Icing Facilities

My icing facility may not be realistic but real enough in my little world. Located next door to the farmers market to facilitate  those fresh outbound veggies . The facility was a combination of YOUNGS COAL & ICE Company. 

Jakiejr, nice job on the farmer's market. I have a Lionel operating icing station waiting for a future layout but I'm beginning to believe I'll never have a layout big enough for everything I've got.  As I opened this topic my mid went to the Lionel coaling station kit I've got squirreled away and wondered if with a change of signage and rolling stock on the layout if the one structure could alternately serve as coaling or icing facility and there you have gone and done it. 

coach joe posted:

Jakiejr, nice job on the farmer's market. I have a Lionel operating icing station waiting for a future layout but I'm beginning to believe I'll never have a layout big enough for everything I've got.  As I opened this topic my mid went to the Lionel coaling station kit I've got squirreled away and wondered if with a change of signage and rolling stock on the layout if the one structure could alternately serve as coaling or icing facility and there you have gone and done it. 

Sharing IDEAS...... it's inspirational!    SEE YA COACH JOE

JackieJr,

   Very nice layout sir, the line of Yellow & Brown Tin Plate Box Cars outside the Farmers Market building is a great touch!

PCRR/Dave

Thanks Dave, My modest collection of Prewar Trains don't often get to show off on the layout. Don't even recall giving it much thought displaying them there for the pic. 

From my module on the group layout:

Peter

Peter,

Real nice work finishing the icing dock.  Mine is still in the box and it looks like a lot of parts

Do you know how long the icing dock is without the stairs or loading dock?  I'm wondering if I have room for two connected together?  Thanks.

Putnam Division posted:

From my module on the group layout

Peter

Looks great Pete, what color is that?

CAPPilot posted:

Peter,

Real nice work finishing the icing dock.  Mine is still in the box and it looks like a lot of parts

Do you know how long the icing dock is without the stairs or loading dock?  I'm wondering if I have room for two connected together?  Thanks.

IIRC about 6 or 7" (Boxed up for carpet work:-)

CAPPilot posted:

Peter,

Real nice work finishing the icing dock.  Mine is still in the box and it looks like a lot of parts

Do you know how long the icing dock is without the stairs or loading dock?  I'm wondering if I have room for two connected together?  Thanks.

Ron.....let me get some other pictures for you.....

Peter

Milk cars were insulated, but not cooled. Milk was transported at room temperature.   No ice was required. 

Just to cover the obvious:

I used an Atlas(?) ice house kit with a Lionel ice station. Looks better than just the Lionel ice station on its own. 

My icing dock is not yet completely installed, but if you want to see something special, check out Crescent Locomotive Works icing dock/house. It comes with lighting and 90% assembled.

A prior post pointed out that milk cars were not iced. It appears that the actual situation is more complicated...

It is true that milk cars with internal glass tanks were not iced. According to Wikipedia the milk was loaded chilled and stayed cool in the sealed, insulated car.

Cars carrying cans of milk on a milk run were iced on the Rutland, for shipment to NYC and Boston. Nimke's book "The Rutland", Volume VI, Part 1 has a complete discussion of icing milk cars in Alburgh, Vt on page 11. Included are plans for the ice house and ramp, track diagrams, a discussion of the process, and photos of a crew icing a milk car.

Ice blocks were loaded through the car doors, and broken up using axes. At each stop ice was shoveled around cans as they were loaded.

The Rutland harvested their own ice; Alburgh is on Lake Champlain. There was a ramp from the lake to the ice house - the facility would  make a neat model.

Jan

   And a lake ice harvest was packed solid in layers underground where it stays cooler. Ice block, hay, ice block, hay. A pals family owned one off the Mac line south of Cheboygan Mi. at Mullet lake.  You can only see the impression of the ice cellars in settled fill dirt today. Huge, 1/4mile long field, 1/8 mile deep, 40ft-50ft deep cellars? (water line). Standing in that water logged field listening to an old  duck hunter born a century before me was the last place I saw a streamlined diesel freight, or the Mac, in action. 

Here's a few more.....

Peter

When I build my layout, it's going to have a huge PFE icing facility.  I have over 150 of those orange reefers just waiting for service!

Putnam Division posted:

Here's a few more.....

Peter

Peter,

Thanks.  I believe the icing dock portion (2 level area) is long enough for two 40' reefers.  I want to add another icing section to hold four cars per side with the icing house on the end.  Anyway, that is my plan.

This is interesting, to see how cars were iced in the East.

Western railroads had an entirely different kind of perishable business, and thus had entirely different concepts of reefer icing.  Perishable traffic originating on the west coast usually began its trip in a car which had been pre-cooled and iced at a Company (FGEX, PFE, or SFRD) ice house and dock.  Trains were usually solid perishable trains with destinations 2,000 or more miles to the east, and re-icing facilities were located at 24 hour transit distances, near the main track so that a whole train could stop and receive fast, en route, re-icing on an ice track and not have to go into or out of the yard, and be able to get right back onto the main track and highball as soon as the re-icing was complete.  The Companies made their own ice at these facilities.  On branch lines, they topped off cars to be picked up, using the local ice house and its employees, who brought the ice to the packing house track in a truck with a conveyor.  

Northeastern perishable business was quite different and I am enjoying seeing these model ice tracks. 

Google............ The Ice King, Frederic Tudor.....The ice business was huge and not only in New England but the Great Lakes as well,  It think, I remember reading about the huge ice houses near Toledo Ohio ?  In the ninetieth century Ice was the second largest USA export, cotton was first.

Clem

Wow, 150 PFE reefers sounds awesome! The idea of building a pike around a single industry is enticing. Long trains and full scale facilities have lots of merit! Perhaps in my next lifetime...   LOL

Jan

A long reefer train spotted on a long icing track must have been quite a thing to see.  I will have to google that.  Once upon a time I made a fantesy ice house that was about the same hieight as the Lionel grain building and a platform that was 36 inches.  It was just too large to place in a logical location right off the main so I put it in an awkward location but where it fit dimensionally.  When I reworked that area of my layout I reinvented icing operations on my layout as a local facility for local businesses employing reefers.  The deck accomodates 2 reefers and I cut down my 3 story tower to just 2 stories. I may design a better ice house someday. 

Old facility

 New facility

If any of you have copies of OGR, the Video (VHS tapes from the mid 90s), the video of Bill Flickenger's Lakeland Central has a huge icing facility. If I recall correctly, his family was in the produce business.

Peter

clem k posted:

Google............ The Ice King, Frederic Tudor.....The ice business was huge and not only in New England but the Great Lakes as well,  It think, I remember reading about the huge ice houses near Toledo Ohio ?  In the ninetieth century Ice was the second largest USA export, cotton was first.

Clem

Whoa, who makes that car and what model #? Seems like a classic.

 Doug, that car is a Crown Models Product made by Northeast Trains about 25 years ago. Weaver ended up with the line a few years later. Not sure if it's been done again by anyone. Seems like a good one for Atlas or MTH. You can roll your own using Clover House dry transfers. They show a 34ft. car. An undecorated Atlas 36ft. Reefer would be close enough. I believe the company is still in business today. I've seen their trucks on the road.

 Clover house has a site with on line ordering.

Ice Station Zebra

Awesome stuff guys.