No, no, no, not the green, leafy stuff.... I'm talking about the refrigerator car, whether it was wood or steel & required icing, or has its own onboard refrigeration unit. I'll kick off with a few shots: Ex- Bangor & Aroostook 40-foot refrigerator car, shot in the snow at North Conway, NH a week or so ago. A State of Maine Products reefer, ex-BAR, once used to haul potatoes. Same place as previous. Yet another BAR reefer, in another lettering variation.
Retired mechanical reefer from Conrail. Here is an interesting detail. The small whip antenna is for monitoring and, perhaps, controlling the refregeration unit. The other is a GPS receiver.
Peirce did they add the GPS to many reefer units?That is an interesting detail.......you mean they could turn the unit on & off through radio control,save alot on fuel & running costs?
This may only be an insulated box, but as it carries the marks for American Refrigerator Transit, here goes: Part of a UP manifest at Fort Leavenworth last year sometime...
I am not sure of the details, but these seem to be Conrail innovations origanally. The radio antenna could be for either monitoring or monitoring and control.
The unit was dropped off in our yard about the time Conrail, as we knew it then, was going out of business. Unfortunately, that left us with very little history. I know that if I was assigning the communication equipment, I would certainly start with the reefers carrying the most critical items.
Maybe a question could be posted about this, in our Conrail Forum? Surely we have some fans of Big Blue, who might known something? Boxcab E50
The criteria for posting a refrigerator car here is pretty broad and I am not sure I know the differences in the types. There were wooden 40 foot ice reefers. Then, steel 40 foot ice reefers. Then, mechanical reefers that had refrigeration units in the end; they ran all the time. After that, I am not sure. Cryogenic? Some with no mechanical refrigeration parts? Now we are using GPS to turn them on and off? Also, what about TOFC refrigeration. Don't they do that now, or is that old? How many refrigeration units are there? Used to be thousands of ice reefers. And why do these modern cars still have roofwalks? Some of you modern railfans should give a class on that stuff!! Please??
Flash, You sure are right about this being a broad topic. Don't have answers for all your questions but I can answer a couple of them. The GPS is used for tracking and monitoring the reefer unit. This monitoring allow for a quick response should the reefer quit working. Losing an entire car load of product due to a bad reefer is not cheep. As for TOFC reefers, that is alive and well. Here is a shot of a FFE reefer trailer at the NS yard in Atlanta. Turned out that this trailer was in route to the facility where I work. And here are a couple more reefer cars while I'm at it.
Richard: Thanks for those pictures and facts. BTW, what a great location to take pictures of rolling stock! Some TB members have asked about the color of boxcar roofs...well, here is a good start on the answer!
Richard: thanks for posting the CryoTrans cars- I used to see 'em in UP trains in Cheyenne. Also, I saw plenty of the ARMN cars as well- they look nothing like the reefers of old! With the pics posted, we seem to have covered the range from the old wooden reefers stocked wsith ice to keep things cold to the modern cars with diesel-powered refrigerator units and GPS.
