Hello Everyone.
I am a new member here , my name is Neville Rossiter I reside in West Australia and I have a O Scale Railroad called the Bay Ridge Harbor Rail Road (BRHRR) and for my first post I would like to ask a question.
I use a lot of reefers on my Railroad and I need to build a Cleaning area.
I run Veg and Fruit in Reefers to produce sidings then transfer them to an Ice Cream Factory Complex where they are iced and then loaded with Ice Cream products to be shipped out.
I have been told the reefers should be cleaned before icing and being loaded with Ice Cream products so I have laid two tracks and built a platform for a cleaning area.
My Question is:

What other details do I need for the cleaning area?

I have two reefer books but can find no photos of cleaning tracks.
Can someone help.
Thanks.
Neville.

Neville Rossiter wrote:

I use a lot of reefers on my Railroad and I need to build a Cleaning area.
I have been told the reefers should be cleaned before icing and being loaded with Ice Cream products so I have laid two tracks and built a platform for a cleaning area.
My Question is:

What other details do I need for the cleaning area?

Neville, I can only speak for Pacific Fruit Express practice, but they simply paved the area between a pair of tracks (wider than normal yard spacing) and used brooms and/or hoses to clean, along with any light repairs or journal oiling, etc. which could be completed in half a day. Small tractors and wagons brought supplies to the cleaning and repairing crews, since PFE cleaning tracks held about 60 cars on each track.
A platform would facilitate entry inside the cars, but would interfere with mechanical work on underbody and trucks. If your facility does cleaning only, that might be okay.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Thanks Tony I appreciate your reply.
I have had only 3 replies on four groups and no photos, obviously cleanout
tracks are down low on the agenda the same as wine traffic unloading points.
This has forced us into the position of looking at how we would do the job
if we owned a real railroad.
Both myself and my good friend Bruce Temperley have reasonable knowledge of
how to build things with engineering backgrounds and we have come up with
the idea of a mesh type platform in between two tracks (paved with concrete)
so the workmen can walk straight into the reefers and hose or sweep out the
cars with the excess water draining out through the mesh and into drains
this is strictly for cleaning no other maintenance, brass would probably be
the best material, but I like good old Styrene its faster.
Each track will hold up to six reefers this is O Scale so you need a fair
bit of space like each track is six feet long!
So for the model I visualize an island platform with pipes for water and
hoses along with a few brooms and other tools and some O scale Artista
figures to complete the picture maybe some overhead lights for night working
or security.
The wine traffic unloading point I will save for another day.
Regards.
Neville.



Neville Rossiter wrote:

I use a lot of reefers on my Railroad and I need to build a Cleaning
area.
I have been told the reefers should be cleaned before icing and
being loaded with Ice Cream products so I have laid two tracks and
built a platform for a cleaning area.
My Question is:

What other details do I need for the cleaning area?

Neville, I can only speak for Pacific Fruit Express practice, but
they simply paved the area between a pair of tracks (wider than normal
yard spacing) and used brooms and/or hoses to clean, along with any
light repairs or journal oiling, etc. which could be completed in half
a day. Small tractors and wagons brought supplies to the cleaning and
repairing crews, since PFE cleaning tracks held about 60 cars on each
track.
A platform would facilitate entry inside the cars, but would
interfere with mechanical work on underbody and trucks. If your
facility does cleaning only, that might be okay.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Neville-

Here are some Refrigerator Car Clean-out Track Elements to consider:

Infrastructure
• Drainage system
• Tilted track

Equipment & Supplies
• Water supply piping
• Hot water tank
• Disinfectant and deodorizing equipment and chemicals

Tools
• Pry bars and hammers
• Hoses and nozzles
• Brooms
• Ladders

Scenic Elements
• Trash barrels or bins
• Trash and dunnage piles
• Ice piles
• Fire pile

Bob Chaparro
Moderator
Citrus Industry Modeling Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citrusmodeling/

Neville Rossiter wrote:

I have had only 3 replies on four groups and no photos . . .

There are several photos in the book I helped write, about Pacific Fruit Express.

. . . hose or sweep out the cars with the excess water draining out through the mesh and into drains . . .

Reefer interiors were sloped to drain into the bunkers, which then had exterior drains. Water inside the car would TEND to drain out, but brooms were used to ensure no standing water remained anywhere. With floor racks in a car, the racks had to be hinged upward to give floor access.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tony.
I have that book (2nd edition) and found the photos under Car Cleaning in
the index I was originally looking for the word Cleaning or Car washing in
the index, give me a break I'm an Aussie. Grin.
Page 428 has an interesting photo.
I had the book airmailed out to me the postage almost cost me as much as the
book price but it was worth it.
A great book, congratulations, I have looked through it many times for ideas
on icing Platforms.
Thanks. Neville.



Neville Rossiter wrote:

I have had only 3 replies on four groups and no photos . . .

