Refrigerator car

thumb|right|300px|A modern refrigerator car. The mechanical refrigeration unit is housed behind the grill at the lower right, the car's "A" end.

thumb|right|300px|[[Anheuser-Busch was one of the first companies to transport beer nationwide using railroad refrigerator cars.]]

A refrigerator car (or "reefer") is a refrigerated boxcar (US), a piece of railroad rolling stock designed to carry perishable freight at specific temperatures. Refrigerator cars differ from simple insulated boxcars and ventilated boxcars (commonly used for transporting fruit), neither of which are fitted with cooling apparatus. Reefers can be ice-cooled, come equipped with any one of a variety of mechanical refrigeration systems, or use carbon dioxide (as dry ice) or liquid nitrogen as a cooling agent. Milk cars (and other types of "express" reefers) may or may not include a cooling system, but are equipped with high-speed trucks and other modifications that allow them to travel with passenger trains.

History

Background: North America

thumb|[[Illinois Central Railroad #14713, a ventilated fruit car dating from 1893]]

After the end of the American Civil War, Chicago, Illinois emerged as a major railway center for the distribution of livestock raised on the Great Plains to Eastern markets. Transporting the animals to market from ranches in Texas required herds to be driven up to to railheads in Kansas City, Missouri or later to more westerly locations, such as Abilene, Kansas (1867, Kansas Pacific Railway) and Dodge City, Kansas (1872, Santa Fe Railroad), where they were loaded into specialized stock cars and transported live ("on-the-hoof") to regional processing centers. Driving cattle across the plains also caused tremendous weight loss, with some animals dying in transit.

Upon arrival at the local processing facility, livestock were slaughtered by wholesalers and delivered fresh to nearby butcher shops for retail sale, smoked, or packed for shipment in barrels of salt. Costly inefficiencies were inherent in transporting live animals by rail, particularly the fact that approximately 60% of the animals' mass is inedible. The death of animals weakened by the long drive further increased the per-unit shipping cost. Meat processors sought a method to ship dressed meats from their Chicago packing plants to eastern markets.

Early attempts at refrigerated transport

thumb|left|An advertisement taken from the 1st edition (1879) of the Car-Builders Dictionary for the Tiffany Refrigerator Car Company, a pioneer in the design of refrigerated railroad cars

During the mid-19th century, attempts were made to ship agricultural products by rail. As early as 1842, the Western Railroad of Massachusetts was reported in the June 15 edition of the Boston Traveler to be experimenting with innovative freight car designs capable of carrying all types of perishable goods without spoilage. The first refrigerated boxcar entered service in June 1851, on the Northern Railroad (New York) (or NRNY, which later became part of the Rutland Railroad). This "icebox on wheels" was a limited success since it was only functional in cold weather. That same year, the Ogdensburg and Lake Champlain Railroad (O&LC) began shipping butter to Boston in purpose-built freight cars, using ice for cooling.

Meat

The first consignment of dressed beef left the Chicago stock yards in 1857 in ordinary boxcars retrofitted with bins filled with ice. Placing meat directly against ice resulted in discoloration and affected the taste, making it impractical. During the same period, Gustavus Swift experimented by moving cut meat using a string of ten boxcars with their doors removed, and made a few test shipments to New York during the winter months over the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR). The method proved too limited to be practical.

Detroit's William Davis patented a refrigerator car that employed metal racks to suspend the carcasses above a frozen mixture of ice and salt. In 1868, he sold the design to George H. Hammond, a Detroit meatpacker, who built a set of cars to transport his products to Boston, using ice from the Great Lakes for cooling. The load tended to swing to one side when the car entered a curve at high speed, and use of the units was discontinued after several derailments. In 1878, Swift hired engineer Andrew Chase to design a ventilated, well-insulated car and positioned the ice in a compartment at the top of the car, allowing the chilled air to flow naturally downward. The meat was packed tightly at the bottom of the car to keep the center of gravity low and to prevent the cargo from shifting. Chase's design proved to be a practical solution, providing temperature-controlled carriage of dressed meats. This allowed Swift and Company to ship their products across the United States and internationally.

