Atlas O Icing Platform Questions

The ice was probably "mined" off site and brought to the icing station by truck or wagon.  Need a way to get it to the upper level cold storage room.  In the town where my father was raised, the Erie railroad owned a pond a short distance from the icing station.  Ice was cut all Winter and transported off the pond using horse and wagon.

Interesting, I thought the building behind the platform froze the ice on site. Thanks for the information!

A lot cheaper to harvest 200 lb blocks of ice in the Winter, coat them with saw dust and store them in a cold room.  When my father was a child, they had an "ice box", basically a Coleman cooler.  His chore was to go to the ice house in town and get ice to put in it.  He said that only the butcher had an "electric" freezer and he stored meat for the townspeople.  

That is a nice paint job, Jeff! I really like it!

When I did mine, I kept the same colors and weathered it a bit......those browns make it really pop!

Re-painting may be a rework/retirement project down the road......

Peter

The Atlas ice house is a building designed for storage, not actually making ice on site. If they were making ice, you would see the big black condensers on the roof. After ice reefers were past their prime, many of them were designated "ICE SERVICE" and used to haul ice from point A to point B..such as this Atlas facility. Atlas actually makes a couple reefers that are designated as such. They were usually painted grey/silver but not always. However they were stenciled ICE SERVICE. Those cars were delivered to the spot track and ice was unloaded at the platform and then the conveyor ran the blocks up to the deck. 

Can anyone tell me the complete width from the edge of the platform to the back of the house? I would like to see if it would fit between some spurs I have.

Thanks

Joe

Sorry to resurrect an old-ish thread. According to this Atlas document, the icing platform is 37L x 4W x 6H, while the ice house is 14L x 6W x 9H. So I guess from front edge of platform to back of ice house (assuming they abut) is 10 inches.

My question, for those who have assembled, is this: do you have the flexibility to place ice house anywhere along the high portion of the platform? I've looked at several pictures and I thing I've seen the ice house positioned slightly differently from one user to another.

Thanks!

Took me forever to get my hands on this, and I am in the process of very slowly building it (Got the building made in a day, and the next weekend started the platform, but haven't touched it for several months.  Life got in the way.).  If I remember when I get home I'll take some photos and measurements.

The ice storage house isn't attached to the platform. You could buy the platform separately, so you could build a multi-platform facility if you wanted. For RR-Track users, the Korber Union Ice Company building/platform kit is a planning size approximation for the Atlas model

@lionel1946 posted:

My question, for those who have assembled, is this: do you have the flexibility to place ice house anywhere along the high portion of the platform? I've looked at several pictures and I thing I've seen the ice house positioned slightly differently from one user to another.

Thanks!

 I have these as well. If you look closely at laidoffsicks photo above. There is an opening in the platform railing that lines up with a door on the upper level of the icehouse.

Additionally there is a ramp along one end of the icehouse that allows entry( by hand truck /forklift etc) onto the lower level of the platform. This lines up at one end of the lower level of the platform.

Ultimately the ice house is "supposed" to line up closest to the lower level of the platform. Placing anywhere else and the upper level door will not line up with the railing opening and the ramp will go nowhere but a sharp drop under the supports.

Having said all that. I'm sure you could modify it to your liking.

The ice platform on the Carbondale.

@AGHRMatt posted:

The ice storage house isn't attached to the platform......  For RR-Track users, the Korber Union Ice Company building/platform kit is a planning size approximation for the Atlas model

Since you can't separate the Korber ice house and platform, I went to objects/basic shapes/filled rectangle and made two separate shapes. One 37" X 4" and one 14" X 6".  This allows you to change positions between the two to see what works best.

I will be starting a job in the next few weeks putting together one Atlas platform and two ice houses along with a Berkshire Valley (kit 821) ice house and platform. I will post progress on the build as I go along.

The Ice Trade was big business, Frederic Tudor is the man responsible for this very large export around the world.

Fascinating business really worth reading about.

Another ice platform photo;