There are several photos in the book I helped write, about
Pacific Fruit Express.

. . . hose or sweep out the cars with the excess water draining out
through the mesh and into drains . . .

Reefer interiors were sloped to drain into the bunkers, which
then had exterior drains. Water inside the car would TEND to drain
out, but brooms were used to ensure no standing water remained
anywhere. With floor racks in a car, the racks had to be hinged upward
to give floor access.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Neville Rossiter wrote:

I have that book (2nd edition) and found the photos under Car Cleaning in the index I was originally looking for the word Cleaning or Car washing in the index, give me a break I'm an Aussie. Grin.
Page 428 has an interesting photo.

The same area as the p. 428 photo is shown in an aerial view on p. 261. PFE generally combined light repairs with cleaning, as I mentioned, so the PFE views in Chapter 11 all reflect that.
I can't speak for other operators of reefers, but in the PFE case, THEY were responsible for providing clean cars to shippers. They accomplished that in their own facilities, not in contractors or railroad facilities. For most modeling situations, I would advise that the car owner or lessor would have made arrangements for car cleaning,

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tony, Again thanks for the information its always appreciated and I actually
put it to use!
Maybe a photo when I finish this area will take a while I am ripping
everything up and starting again (Just the cleaning area not the layout!)
I will have to use modelers licence for my PFE cars and have them cleaned by
private contractors, I can't afford endless reefers in O scale as it is I
use up to 26 reefers for the operating program.
Neville.



Neville Rossiter wrote:

I have that book (2nd edition) and found the photos under Car
Cleaning in the index I was originally looking for the word Cleaning
or Car washing in the index, give me a break I'm an Aussie. Grin.
Page 428 has an interesting photo.

The same area as the p. 428 photo is shown in an aerial view on
p. 261. PFE generally combined light repairs with cleaning, as I
mentioned, so the PFE views in Chapter 11 all reflect that.
I can't speak for other operators of reefers, but in the PFE
case, THEY were responsible for providing clean cars to shippers. They
accomplished that in their own facilities, not in contractors or
railroad facilities. For most modeling situations, I would advise that
the car owner or lessor would have made arrangements for car cleaning,

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

I've seen pix of FGE cars going thru a washer at Alexandria.



Who would be responsible for cleaning out cars (reefers and ventilated boxes) going back south from Chicago.  Gene Huddleston mentioned in the late-40s SAL and other RR watermelon ventilated boxes that were being returned from Chicago, etc. would smell really bad by the time they made it down to Russell, KY, in the late-summer.



Al

Thanks again Bob.
Much appreciated.
I can see even a cleaning area has the potential for endless details and in
O scale should look good.
Take care.
Neville



Neville-

Here are some Refrigerator Car Clean-out Track Elements to consider:

Infrastructure
. Drainage system
. Tilted track

Equipment & Supplies
. Water supply piping
. Hot water tank
. Disinfectant and deodorizing equipment and chemicals

Tools
. Pry bars and hammers
. Hoses and nozzles
. Brooms
. Ladders

Scenic Elements
. Trash barrels or bins
. Trash and dunnage piles
. Ice piles
. Fire pile

Bob Chaparro
Moderator
Citrus Industry Modeling Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/citrusmodeling/

Hi Neville:
I take it that you are modelling Bay Ridge in
Brooklyn, rather than NSW. Regardless, I am not
at all sure that produce reefers are the way you
want to go, since they were delivered full to
wholesalers or large retail store operators in an
wurban setting. Save some later epoch frozen fish
traffic from a few port cities, I can think of
no backhauls of perishibles from those points.

In other words, no one bothered to do anything
with empty produce reefers. Except for express
reefers, or those in captive local service to
the dairy industry, and meat reefers nothing
happened.
In NYC, Boston, Philly, et al-
they slammed the doors , and back they went
with lots of detritus, composed of: broken crates,
carton remains, pieces of wood stabilizizing
strakes, and stray metal fasteners; this
along with smashed and discarded pieces of fruit,
and vegetables in pools of water on the floor was
what hit the road.
They moved with alacrity for empties, but the
operating owners cleaned them either
on return to shipping points or along the way.

The other issue is ice cream as a load in
standard ice/brine reefers for this epoch.
This was a local good, with many independent
producers through the coming of the Great
Depression. Then there was a beginning of
consolidation with National Dairies, Kraft,
and notably Borden buying up local and regional
producers. However, they kept the plants
except where they had obvious geographical
redundancies, but they did not become
major rail shippers. I would bet that the same
occurred in Australia, but that would be subject
to your on site historical review. Latterly,
at the end of the era covered by this group,
the availability of low priced ice cream at
supermarkets began to drive the high quality
confectionary industry made ice creams from
the field.
Louis Sherry, Schrafft, the french
style ice cream makers such as Cardani all
catered to an adult palate, for ice cream as
a special dessert. Mass marketed ice cream to
families with lots of kids with uneducated
palates killed them off. The socio/cultural/
economic reasons are beside your point.

