I rode an ATSF freight, mostly reefers (but I found an empty box), east, CA to TX in summer 1953 (I was 17yrs old). I watched them load large cubes of ice thru the top at the ends of the reffers. They worked off a wide catwalk that was about level with top of the cars. What I am asking is, did these cars have mechanical blowers to circulate the cold air? I don’t remember anything on the outside that looked like grilles, shafts, etc.
Bear with me , I’m sure it been on before. Been gone a while.
A lot of the ice-bunker reefers had circulating fans to aid the normal flow of things. They were operated by a drive connected to an axle (rubber [?] wheel against the tread of a flanged wheel) that could be put down or lifted off. There was a little circle toward the bottom of the side that showed the end of the fan shaft; you could easily tell if it was spinning.
THe Illinois Central RR played a major role in transporting perishable fruit to many places in the upper midwest and other regions as well. IC’s Passenger trains hauled fresh strawberries in their baggage cars out of Louisiana. The railroad had a major car icing facility at Fulton, Kentucky; it was the junction of the IC’s ‘Eastern-most’ Main line, and its’ ‘Western-most’ main Lines. In fact Fulton at one time proudly called itself the ‘Banana Capital of the US’ !
The New York Central cut thousands of tons of ice from Adirondack lakes, all bound for use in reefers around the system. It was one of the larger commodities shipped out of the Adirondacks.
It does make me wonder, though… Would the melt from such ice, since it was dripping far from it’s point of origin, be considered a bad thing today?