Swift's attempts to sell Chase's design to major railroads were rebuffed, as the companies feared that they would jeopardize their considerable investments in stock cars, animal pens, and feedlots if refrigerated meat transport gained wide acceptance. In response, Swift financed the initial production run on his own, then—when the American roads refused his business—he contracted with the GTR (a railroad that derived little income from transporting live cattle) to haul the cars into Michigan and then eastward through Canada. In 1880, the Peninsular Car Company (subsequently purchased by ACF) delivered the first of these units to Swift, and the Swift Refrigerator Line (SRL) was created. Within a year, the line's roster had risen to nearly 200 units, and Swift was transporting an average of 3,000 carcasses a week to Boston, Massachusetts. Competing firms such as Armour and Company quickly followed suit. By 1920, the SRL owned and operated 7,000 of the ice-cooled rail cars. The General American Transportation Corporation would assume ownership of the line in 1930.

thumb|A [[builder's photo of one of the first refrigerator cars to come out of the Detroit plant of the American Car and Foundry Company (ACF), built for the Swift Refrigerator Line in 1899]]

Live cattle and dressed beef deliveries to New York (short tons):

{| class="toccolours"

|align=center | (Stock Cars)

|align=center | (Refrigerator Cars)

|align=center |   Year  

|align=center | Live Cattle  

|align=center | Dressed Beef

|  1882

|align=center | 366,487

|align=center | 2,633

|  1883

|align=center | 392,095

|align=center | 16,365

|  1884

|align=center | 328,220

|align=center | 34,956

|  1885

|align=center | 337,820

|align=center | 53,344

|  1886

|align=center | 280,184

|align=center | 69,769

The subject cars travelled on the Erie, Lackawanna, New York Central, and Pennsylvania railroads.

Source: Railway Review, January 29, 1887, p. 62.

thumb|A circa 1870 refrigerator car design. Hatches in the roof provided access to the ice tanks at each end.

19th Century American Refrigerator Cars:

{| class="toccolours"

|align=center |   Year  

|align=center | Private Lines  

|align=center | Railroads  

|align=center | Total

|  1880

|align=center | 1,000 est.

|align=center | 310

|align=center | 1,310 est.

|  1885

|align=center | 5,010 est.

|align=center | 990

|align=center | 6,000 est.

|  1890

|align=center | 15,000 est.

|align=center | 8,570

|align=center | 23,570 est.

|  1895

|align=center | 21,000 est

|align=center | 7,040

|align=center | 28,040 est.

|  1900

|align=center | 54,000 est.

|align=center | 14,500

|align=center | 68,500 est.

Source: Poor's Manual of Railroads and ICC and U.S. Census reports.

Fruit and fresh produce

In the 1870s, the lack of a practical means of refrigerating peaches limited the markets available to Samuel Rumph, a Georgia peach grower. In 1875, he invented a refrigerated railcar and crates that allowed him to grow peaches on a very large scale and ship them to distant markets. He was the first to achieve this. His innovations created Georgia's fame for peaches, a crop now eclipsed economically by blueberries.

Edwin Tobias Earl was born on a fruit ranch near Red Bluff, California, on May 30, 1858. His father was Joseph Earl, his mother Adelia Chaffee, and his brother was Guy Chaffee Earl. He started his career in fruit shipping. By 1886, he was President of the Earl Fruit Company. In 1890, he invented the refrigerator car to transport fruits to the East Coast of the United States. He established the Continental Fruit Express and invested US$2,000,000 in refrigerator cars. In 1901, he sold his refrigerator cars to Armour and Company of Chicago and became a millionaire.

By the turn of the 20th century, manufactured ice became more common. The Pacific Fruit Express (PFE) - a joint venture between the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads, with a fleet of 6,600 refrigerator cars built by the American Car and Foundry Company (ACF) - maintained seven natural harvesting facilities, and operated 18 artificial ice plants. Their largest plant (located in Roseville, California) produced of ice daily, and Roseville's docks could accommodate up to 254 cars. At the industry's peak, of ice was produced annually for refrigerator car use.

On the East Coast of the United States, in 1920, the company Fruit Growers Express (FGE) was established and owned by a consortium of eastern railroads to serve the wholesale market for refrigerated produce delivered by railcar. In addition to operating and servicing refrigerated railcars, FGE became a major manufacturer of insulated boxcars and mechanical refrigerated cars.

Ice

The use of ice to refrigerate and preserve food dates back to prehistoric times. Through the ages, the seasonal harvesting of snow and ice was a regular practice of many cultures. China, Greece, and Rome stored ice and snow in caves, dugouts, or ice houses lined with straw or other insulating materials. Rationing of ice allowed the preservation of food during hot periods, a practice successfully employed for centuries. For most of the 19th century, natural ice (harvested from ponds and lakes) was used to supply refrigerator cars. At high altitudes or northern latitudes, one-foot tanks were often filled with water and allowed to freeze. Ice was typically cut into blocks during the winter and stored in insulated warehouses for later use, with sawdust and hay packed around the ice blocks to provide additional insulation. A late-19th century wood-bodied reefer required re-icing every to .

