1st QUESTION: Did any of the Colorado narrow-gauge lines have ice-bunker refrigerated boxcars?
2nd QUESTION: Did the Rio Grande’s “Chili Line” between Antonito and Santa Fe, NM have any need for ice-cooled reefers?
If I recall correctly, the Colorado Railroad Museum has an insulated boxcar on display; but with all of the reading I’ve done about the Colorado & Southern, Rio Grande, and Denver, South Park and Pacific, I cannot recall ever seeing anything about “reefers.”
I can imagine that potatoes and onions might move a short ways through the San Luis Valley in an insulated boxcar, only to be transferred to a standard gauge, ice-bunker or mechanically refrigerated car. And I can also imagine beer shipments being transloaded from standard gauge to narrow gauge insulated boxcars. But I just can’t see where narrow gauge reefers would be at all necessary.
Yes, they did. Hilton’s “The American Narrow Gauge Railroads” has several pics and specs of narrow gauge ice-bunker reefers in Colorado. People served by the little trains liked fresh food as much as anyone.
I don’t know about the Chili Line. There just wasn’t much of anything on that line and the people of Santa Fe could be well supplied by the Santa Fe.