I am modelling an urban layout set in 1940 (NYC). I know, reefers were iced at that time, but what about a produce terminal? I have a fruit distribution center that receives carloads of perishibles from car floats for local wholesale businesses…
Would they typically have used some sort of chillers then? Situated on the roof? If so, what did they look like? Photos and links would be appreciated. Thanks.
I’ll just bump this, hoping for a reply. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of activity over here.
I don’t know a lot about mechanical refrigeration, but some of the earliest types relied on running water to chill the air. A friend of mine in high-school worked at a plant nursery that used this method of cooling when the greenhouses got too hot. They would run water down the lower half of the greenhouse window to a splash pad that ran around the foundation. With windows slightly open right at the bottom of the wall, the cool air would flow into the greenhouse as the hot air exited at the peak of the roof.
I would imagine that this is the type of cooling that a large building would have used in the 1940s. Maybe it is not right, but maybe this will prompt some more responses.
Andrew
There were definitely mechanical refrigeration plants (and air conditioning) in many structures by 1940. Often these plants had large, louvered towers where water dripped over cooling coils to take the heat out of ammonia or other refrigerants. Such towers could be found on the roofs of hotels and theaters, or standing adjacent to cold-storage warehouses and ice plants. Many fruit and produce distributors had cold-storage rooms chilled by this type of refrigeration plant. Unfortunately, I don’t know of any current models of such cooling towers. The drawings on page 42 of the October 1956 “Model Railroader” show one example of this kind of tower.
Good luck,
Andy
I did a search for produce ware houses on the internet. I found one very brief historical article about one very large one built in 1929. The one photo (an aerial) did not appear to show any cooling towers, but I’m not sure since it wasn’t very clear. The rest of the links appeared to be links to current operations.
I suspect, but am not sure, that the produce passed through the warehouse so fast that refrigeration was not necessary. In the 1950’s my Aunt owned a grocery store in Spokane, Washingtion. I remember going with her to buy produce early in the morning. I believe it had been delivered to the warehouse overnight.
However as Andy sugests some warehouses may have had a cold storage room.
Most of the old refrigeration plants used ammonia for the refrigerant, and yes, as Andy suggested, lots of them had roof top chillers or chillers adjacent to the buildings. However, many plants also relied on non-recirculating water for refrigerant condensation as well. Generally, this type of refrigeration plant wouldn’t be seen from the exterior of the building at all, as condensate water would be taken from the water supply, piped through an exchanger, and head right on down the drain (mentality in the earlier days was not quite so conservation minded as these days…). Wasteful nowadays, inexpensive those days, as the cost of a chiller and the subsequent maintenance required could be prohibitive compared to using the cheapest commodity available once and disposing of it through the drain.
Another common practice was to build the chiller indoors and vent through a louvered wall to the exterior…
Often loaded reefers (fruits and vegetables) did not have a final destination designated when they started their journey. They were sent off in the general direction of the markets, the load was sold while enroute and the car then routed as necessary to get the load where it was wanted.
I do not have any info on this precise topic, but sometimes libraries retain old technical books, magazines, and encyclopedias in a back room that might have this kind of information. Sometimes you can even buy them at used book sales
Dave Nelson.