Lastly, I think you should consider getting
your reefers from the meat trade. They were
held in captive service, for the most part
by ARMOUR,CUDAHY,MORRIS,SWIFT,WILSON and their
affiliates. They moved from the shambles near
stockyards, largely located in the West or MidWest,
to the local affiliates. They prepared the beef
sides or other dressed carcasses, for wholesalers,
commercial users (restaurants,and banqueters),
as well as finishing some for local butchers.

To your needs, - they cleaned the hooks/trolleys
that the meat was mounted on. Then the local branch:
hosed down the car interiors with disinfecting soaps;
mopped them up; drained the bunkers; used hot air
blowers (in winter) to dry them out; returned
the cleaned hooks to the overhead rails in bundled
groups, that were then further secured, to keep
them from slamming around while in transit back
to the shambles.
These dry, clean cars were sometimes used
by telephone book printers like Rueben Donnelly
Corp, or other catalog and periodical printers
for: either primary long haul transport; or
as supplements for getting seasonal things like
"Christmas Wish Books", to places where the lowest
postal rate could be obtained.

SWIFT, for one, also had an ice cream trade,
but they were caught in the dairy industry giant's
juggernaut, and exited in the mid 1950s. I
had an encounter with SWIFT's ice cream at
a Bronx terminal as a kid. For what it was
worth this place handled Eskimo Pies as well,
and was part of a home delivery driver's
milk cooperative.

They bottled milk for themselves , and
bought the other things they sold. Relative
to the ice cream, they had what looked like
tons of dry ice that was slowly dissapating in
the early morning chill upon the belgian
block paving. The milk company made their own
for throwing on top of the cases in their
delivery trucks, but this was out of the
delivery reefer. I wish I could give you
chapter and verse on the kind of reefer, but
at that time this was not my focus.
The salient thing is that SWIFT was sending
ice cream into NYC from somewhere, not shipping
it out. If you really are determined to ship
ice cream, you could consider buying a few
dry ice reefer carkits, and adding them to
your roster, as long as the era works for you.

My suggestion is use meat reefers, and make
some other kind of product to ship back in
them. It dispenses with devoting valuable layout
space to cleaning cars. Furthermore, for most
of this era, large amounts of livestock came
en hoof into NYC, and PHILLy for two,
for a variety of reasons. Not the least
of which, was the large number of Orthodox Jews
resident in those areas whose dietary code required
freshly killed meat slaughtered at abattoirs
under Rabbinical supervision. So throw in a
local shambles, even located proximately off your
layout's site, and a whole array of traffic will
be generated. If you are using carfloats or
ferries, it also creates new options in that
area - for both specialized carfloats, barges,
and self propelled cattle transfer ships
flourished through the Second World War in the
Port of New York, and probably elsewhere.
I hope this helps your decision making, in
any case,
Good-Luck, Peter Boylan

Peter Boylan wrote:

In other words, no one bothered to do anything with empty produce reefers . . . they slammed the doors, and back they went with lots of detritus, composed of: broken crates, carton remains, pieces of wood stabilizizing strakes, and stray metal fasteners; this along with smashed and discarded pieces of fruit, and vegetables in pools of water on the floor . . .

Entirely true. In fact, PFE people said it was obvious that in addition to the remains of cargo, as Peter describes, that crews at unloading points ALSO threw into the cars any local trash lying around, things very obviously never part of a reefer load. It was up to the reefer operator to clean them later and dispose of all the trash.

These dry, clean cars were sometimes used by telephone book printers like Rueben Donnelly Corp, or other catalog and periodical printers for: either primary long haul transport; or as supplements for getting seasonal things like
"Christmas Wish Books", to places where the lowest postal rate could be obtained.

Also true, but cars did NOT have to be dry. PFE cars, damp inside, were often used by easter printers of periodicals to route westward. Perhaps a little moisture was good for the paper? <g> But PFE people told me that empty PFE cars were routed directly from eastern unloading points to those printers, so they were probably cleaned under contract--the exact thing Neville wants to model. One big customer was the Saturday Evening Post.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

Tony and group.
As a follow up on the discussion of cleaning reefers.
On My Railroad I have a Printing Works due to this discussion the PFE Reefers that go to the Produce shed, after cleaning, will now be switched to the printing works to be loaded with magazines or phone books whatever for the West.
I am in the process of changing the computer program to suit.
Ice Cream will now not be sent out in these reefers there are other changes but not revelent to this discussion.
Just thought I would let you know that something actually did happen from our discussion and I am willing to listen and make changes.
Thanks to all who enlightened me!
Mission Accomplished!
Neville.(In West Australia)