Tony After 1960, a minority of the reefers had either interior alcoholheaters, or charcoal heaters mounted underneath, like the XI cars. Some of thesewere equipped for bulk potato loading. However,

I've got all three of those in my solvent collection. Thanks for the ratios. -- John P.S. Acetone can be use with other solvents to accelerate the drying of lacquer, just as Butyl Cellosolve is used

Ike, The first phrase that came to mind as I read your message was “field heat”. The crops coming in from the fields were warm. Were they cooled before being loaded in to

The cars with heaters were NOT reefers, but were XI cars. The BAR reefers did NOT have permanent heaters. That's my understanding. Please correct if you have more info. Tony Thompson

Good info, thanks. -- Rod Miller Handcraftsman === Custom 2-rail O Scale Models: Drives, | O Scale West / S West Repairs, Steam Loco Building, More | 2017 Meet is May 25 -

You’re rumor is urban legend. If you read the fine print on the can, you will see that the ingredients include a number of organic solvents that are immiscible with water. If you wish to experiment,

Any product that needed ventilation. Control of ripening happened BECAUSE of exposure to outside air...reduced the concentration of ethylene which is given off by some fruit and that hastens ripening

The email below is from another site. Thought this would be a better placeto get an answer. ClarkPropst Mason City Iowa I have a Canada Dry bottling plant on my 1952 era layout,and have a delivery

Postharvest plant physiology is not exactly my field of expertise, but I spent a few minutes Googling this question. Some fruits are climacteric, i.e., after harvest they naturally continue to ripen

I also see truckloads of bagged onions on the highways of west Texas and southern New Mexico during harvest. I suspect these may have shipped via stock cars from western packers in the steam era.

Perhaps the western roads could use their enormous fleets of livestockcars for melons and squashes during the relatively short harvest seasons whichmay have been off-peak from livestock shipping

It is rumored that the big box lacquer thinners are cut with water. For painting I buy lacquer thinner from auto paint supply stores. For clean up I use the big box thinner. -- Rod

>>There are historic Pittsburgh images that show ACL ventilated box cars (XV) in the produce terminal area... >>Awhile back I compiled notes on XV listings in the 1943 ORER reprint. I was surprised

in 1953 there were 6697 XV cars in service. 2/3 were owned by the SAL and CofG Rich Orr

Thanks all, I'm netting out the answers as "any product that needed to be kept cool" - as in you didn't want it to be inside a normal box car where the sun could heat up the car. So "cool" was a

A friend told me a story of when he was a kid living in Britt Iowabefore/during WWII? One day the Milwaukee setout a ventilator car ofWatermelons. Evidently several of the surrounding town grocers had

It's not necessarily heat, but ethylene gas that can emanate from ripening fruits and melons. Some fruits release it, others are sensitive to it. See a list

There is another aspect of “ventilated” box cars I did not realize until I started doing research for the SRHA Wood and Steel Underframe Cars book. Ventilated cars were necessary to let heat

I suspect like the MEK substitute that this stuff won't work and will make your paint into jello! I think that the last time I Iooked Home Depot didn't have a MEK

I have been using lacquer thinner for 50 years. I buy lacquer thinner at Home Depot by the gallon. I bought my most recent gallon a few months ago when they put it on sale at about 75% off! The