Who maintains reefers?

[Anonymous]

I was recently watching a train on the U.P. main out of Chicago. I noticed it was pulling quite a few reefer units. My son asked several questions that perhaps the talent on line here can answer.
1. Who maintain's the engines on these reefer units? Does the railroad contract that out?
2. Who fuels these units? How many times are they fueled say between Calf. and New York?
3. Are there alarms on the engine to notify the crew when one of the reefer's is about to run out of gas or has a malfuction?
4. Is the U.P. the only one who uses reefer's?
5. How cold can these reefers get? Can you haul frozen foods in them?
TIM A

[wabash1]

tim as far as the matainace on them i am not sure. who fuels these units is the road that has them in their care at that time. it is checked at terminals when they are switched or waiting on another crew. no there is no alarm on the engines to alert that the unit has a problem. in the couse of a trip you will walk your train at least once. and the conductor should check the unit for faults and these units can go well below zero ive seen some running at -20 and there is other companies that have refer units but none that i can think of as railroad owned.

[Anonymous]

Do these reefer units run on gas or diesil? If they are used to haul fruit from Calfornia to New York, on the way back to California can they be used like a regular boxcar. Or are they sent back empty?
TIM A

[csxns]

Frozen foods use to come from California the reefer would be loaded with textiles products going back west.

[edblysard]

Hi Tim,
The engines on the reefer is on a maintainance schedule, just like a locomotive, so many months change the oil, ect., but the are checked out by the mecahnial dept of the initiating and recieving terminals, and by most car men at any yard they stop at en route. If they are low on fuel, the owner is notified, and the owner contracts with a local fuel dealer where ever the cars is at to re-fuel it. It is often planed to be fueled at a certain point in the trip, we have a track here at the port just for that purpose, to set out reefer refuels. No alarms are needed, the car will get to a terminal or yard, and the car men will check on it, the car owner also has the fuleing on a schedule. Even if it runs out of deisiel fuel, those car are like a refridgerator, well insulated, and can sit for quite some time with the engine off. BNSF owns a large fleet, as does UP, and you often see reefers in the Railbox pool, UP and BNSF both have newer cars, with GPS systems to tell the owners how cold it is inside, where the car really is, how much fuel is onboard, that kinda neat stuff. Both BNSF and UP also have "thermos" cars, where there is no refridgation at all, the produce is loaded cold, and the car is sealed, it like a huge thermos bottle, and can go from coast to coast, as long as it isnt opened. They are used for produce that requires a constant temp, but not freezing, like potatoes, tomatoes, corn and such.
A mechanial reefer can go as low as -50, but it requires a lot of fuel to keep it that cold, the average is -10 to -20.
The newer BNSF cars are white, with a ring of blue icicles running around the top and a blue BNSF logo and the the words Chilled Express in blue on the sides, I cant remember what UP calls theirs, but they are painted armour yellow, the railbox pool cars are yellow too, and bear the loge "Solid Cold". You can see some private cars, but not often. If you live near Chicago, I belive the Birds Eye company has a plant there, go look at the cars they use.
Reefers are in use almost constantly. One might haul a load of birds eye frozen veggies fron chicago to california at -20, then go to idaho to be loaded with sacks of potatoes bound for texas, the refridgeration unit set to 36*, then from texas to chicage with oranges at 40*, then back to california for frozen beets to take to imperial sugar, here in sugarland texas. Yes, thats really a city in texas, and imperial sugar has a huge plant there, so the name kinda came with the plant.
Ed

[wabash1]

Ed funny you should mention sugarland. been there as a truck driver hauled a load of sugar out of there. and for the type of product and the place it was suprisingly clean. but like has been said the refer units are insulated box cars you can haul anything in the refer that you haul in the boxcar. the exception. (as they said in school there is a rule but always exceptions.) you never haul certain hazmat loads in the same containers you would haul food stuffs. never haul anything that leaves a odor in the car. that can get into the food.

[edblysard]

Yeah, but if you go by the place when the plant is in full swing, well, you dont need to add sugar to your coffee, just hold it out the window for a minute...
I know some of the places down here that get reefers have a crew thats only jobs is to clean the inside of the car. If they find a problem, then they bad order the car. So most of the empties we pull are really clean on the inside, no matter how cruddy the outside seems..
Ed

[Anonymous]

Are all fefers mechanical in the sense that powered by a fuel motor or are there any powered by a driveshaft generator from the axle? I've seen this on Italian refers (interfrigo), also seen cabooses in North America with the machanism (generator ). I would guess if you had 60 refers like this you may need an extra unit to pull the train just for the drag. If it was an electric train like in Italy it would mean the refer is electicaly run from the overhead, indirectly. Wouldn,t this kind of refer with a drive off the axle be lower maintanence? Surely refer cars don't sit around so long as you would need a motor powered cooling?

[edblysard]

Yes, they can sit for quite some time. That said, a axle drive only charges battries, and you can imagine the size of battery needed to keep a car that size at -20? As for the caboose, all they had we two or three low watt light bulbs and a radio, nothing else, sa a small battery was sufficent.

[Anonymous]

Thanks again Guy's for the education. You answered all my questions and then some!!
TIM A

[Anonymous]

Just to add a little extra info, we actually refuse to accept reefers via interchange if the reefer is not working (out of fuel, mechanical issue, etc.). This is CYA for our railroad.