Icing Stations on the N&W

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Icing Stations:

 

May 1, 1924 version- Officers, Agents and Stations   p87 ( list 50 Auditing
epartment)

 

Columbus, Ohio  - (doesn't say Joyce or any other location)

Clare, Ohio 

Portsmouth, Ohio

Bluefield, WV

Norton, VA

Bristol, VA-TN

Roanoke, VA

Hagerstown Transfer, MD

Hagerstown Junction, MD

Winston-Salem, NC ( Emergency)

Crewe, VA

Norfolk, VA

Petersburg, VA  ( for icing or re-icing cars to or from Petersburg proper
points on City point branch and interchanged with connecting lines at that
point only.  (Other cars are handled via Belt Line and cannot be re-iced at
Petersburg.)

 

The June 1, 1940 version Stations and Sidings, Station Numbers or Symbols
etc.  doesn't call out icing locations.  (Also Auditing Department issue)

 

December 1, 1964 of Stations and Sidings.  does not list icing locations
either.  (Auditing)

 

( somehow, I think I have other thinner books that list icing locations,
scales, stock pens and whatnots rather that the stations and sidings book
for this period.)

 

Stations and Sidings. for April 1, 1969  lists (auditing issue)

 

REGULAR

 

Bellevue, Ohio  ( re-icing only  which will not apply on shipments destined
Cleveland or Portsmouth Ohio or beyond)

Bluefield, WV  ( for shipments moving to or from Norton or St. Paul and
other traffic originating at points west of Roanoke or moving eastward to
points west of Roanoke)

Decatur IL   (except from  a whole bunch of locations to numerous to list
here)

Detroit (Oakwood)

Norfolk, VA

Portsmouth, Ohio

Roanoke VA ( for certain movements)

St. Louis, MO (or East St. Louis on the TRRA)  

 

Emergency

Bloomington, Il

Buffalo, NY

Calumet Yard, Chicago

Chicago, IL

Cleveland, OH

Columbus, OH

Conneaut, OH

Danville, IL

Des Moines, IA

Detroit (Oakwood Yard)

Fort Wayne, IN

Hannibal. MO

Indianapolis, IN

Keokuk, IA

La Fayette, IN

Lima, OH

Peoria, IL

Peru, IN

Quincy, IL

Toledo, OH

Winston-Salem, NC

 

Retop- ( blown in crushed ice (snow ice) over leafy veggies)

 

Buffalo, NY

Chicago, IL

Cleveland, OH

Decatur, IL

Detroit, MI

Indianapolis, IN

St. Louis, MO

Toledo, OH  

 

(No Durham mentioned anywhere in this document)

 

My 1977 (update from 1972) indexes icing Stations but has no actual list of
them.

 

My October 1, 1960 list of Officers, Supervisors, Agents, Stations and Other
useful Information ( also from the Auditing Department, but not bound or
spiral bound but brass tacks and type set like a typewriter type)  lists 

 

Regular:

 

Bluefield

Bristol, VA

Clare (e/b re-icing only)

Columbus

Hagerstown

Norfolk

Page, WV

Portsmouth, OH

Roanoke

 

Emergency

 

Clare  ( w/b delayed form Portsmouth or originating west of Portsmouth)

 

Durham

 

Elmore, WV

 

Winston-Salem, NC

 

That Clare as late as 1960 was icing cars is new to me, especially 'loads
originating west of Portsmouth, Ohio'  I haven't a clue as to what delicate
veggie or fruit came from farms west of Portsmouth that was enough to
require a full reefer car or that needed ice!  

 

Some insight according to the Pacific Fruit Express history:

 

They saw their product line as moving fruits and veggies to the east where
the car would be iced with blocks or chunks in the end compartments and
circulation would cool the product.  Some veggies or strawberries could be
covered with shaved ice blown in over the crates and no block ice used.
This produce was generally early season produce.  Later they would need
ventilated cars , say for apples or potatoes, that would need ventilation or
possibly heaters to keep from freezing as the car moved through north
climates on the way to NY, NY.  These cars they kept clean and did not ship
products with smells in them.

 

Cars with florist's shipments of flowers could intermix with the fruit and
produce cars.

 

PFE also had meat reefers where the car used a salt-ice mixture to lower the
temperature.  The meat rails and brine rusting kept these cars exclusive to
meat shipping.

 

Once a car was used for iced fish, it stayed with the iced fish market
forever.

 

PFE has some cars more heavily insulated to be used for the early frozen
food products that required (but didn't really get) below freezing cooling.
This was in the 1930's.

 

They also had a fleet of express reefers for the early strawberry market
where high prices could be obtained for the early season. The rest of the
time these cars were underutilized and were farmed out where needed.

 

At the end of harvest season, the fruit and produce cars were parceled out
for mail storage cars to the USPS/railroads for Christmas mail as the cars
had no work otherwise.