Top-icing is the practice of placing a to layer of crushed ice on top of agricultural products that have high respiration rates, need high relative humidity, and benefit from having the cooling agent sit directly atop the load (or within individual boxes). Cars with pre-cooled fresh produce were top-iced just before shipment. Top-icing added considerable dead weight to the load. Top-icing a reefer required in excess of of ice. It had been postulated that as the ice melted, the resulting chilled water would trickle down through the load, continuing the cooling process. It was found, however, that top-icing benefited only the uppermost layers of the cargo, and that the water from melting ice often passed through spaces between the cartons and pallets, with little or no cooling effect. It was ultimately determined that top-icing is useful only in preventing an increase in temperature and was eventually discontinued.

File:Ice Harvesting on Lake St Clair Michigan circa 1905--photograph courtesy Detroit Publishing Company.jpg|Men harvest ice on Michigan's Lake Saint Clair, circa 1905. The ice was cut into blocks, hauled by wagon to a cold storage warehouse, and held there until needed.

File:Men loading ice blocks into reefers.jpg|Ice blocks (also called "cakes") are manually placed into reefers from a covered icing dock. Each block weighed between . Crushed ice was typically used for meat cars.

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The typical service cycle for an ice-cooled produce reefer (generally handled as a part of a block of cars):

The cars were cleaned with hot water or steam.
Depending on the cargo, the cars might have undergone four hours of "pre-cooling" before loading, which entailed blowing in cold air through one ice hatch and allowing the warmer air to be expelled through the other hatches. The practice, dating back almost to the refrigerator car's inception, saved ice and resulted in fresher cargo.
The cars' ice bunkers were filled, either manually from an icing dock, via mechanical loading equipment, or (in locations where demand for ice was sporadic) using specially designed field icing cars.
The cars were delivered to the shipper for loading, and the ice was topped off.
Depending on the cargo and destination, the cars may have been fumigated.
The train would depart for the eastern markets.
The cars were re-iced in transit approximately once a day.
Upon reaching their destination, the cars were unloaded.
If in demand, the cars would be returned empty to their point of origin. If not in demand, the cars would be cleaned and possibly used for a dry shipment.

File:Tiffany RRG 1877.jpg|This engraving of Tiffany's original "Summer and Winter Car" appeared in the Railroad Gazette just before Joel Tiffany received his refrigerator car patent in July, 1877. Tiffany's design mounted the ice tank in a clerestory atop the car's roof, and relied on a train's motion to circulate cool air throughout the cargo space.

File:Reefers-shorty-ATSF-CM-type-1898-cyc ACF builders photo.jpg|A rare double-door refrigerator car used the "Hanrahan System of Automatic Refrigeration" as built by ACF, circa 1898. The car had a single, centrally located ice bunker, which was said to provide better cold-air distribution. The two segregated cold rooms were well-suited for less-than-carload (LCL) shipments.

File:Reefers-shorty-Anheuser-Busch-Malt-Nutrine ACF builders photo pre-1911.jpg|A pre-1911 "shorty" reefer bears an advertisement for Anheuser-Busch's Malt Nutrine tonic. The use of similar "billboard" advertising on freight cars was banned by the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1937, and thereafter cars so decorated could no longer be accepted for interchange between roads.

</gallery>

Refrigerator cars required effective insulation to protect their contents from temperature extremes. "Hairfelt" derived from compressed cattle hair, sandwiched into the floor and walls of the car, was inexpensive, yet flawed  over its three- to four-year service life, it would decay, rotting out the car's wooden partitions and tainting the cargo with a foul odor. The higher cost of other materials, such as "Linofelt" (woven from flax fibers) or cork, prevented their widespread adoption. Synthetic materials such as fiberglass and polystyrene foam, both introduced after World War II, offered the most cost-effective and practical solution.

The United States Office of Defense Transportation implemented mandatory pooling of class RS produce refrigerator cars from 1941 through 1948. World War II experience found the cars spending 60 percent of their time traveling loaded, 30 percent traveling empty, and 10 percent idle; and indicated the average 14 loads each car carried per year included 5 requiring bunker icing, 1 requiring heating, and 8 using ventilation or top icing.

Following experience with assorted car specifications, the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association (UFF&VA) listed what they considered the best features of ice refrigerator cars in 1948:

Steel cars (vs wood) for better insulation protection and greater rigidity, resulting in reduced leakage around doors
A minimum of insulation thickness with all insulation protected from moisture
Cushioned trucks and draft gear to minimize jarring and bruising of produce
Standardized interior dimensions to allow improved loading methods with standardized containers
Adjustable ice bunker bulkheads to allow greater floor space for shippers using top icing alone
Vertically adjustable grates within the ice bunkers to allow half-stage icing to reduce icing charges where appropriate
Forced air circulation within the car
An additional lining to allow side wall flues to circulate air around all cargo, preventing contact with exterior car walls
Perforated floor racks providing similar protection and air circulation under the cargo
Provisions for pre-cooling the cars with a portable unit at the loading platforms.

