Refrigerator car/Gallery
(PD) Engraving: Railroad Gazette
This engraving of Tiffany's original "Summer and Winter Car" appeared in the Railroad Gazette just before Joel Tiffany received his refrigerator car patent in July, 1877. Tiffany's design mounted the ice tank in a clerestory atop the car's roof, and relied on a train's motion to circulate cool air throughout the cargo space.
(PD) Photo: Smithsonian Institution
A Pullman-built "shorty" reefer bears the Armour Packing Co. · Kansas City logo, circa 1885. The name of the "patentee" was displayed on the car's exterior, a practice intended to "... impress the shipper and intimidate the competition ...," even though most patents covered trivial or already-established design concepts.
(PD) Photo: Unknown
A special fast fruit train leaving Central Pacific Railroad passenger station, June 24, 1886. This train was chartered by W. R. Strong & Co. and Edwin T. Earl, fruit packers and shippers, Sacramento.
(PD) Photo: Smithsonian Institution
Union Refrigerator Line refrigerator car #6699, used to transport milk, cheese, and eggs.
(PD) Photo: American Car and Foundry Company
A rare double-door refrigerator car utilized the "Hanrahan System of Automatic Refrigeration" as built by ACF, circa 1898. The car had a single, centrally located ice bunker which was said to offer better cold air distribution. The two segregated cold rooms were well suited for less-than-carload (LCL) shipments.
(PD) Photo: Lycurgus S. Glover
Rows of reefers in various stages of construction fill MDT's car shop, circa 1905.
(PD) Photo: American Car and Foundry Company
A pre-1911 "shorty" reefer bears an advertisement for Anheuser-Busch's Malt Nutrine tonic. The use of similar "billboard" advertising on freight cars was banned by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1937, and thereafter cars so decorated could no longer be accepted for interchange between roads.
(PD) Photo: Unknown
The interior of a typical ice-bunker reefer from the 1920s; the wood sheathing would give way to plywood within twenty years. Vents in the bunker at the end of the car, along with slots in the wood floor racks, allowed cool air to circulate around the contents during transit.
(PD) Photo: Swift Brands
A view of the Swift Brands Sioux City, Iowa meat packing plant, circa 1917. All but one of the refrigerator cars in the photo bear the markings of the Swift Refrigerator Line.
(PD) Photo: Unknown
Pacific Fruit Express #722, an ice-cooled, express-style refrigerator car designed to carry milk in tin-plated steel cans and other highly perishable cargo at the head end of passenger train consists.
© Image: Orange Public Library
A crate label for Hewes' Transcontinental Brand of El Modena, California, circa 1930 depicts a trainload of Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) ventilated refrigerator cars passing near San Francisco Bay.
(PD) Photo: William B. Barry
A Swift refrigerator car has reached the end-of-the-line at East Orange, New Jersey. The car has been repainted and was photographed in mid- or late-1937, after the use of "billboard" advertising on freight cars had been banned by the Interstate Commerce Commission, and such cars could no longer be accepted for interchange between roads.
(CC) Photo: Tom Stolte / TrainWeb.com
A wood-sided refrigerator car of the American Refrigerator Transit Company specially-designated for dairy products, circa 1940.
(CC) Photo: J.S. Sand / TrainWeb.com
Railway Express Agency refrigerator car #6687, a converted WWII Troop Sleeper.
(CC) Photo: J.S. Sand / TrainWeb.com
An REA express reefer is positioned at the head end of Santa Fe train No.8, the Fast Mail, in 1965.
© Photo: Otto Perry / Denver Public Library
A steel refrigerator car (Pacific Fruit Express #458330) sits on a siding at Denver, Colorado in March 1970. The mechanical refrigeration unit is housed at the car's "A" end, behind the grill at the lower left.
(CC) Photo: Tom Stolte / TrainWeb.com
A westbound intermodal freight train passes through the Cajon Pass, Mile Post 54, in February 1995.
(CC) Photo: Darrell Sawyer / TrainWeb.com
Cryo-Trans (CRYX) #2038 keeps its contents cool using liquified CO2.
© Photo: Harvey Henkelmann
Tropicana refrigerated box car #250.
© Drawing: Pacific Fruit Express Co.
A cutaway illustration of a conventional mechanical refrigerator car, which typically contains in excess of 800 moving parts.![(PD) Photo: Garitzko Outside of North America, railroad cars which have been outfitted with cooling equipment (and designated as Class "I" by the International Union of Railways [UIC]) are generally referred to as "refrigerated vans."](/wiki/images/thumb/9/92/Kuehlwagen_Interfrigo.jpg/300px-Kuehlwagen_Interfrigo.jpg)
(PD) Photo: Garitzko
Outside of North America, railroad cars which have been outfitted with cooling equipment (and designated as Class "I" by the International Union of Railways [UIC]) are generally referred to as "refrigerated vans."
© Photo: Ron Hawkins
ATSF #101438, one of a hundred specially-built "Conditionaire" centerflow hoppers operated by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in the early 1970s.
© Photo: J.S. Rybak
State-of-the-art mechanical refrigerator car designs place the removable, end-mounted refrigeration unit outside of the freight compartment in order to facilitate access for servicing or replacement.
© Photo: Soph Marty
An early version of a field icing car loads a Merchants Despatch Transportation Co. reefer (bearing the herald of the GM&O) in Norfolk, Virginia in April 1955.
![(PD) Photo: Garitzko Outside of North America, railroad cars which have been outfitted with cooling equipment (and designated as Class "I" by the International Union of Railways [UIC]) are generally referred to as "refrigerated vans."](/wiki/File:Kuehlwagen_Interfrigo.jpg)
