Just curious about shipping potatoes. Are they transported by refrigerator car, or standard box? Thinking of working in a small potato chip factory in on the layout, and was curious about freight movement. I’m planning vegetable oil shipments, but was unsure about potatoes. Thanks!
-Patrick
Trucks.
http://www.railexusa.com/images/potatosrvce.pdf
Thanks Rus, found my answer…
Good question. I would think just regular box cars, because potatoes don’t need to be refigerated.
My dad used to drive semi trucks over the road, and he had potato shipments all the time. He would pull the trailer up to the dock, and they used a machine that actually shoots them through a bug air tube. They would also layer a soft material on the floor of the bed, like sawdust or something. I would think the same process applies to rail cars.
Interesting subject,
Rail transport up through the 50’s was in reefers that had to be ‘heated’ in cold winter temps. Charcoal heaters were placed in the reefers to keep the potatoes from freezing. When unloading, they had to ‘air out’ the cars so that the workers did not get done in by the carbon monoxide. This was a big seasonal business in Maine and in the Red River Valley(MN/ND).
As trucks took over the business in the 60’s, the NP had special insulated/heated covered hoppers built(Condition-Aire) to try and win back the business to rail. BN later even proposed ‘triple-stack’ low profile containers to haul the product. I remember seeing lots of potato warehouses along the GN/NP lines on either side of the Red River in the 79’s.
Jim
A lot depends on era. potatoes might be in reefers to keep them from freezing. Modern era potatoes are shipped frozen like frenchfries. they are in reefers.
For the last 50 years, mechanical reefers have been the standard car for fresh potatoes on the western railroads, along with some use of RBLs (insulated boxcars). The thermal mass of 50 tons of potatoes coupled with the insulation is often sufficient to keep the temperature within a few degrees of the loading temperature for a week to 10 days with relatively little demand on the refrigeration unit.
Potatoes are usually now in bags or sacks in large palletized cartons, or loose in smaller cartons on a pallet, for easy movement with a forklift. Back in the really old days, they were often loose in the car.
Back in my younger days, D&RGW at times shipped upwards of 50 reefer loads of potatoes a day out of the San Luis Valley, loaded both on D&RGW and on the San Luis Central.
RWM
They call on their communicators - “Beam me up, Mr. Spud”… [(-D]
Didn’t you know? They’re transported in doubleSACK cars 
One of the greatest cars ever for a model railroad. A State of Maine red, white and blue striped car introduced to the world by Lionel in tinplate.
patrick: In the early 20 th century, in Michigan, potatoes were transported to potatoe warehouses with a rail siding by the grower, where they were shipped by boxcar. Along the former Ann Arbor railroad old potatoe warehouses can still be seen. The potatoes were shipped in sacks.
There’s some info on current-day potato shipping HERE. If you check out the link in the first post, then scroll down to almost the bottom of that page, it also shows a bit of the unloading process.
Wayne