When did the U.S. stop using ice to cool passenger coaches, these cars had two bunkers underneath on both sides, large blocks of ice were loaded and fans circulated cool air to the coach above.
This method was used in Canada until the mid 1950’s, ( possibly longer) maybe the U.S. shipped all their old ice-cooled coaches to Canada? It was very prestigious to work on the ice gang earning 70 cents and hour.
Wasn’t there an ice-to-chilled water system, too? Remember: diners, lounges, and sleeping cars were ice-cooled, also. My “Pullman” car ran out of ice at Portal, ND on the Soo Dominion in the summer of 1955. It was not a pleasant journey to the next ice station at Moose Jaw, SK.
Hays
On CP the ice cooled car era came to an end when the HW cars stopped running. The LW cars never had it, and some HW cars never received upgrades beyond ice cooled technology.
Hays brings up a point my father made many times. From all the articles I’ve read over the years, ice seemed to work OK east of Winnipeg and on the west coast, but it was not a good system on the prairies in the summer. The humidity was just too low. My Dad said sometimes it would only work for the first fifty miles out of the terminal. If it was one of the first cars to be re-iced and then stood in the terminal for a while before the train got moving again, the car would barely stay cool after you left town. The LW cars were a miracle of technology in more ways than one.
Bruce
At the end of WW-2 my farther took a few pictures of Pullman cars that laid over for the day that had the big blocks of ice installed during the summer. Imagine an oversized butter stick being sild into the air conditioner bin. The ice would be brought on a low slung baggage cart after arrival of the layover cars and again before the cars were attached onto thru trains. A power cord was attached to each car (voltages unknown different types of cords to different cars with some fed by a motor generator set.) to run the various electrical items of each car.
Someone who has an old RR guide can look up the following. there were approximately 5 (?) types of air conditioning systems installed on various cars. Pullman started out with the ice cars, Then in no particular order you had Electro - mechanical, Steam ( the old amonia refrigerator system) , Steam ejector, and one type the Waukesha (propane motor) There may have been others and if someone can look into a mid to late 40’s guide I have seen the various types listed for number series of each RR or for named series of passenger cars.
These differences in cooling were one cause for the inability of carmen to keep in the early Amtrak days rolling stock working as unfamiliar A/C equipment would show up to someone who never seen that type. Ice they could understand. Some class 1s had settled on one type but there were a lot of class ones on Amtrak day and Amtrak mixed the cars onto various RRs too freely…
Well I would have been on the ice gang when the SOO pulled into the “Jaw” this was my summer job icing trains. We had trains from Calgary on hot days (105 degrees) that when we opened the ice bunkers, dry rusted dust came out, the passengers were glad to see us.
My best recollection of gratitude was when a troop train filled with soldiers coming back from Korea, stopped in Moose Jaw and 6 soldiers ran across the street to a beer parlour and came back with 2 cases of beer each, we iced their coach BUT we also passed smaller blocks of ice inside (the windows opened) the soldiers filled all the sinks and toilets with ice to cool their beer, were they thankful to us, the conductors and porters were not too happy.
Waukesha is the last one. They were powered by propane-burning engines built by the Waukesha engine company. They were better than the electromechanical, since they did not depend upon the speed of the car to keep keep the air cool. (I rode in the Wildwood-St. Pete combine on the Silver Meteor on a February day, and the car was warm, having sat overnight in Wildwood and the batteries were not well-charged). The exhaust stank like poorly burnt coal. All except steam (I knew of steam ejector but I had not heard of this one) were still in use on passenger cars listed in the Passenger Car Register in the sixties.
I was on one of those troop trains {pullmans}. Coming from Korea, and off the ship at Seattle, Wa., and then all the way to Ft. Meade, Md. via train for discharge. Time: Mid Aug. 1954.
Deggesty: Thanks for the Waukesha. I did not even guess close to the spelling. Thinking about the old gas refrigerator type - heated by steam probably did not work very well because steam was not hot enough to boil the amonia consistently. I vaguely recall our local ice plant had several bad leaks of amonia before it closed. Bet that system may have died before even WW-2. Thanks for looking it up in a register!!
A good book that would answer that question for you is “VIA Rail” by Christopher C.N. Greenlaw, Voyageur Press, 2007. This book was reviewed in TRAINS when it came out, and the reviewer found it a bit too political, but I enjoyed the book very much.
This topic also comes up on the CP Historical Association group on Yahoo occasionally.
From what I recall, CP didn’t bring in that many cars from the US, but the CNR bought quite a few.
Bruce
Again, both in the USA and in Canada (Mexico, too, for that matter), ice cooliing went out with the last of the heavyweights. For all I know, some tourist line with heavyweights may still use it.
Well into the 1960’s the Q’s Chicago commuter pool of equipment frequently featured a heavyweight “power coach” coupled next to the locomotive. Painted a silver color, each one looked like an ordinary combine; but, the baggage section contained a diesel generator set that supplied electric power to the double-decker gallery cars that trailed behind the power coach. Whereas the gallery cars had cooling systems that were powered by electricity, the power coach used block ice.
I don’t ever recall seeing any block ice loading operations within the train shed of Chicago Union Station; but, then again, with the coach yard located just outside C.U.S., ice probably was loaded there before the train backed in.
As some of the Q’s passenger E-units had their steam generators replaced with head-end power sets, the power coaches became fewer and fewer. Eventually they were all retired.
I wish I had been able to see what roads still had ice aircondtioned cars; I could not remember where I put my registers when I reorganized my railroadiana collection this past winter. I only remembered that a few roads still had them in the late sixties. If I find them in the near future I may report on who still had such.
I remember some heavyweight cars being iced at the Memphis Union Station ( Now site of the Central Post Office on Calhoun ) they got one hundred pound blocks delivered by truck from the reefer icing facility ( Railway’s Ice Co.) at Frisco’s Yale Yard, and transported them around on luggage carts. Southern used heavyweights on the Tennessean up until the end of its service (out of Union Station). Even saw the Tennessean leave( they even tried to service it there,( but everything was transported from Union Station to do it) from the original Memphis and Charleston Station in the 1960’s for a short while.
The MoPac operated out of a station on the South Bluff (around Auction St ,I think) ( As I recall, the old Memphis and Iron Mountain RR station) The Rock Island’s Choctaw ran out of the Rocks freight facility on Calhoun St. Their cars were pretty much older and they were iced by block ice as well.
The Illinois Central Passenger Cars were new streamliner type ( operated from the IC’s Central Station). I’d guess rhey used the latest mechanical refrigeration technology, Same was pretty much for L&N’s cars, and Frisco’s as well.
South Shore used the Waukesha system on its stretched coaches that had air conditioning (22-28 and 100-111, I think). Santa Fe was a big user of steam-ejector air conditioning.
I am old, but not that old. New Haven ran some heavyweight sleepers into Grand Central Terminal into the late '60s. They must have had mechanical refrigeration, or they drug them out to Mott Haven Yard for re-icing. It would have been near-to-impossible to ice them in GCT, what with the high level platforms. I’ll ask my friend, who owns a heavyweight ex-NYC business car, when it got A/C. Our MU commuter cars didn’t have A/C until the “new” 4400’s came on board (ca. 1956???).
Hays
There is a movie called the Festival Express - http://www.festivalexpress.com/usa/index2.html. Was filmed on a train traveling across most of Canada in 1970. I remember seeing a quick shot of carts of ice being pulled by a small Tugger to service some of the cars on the train’s ac systems. Also lots of interior shots of the cars and good music.
I rented at my local video store, so you don’t have to buy it to see it.