Steve Hoxie wrote:
Hi Jim--Thanks for replying. The list of cars reiced in Portland was from Oct 1945, at least 5 years before mechanical reefers began making a significant appearance. Loaded on a Rr-09 and a Rr-32 both with stage icing those turkeys wouldn't be frozen. Again, all the way to New York City? I know what happens to chicken left in my fridge for three days without cooking or freezing, and it isn't good.
Steve, you assume that frozen food could not be shipped in ice reefers, which is not true. Addition of salt could reduce temperatures into the teens (Fahrenheit) and a mechanical reefer was not essential. I'm not saying that the turkey cargoes in question WERE frozen, but only that if they WERE frozen, they could be shipped in an ice car. Indeed frozen food was so shipped since the 1920s. Mechanical reefers were primarily important because they could attain lower temperatures than was possible with ice plus salt, such as zero Fahrenheit, essential for high-sugar things like frozen orange juice, rapidly growing in popularity after WW II.
Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, tony@... Publishers of books on railroad history