 

For the PFE and the Sante Fe's SFRD fleet, most of the originating traffic
was the California Central Valley.  Here the cars were returned to a
facility that was a car building /rebuilding shop as the cars were wood and
needed maintenance frequently.  Along with this facility was an icing
platform and an ice plant.  The cars would come here get repaired and or
cleaned and get issued by an allocation system much like that the N&W used
to issue coal cars to mines except this system had to take into account the
seasonal nature of the crops.  Depending on the crop and the outside air
temperature the car might get precooled by additions of ice to the ice
bunkers or cold air blowing before it was sent off to be loaded.  In the
high summer, precooling allowed the car to be loaded, re-iced or topped that
evening and sent on its way that night.

 

Ventilated crops, like apples, did not require the pre-cooling, so the cars
tended not to go to the central shop before being routed to a loading site.
That car, after being loaded, would frequently move via a local to the
facility where ice may or may not be added depending on the weather
conditions or kerosene heaters might be added to the bunkers if outside air
temps could freeze the load.

 

As one might suspect, the system used numerous, but fixed, loading locations
and a series of local trains to pull the loaded cars to a marshalling yard
for movement to the east- JUST LIKE LOADING COAL.  The neat part about the
produce trains is that the loaded cars generally were moving away on a
special fruit train about 12 hours after they were loaded.

 

I would have to assume that FGE had a similar system for moving their
produce with likely more diversification of locations, smaller quantities to
be moved, but less issues from high ambient temperatures (like hauling
trains through the Southwest desert.)  They had to have cyclic ripening
times and harvest times for their produce just like that from the west.

 

Both the SP and the Sante Fe ran green fruit specials that were all reefers
that ran on passenger train schedules and with passenger train priority.
Once final iced in California, they ran until TX or Oklahoma before icing
again, then once more around Chicago before arriving in the NY area for the
final icing before distribution.  Did FGE have the big icing platforms that
SP and Sante Fe had?  Did FGE have 'green fruit' specials?  I know the L&N
and IC had specials for the banana traffic, but bananas can't be iced.  

 

I suspect that few, if any, reefers would get loads in and around Durham.
The need for icing would be cars that were interchanged from somewhere else
that might need to be re-iced.  I think that is why Durham and so many other
places show up as emergency sites.  One would only re-ice the odd car or a
delayed car. 

 

Gary Rolih

(an ex-western kid that used to see 100 car trains made up of entirely PFE
reefers )  

(ps. I also remember how great the fruit used to taste before they diddled
with the ripening times to get away from the need to get the fruit to market
at its peak.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  _____  

From: nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org
[mailto:nw-mailing-list-bounces at nwhs.org] On Behalf Of
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sent: Saturday, September 30, 2006 10:52 PM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Subject: Re: Icing Stations on the N&W

 

A little more reefer madness............

 

Thanks to Harry Bundy and others who answered my question a couple of weeks
ago.  From what I had read I suspected 1966 was a little late for ice to be
used for refrigeration, but the 1966 Stations and Siding book is all that I
have.  Does any one out there have an earlier dated listings book that list
Durham, NC other as a re-icing station?  I cannot think of any produce of a
large volume that would be shipped out of the Durham District that would
need refrigeration.  You don't need to refrigerate tobacco or cigarettes.

 

Were the FGE cars returned empty to their yards in Alexandra or Jacksonville
or would they be used for non-refrigerated or non-vented products?  What was
the receivers responsibility in prepping the car for it's return trip?

 

Thanks, 

 

Chuck Stewart

 

 

In a message dated 9/17/2006 8:10:47 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:

Chuck:

 

First - I suspect that by 1966 the need to ice a refrigerator was rather
remote.

The mechanical refrigerators had replaced the reefers with ice bunkers.  The

last iced reefers I remember seeing were on  Clinchfield  No. 92 in 1963.
They

were owned by meat packers.  No. 92 on the Clinchfield, by the way, was

SOUTHbound. 

   

Second - you asked about icing on the N&W.  From SAL's perishable schedules

for 1961-62,  I note that their primary perishable train - No. 86 (a.k.a.
"The Fox")

would only handle cars NOT needing ice between Baldwin and Potomac Yard.

No. 86 left Baldwin, FL at 10:10 AM (Tues. for example) and the N&W cars

set off at Secoast at 11:00  AM (Wednesday) to be picked up at 11:30 AM by

No. 77.  A car for Columbus was slated to arrive at 8:30 AM on Thursday.  It
kinda

looks like N&W didn't get an opportunity to ice them either.  

 

Third - I'm not sure N&W shouldered all the responsibility.  Fruit Growers
Express

may have had a hand in securing ice and servicing the cars.  Ben Tyler, a

former VGN official, oversaw FGE's operations in Norfolk.  During potato
season,

he regularly got a morning report that showed the situation of  the
refrigerator

cars - on hand, available, in transit, etc.

 

 
Harry Bundy 

 

 

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