would build a long ice dock that could ice many reefers. 

It would be built along the equivalent of a siding, not a stub ended track.

08-25-2009 11:20 PM In reply to
Offline markpierce
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 04-04-2003
Union-Garratt Loco (Mark in Martinez, CA)
Posts 4,383

Re: Reefer Icing?

Yup, your engineering department hasn't kept up with customer demands.  A double-ended siding connected to the main track long enough for a 10-car or more platform is needed.

Mark

08-26-2009 12:22 AM In reply to
Offline tomikawaTT
Top 25 Contributor
Joined on 02-13-2005
Southwest US
Posts 7,713

Re: Reefer Icing?

The icing platform would have to be at car-top height, but could be fairly narrow.  It could be connected to the ice house by a bridge spanning intervening tracks if there was no space for the ice house immediately adjacent.

Reefer blocks remained in the train while being serviced with ice.  Unnecessary switching was avoided like the plague, because it added expense without generating additional income.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

08-26-2009 12:27 AM In reply to
Offline faraway
Not Ranked
Joined on 02-01-2006
Germany
Posts 278

Re: Reefer Icing?

 I had/have the same situation on my layout currently under construction.

My "solution" is to replace the icehouse and iceplatform all together  with another industry served by the short stub track. The little industry is happy with two boxcars at a time.

The ice facitity for my meat processing plant is "some where" off the layout.

08-26-2009 7:44 AM In reply to
Offline jguess733
Not Ranked
Joined on 06-27-2004
Bremerton, Wa
Posts 490

Re: Reefer Icing?

 here's two options for you. You could cut the platform in half lengthwise and put it up against the backdrop, that help you save a little space. or you could not even model the platform at all. Put a passing track close to the front of the layout and pretend the platform is in the aisle. Tony Koester did this on his Allegheny Midland.

08-26-2009 8:06 AM In reply to
Offline ndbprr
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 09-10-2002
Posts 4,964

Re: Reefer Icing?

I would take a different  approach.  I'd make every effort to double end that stub track.  Topping off reefers could then be done two at a time as the switcher pulls the whole string forward.  As far as real life it is highly doubtful a whole string would need reicing that quickly.  Perishables were handled like passenger moves and had priority over nearly every other type of freight just so they wouldn't need reicing often.  You may want to limit icing to just those cars starting from in town which would cut down on the quantity.

08-26-2009 9:32 AM In reply to
Offline West Coast S
Top 500 Contributor
Joined on 02-23-2005
Los Angeles
Posts 1,105

Re: Reefer Icing?

The need to ice just two cars most likely would have been attended to by a private contractor at the shippers point of orgin without the services of a dock or expedited "dry" to the nearest icing station. The only example of a single spur a stub  platform that i'm aware of, PFE/SP maintained a 11 car icing station and modest storage house at Bayshore Yard.

  

Dave    

 

  

 

08-26-2009 9:44 AM In reply to
Offline CB&Q Modeler
Not Ranked
Joined on 01-20-2009
Posts 130

Re: Reefer Icing?

Yep' Icing platforms need a inbound/outbound track,Best to see if you can't find a better spot in the yard,perferable with a reasonable long siding as most ice platforms were several hunder ft long.

Here's a picture of ours with 2 locomotives in front to give you a idea of length.

 

08-26-2009 5:06 PM In reply to
Offline tbdanny
Not Ranked
Joined on 06-26-2009
QLD, Australia
Posts 417

Re: Reefer Icing?

Thank you all for your informative replies.  Owing to the track arrangement, double-ending the siding is not an option, nor is the terminating it at a backdrop.  I think I'll substitute it with a stock yard on that particular siding.

08-26-2009 5:41 PM In reply to
Offline markpierce
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 04-04-2003
Union-Garratt Loco (Mark in Martinez, CA)
Posts 4,383

Re: Reefer Icing?

tbdanny:

 Owing to the track arrangement, double-ending the siding is not an option, nor is the terminating it at a backdrop.  I think I'll substitute it with a stock yard on that particular siding.

Yeah.  Often it is better not to model something that can't be reasonably simulated on our limited-space layouts.  In your situation, you can imagine the icing facility is somewhere beyond the modeled yard/layout. 

