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There already have been several good answers to the original question. Here are three more responses to this topic, all taken from messages posted on my Yahoo group, Citrus Industry Modeling Group. Please feel free to drop by. It's free. Bob Chaparro Moderator Citrus Industry Modeling Group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citrusmodeling/ 1.In the 2d Qtr 1989 "Santa Fe Modeler" there is an article by Jay Miller on building a Santa Fe-style Icing dock, based on the dock at Amarillo TX. The article includes plans, which themselves include plans for the Salt Storage house located under the deck itself. The Salt Storage House was a lean-to type building, with v-groove siding and corrugated tin roof. It was 20' x 8', and had three 4' 8" doors located across the front. 2. Courtesy of Thompson's PFE book (Page 346), we do know that when needed up to 5 pounds of salt were used per hundred pounds of ice (5 percent by weight) to cool fresh produce. Twelve percent salt was used for meats and a maximum of thirty percent for frozen foods. This would lead me to suspect that five percent or less was all that was used for citrus, when it was needed. 3. As has been stated, salt was added to the ice bunkers of reefers to increase the rate at which the ice would melt, thus resulting in lower tempatures in the reefer. The amount of ice and the amount of salt, if any, to be put into a reefer was set by the shipper and, of course, depended largely upon what was being shipped. I am most familiar with the Santa Fe's Hobart ice plant in Los Angeles, but I believe all the Santa Fe ice plants operated in a similar manner. At Hobart, salt was brought to the ice plant and, using shovels and manual labor, was put into burlap bags. The bags were filled by weight, and I believe each bag was 50 pounds. The weighing was done by a large, industrial size scale. The bags were moved up to the icing dock by means of a conveyer and stacked in a salt storage room which was located at the head end of the icing dock. When it was known that salt would be needed, the salt bags were moved down the icing dock by means some type of hand cart. At Hobart, it was a four wheel cart that was similar to a luggage cart found at passenger depots. The salt bags would be pre-positioned along the icing dock. Salt was added to the ice bunkers according to the icing instructions for each car. When used, the salt was usually added to the top of the ice when the icing was completed. In some cases, however, salt was added when the bunker was half full of ice as well as to the top when the bunker was completely filled with ice. The salt operation changed slightly at Hobart Ice Plant in (as I remember) the mid 1950's when a salt silo was added next to the icing dock on the East, stub-end side. This steel silo was round and was approximately the same height as the roof of the icing dock. A hopper car containing salt would be spotted at the end of the track by the salt silo and unloaded into an undergound concret pit. The salt was loaded into the silo by means of a conveyor. The burlap bags were filled on the icing dock directly from a chute built into the silo.
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