iceing plant/loading dock

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

hi guy’s
could someone please tell me if there are any examples of an iceing dock above a loading dock in the same building???

any help always very appreciated

chers
gav[?][bow][?]

2

What is it that you are trying to recreate? Something like a freight depot / ice house? To my knowledge, wich I admit is limited, an ice dock was usually a stand alone structure. That is if you are talking about one used for ice reefers. There are many examples of dual purpose ice/coal docks but those were for residential uses.

3

There was a situation like this on the Santa Maria Valley Railway in Santa Maria, CA. Produce was loaded through the side doors of ice reefers and there was an ice deck above to allow the filling of the ice bunkers. The cars only had to be spotted once. Very efficient and I don’t know why this scheme was not more broadly used.

I couldn’t find any pictures on-line, but the Santa Maria valley Railway Hsitorical Museum might be able to help.
http://www.smvrhm.org/index.html

Regards,

Byron

4

i don’t know about most railroads but the SP used to supply their own ice for reefer cars…the SP would pull the reefer cars along the route into (usually located in a major yard) to a siding of special loading docks for ice loads before and during transportation of cold products…what you may do is put in a couple of sidings that load ice on one track and then switch them to a loading dock on the other track…chuck

5

thank you guy’s. due to limited width 10" i’m trying tocompact industry and yard so a 2 in 1
structure will be exellent glad they exist. sorry i should have been more clearer
its for iceing reefers and loading them [:D][bow]

6

Something like this might work. I have it on my layout. It would be very easy to set up a loading dock as well. The whole thing is only 7 1/2 inches wide. I’m not sure who put out the original kit, I bought it already built.

7

tim
thanks for the view I was looking for something more modern but the idea is the same thanks alot

8

Normally, the ice dock would be seperate from the loading dock. The idea of having an over/under arrangement may sound good. But, usually one needs to ‘pre-cool’ a reefer and get it to the desired temp that the customer has specified. This can take from several hours to half a day to get the interior of the reefer chilled.

Jim Bernier

9

It’s your model railroad, it’s your ice dock/warehouse, it’s your reefer.

Go ahead and do what you want. You don’t have to prove to anyone that it is prototypical, although in my experience, almost anything you want to do in modeling has already been done on the prototype, sometime, somewhere, somehow.

Have fun!

Darrell, icily quiet…for now

10

thanks guy’s foregot about pre chilling but nevermind it could be used as a topup point

11

Anyone have any links to good photos of typical ice plants and icing docks?

Thanks

Ed

12

Ideally, reefers are washed after unloading and then reiced. Once cooled (Usually they can have the ice dumped bunkers full then sent on way while cooling down) should arrive at the shipper cold enough to start loading.

If you think you want a ice rack with your shipper then by all means do it. If you theoratically have a source of water for cooling you can probably create ice for reefers.

13

I keep reading these comments like this, and its a wonder I have reams of back issues.

I think questions like this spur on for the knowledge to know how to build their layout.
or they wouldnt ask.

yeh, the prototype mightve had combined facilities, and like mentioned, only a few instances like that.
Its a little more modeling interest to keep it separate so you move cars a little more…

I had car cards made that felivered to an icing plant then to the loading dock.