One can run into a similar problem with stock yards if they are intended for resting livestock in transit.  Like refrigerator cars which need to be re-iced rapidly so they can be sent on their way with little delay, quick loading and unloading of livestock for in-transit resting is necessary too.  If the corral is for livestock shipments in small quantities, you should be OK.

Mark

08-27-2009 6:34 AM In reply to
Offline faraway
Not Ranked
Joined on 02-01-2006
Germany
Posts 278

Re: Reefer Icing?

You did the right thing.

This was my planned icehouse and it's location on a short stub track

 

It has been replaced by this industry building (still under construction)

 

As the stub track was far too short to support an ice facility it is great to support the industry building getting one or two boxcars every other day.

08-27-2009 8:23 AM In reply to
Offline ndbprr
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 09-10-2002
Posts 4,964

Re: Reefer Icing?

Hold on a minute.  Your icehouse  is a lot longer than two cars.  Looks to me like you could handle as many as four cars.  A real quick and dirty solution might be to move it left a little and back and possibly put in a second track to handle eight cars.  Then all you need is an in town packer not on the visisble part of the railroad who needs those cars every day or if you still only want one track the receiver has space problems that limit the number of cars he can load at once so you send him blocks of four at a time making your icehouse and loading rack legitimate.  you can also justify it as an emergency icing facility which many railroads had in the event they did have to top off cars.

08-27-2009 8:29 AM In reply to
Offline dknelson
Top 50 Contributor
Joined on 03-20-2002
Milwaukee WI (Fox Point)
Posts 4,817

Re: Reefer Icing?

Sometimes what "has" to be done just can't be done, and this looks like one of those times, so there is no sense in belaboring the point.  So we deal with the facts on the ground.  There is not going to be a solution free of compromise so we have to free up our minds to accept some ideas that are not ideally what we want to do.

One possibility is to build the icing platform, maybe use the old mirror trick to make it look like it is longer and bigger, and more or less permanently park your two or three reefers there (the mirror making them look like four or six cars), with more than usual detail showing them actually in the process of being iced -- the platoforms actually going to the open ice hatches with blocks of ice being pushed by workers with pikes in their hands.  From an operating standpoint that track would be off limits because it is a scene, not a working siding.   I have not seen this done with iced reefers but I have seen it done with stock cars where the animals have been unloaded for the mandatory rest and watering.  Those stock cars do not move and the scene can be more detailed as a result. 

So what do to about incoming reefers that need to be iced, assuming it is the realistic operation aspect that you seek to replicate?  Well you could introduce a deliberately time "wasting" move of the block from one track to another and just declare them to be iced when the movement is done.  The point then is to introduce that sense of delay.   I know guys who do something like that when declaring that a cut of cars is being run over a track scale -- a scale track that they do not actually model.  The point is to force your yard crew to do something so they aren't just sending that cut of cars on its way.  This is sort of similar. 

You could arrange for the reefer block's arrival to signal the end of any giving operating session with the actual icing taking place during the unmodeled part of the day so the start of the next session sees the cars iced and ready to go. 

You could regard your yard as, in part, a "fiddle" yard and take the cars off line by hand so you free up that track, and again just declare that the cars are being iced. 

Hard to visualize the situation but combine that first idea -- the scene of permanently parked reefers being iced -- with the cut of actual operating reefers being pushed behind a backdrop behind the icehouse and then pulled out again later.  A sort of single-use staging track.  Possibly to create room for this the icehouse would be mere building front against a special mid-yard backdrop, even if the actual layout backdrop is further away.  Am I making myself clear here? 

Dave Nelson

 

 

 

08-27-2009 8:44 AM In reply to
Offline Mr. SP
Not Ranked
Joined on 12-15-2007
Oregon
Posts 513

Re: Reefer Icing?

In the days of Ice reefers they were operated in solid trains of them. SP handled trains of ice reefers containing produce from California. There was a huge ice dock and ice house in Roseville. Trains didn't stop to be iced just slowed down on a track that was next to the ice dock. The train went through at around 3 or 4 MPH through the iceing track. The train wasn't broken up as this would add time caused by switching.

The shipper probably iced the cars at the point of loading with re-icing done enroute at several points.

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