Mechanical refrigeration

In the latter half of the 20th century, mechanical refrigeration began to replace ice-based systems. Soon after, mechanical refrigeration units replaced the armies of personnel required to re-ice the cars. The sliding plug door was experimentally introduced by P.F.E. (Pacific Fruit Express) in April 1947, when one of their R-40-10 series cars, #42626, was equipped with it. P.F.E.'s R-40-26 series reefers, designed in 1949 and built in 1951, were the first production series cars to be so equipped. In addition, the Santa Fe Railroad first used plug doors on their SFRD RR-47 series cars, which were also built in 1951. This type of door provided a larger six-foot opening to facilitate loading and unloading cars. These tight-fitting doors were better insulated and could maintain an even temperature inside the car. By the mid-1970s, the few remaining ice bunker cars were relegated to "top-ice" service, where crushed ice was applied atop the commodity.

Cryogenic refrigeration

The Topeka, Kansas shops of the Santa Fe Railway built five experimental refrigerator cars employing liquid nitrogen as the cooling agent in 1965. A mist induced by liquefied nitrogen was released throughout the car if the temperature rose above a pre-determined level. Each car carried of refrigerant and could maintain a temperature of minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit (−30 °C). During the 1990s, a few railcar manufacturers experimented with using liquid carbon dioxide (CO2) as a cooling agent. The move was in response to rising fuel costs and aimed to eliminate standard mechanical refrigeration systems that required periodic maintenance. The CO2 system can keep the cargo frozen solid for 14 to 16 days.

Several hundred "cryogenic" refrigerator cars were placed in service to transport frozen foodstuffs. However, they failed to gain wide acceptance (due in part to the rising cost of liquid carbon dioxide).

Experimentation

Aluminum and stainless steel

Several experimental cars were built when wartime production restrictions were relaxed in 1946:

Illinois Central Railroad number 51000 was built in the McComb, Mississippi shops with an aluminum superstructure to reduce weight with steel where required for strength and provided the standard dimensions, cushioned draft gear, easy-riding trucks, minimum of insulation, adjustable ice bunker bulkheads and half-stage icing racks with forced air circulation through side wall flues and floor racks recommended by UFF&VA. The car spent most of its life in express service. Cost was cited as the reason no additional units were ordered. The car was dismantled at Clovis, New Mexico in February 1964.
Pacific Fruit Express rebuilt two steel-sided ventilator refrigerator cars in their Los Angeles shops with aluminum car bodies to test the durability of lightweight alloys versus that of steel.

The cars' irregular, orange-colored outer surface (though darker than the standard AT&SF yellow-orange used on reefers) tended to collect dirt easily and proved difficult to clean. Santa Fe eventually relegated the cars to more typical, non-refrigerated applications.

Preservation

Examples of many styles of refrigerators and ice cars can be found at railroad museums around the world.

The Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola, California features a very complete roster of 20th-century cars, including wood-bodied ice cars, steel-bodied ice cars, one of the earliest mechanical refrigerator cars, later mechanical refrigerator cars, and a cryogenic reefer, as well as several "insulated" boxcars also used for food transport.

Refrigerator cars in Japan

thumb|A JNR refrigerator car at [[Amagasaki Station (JR West)|Amagasaki Station, June 1984]]

thumb|Preserved ReMuFu 10000 type refrigerator car at [[Railway Museum (Saitama), August 2014]]

The first refrigerated cars in Japan entered service in 1908, primarily for fish transport. They were of the ReSo 200 type, from 1909, followed by the ReSo 210 type, from 1912, and then the ReSo 230 type; all were reclassified into in 1928. Many of these cars were equipped with ice bunkers, but the bunkers were not generally used. Fish were packed in wooden or foam polystyrene boxes with crushed ice.

Transporting fruit, vegetables, and meat in refrigerated rail cars was uncommon in Japan. For fruits and vegetables, ventilated cars were sufficient due to the relatively short distances involved. In contrast, meat, which requires low-temperature storage, was typically transported by ship, as most major Japanese cities are located along the coast.

Refrigerator cars suffered heavy damage in World War II. After the war, the occupation forces confiscated many cars for their own use, using the ice bunkers as originally intended. Supplies were landed primarily at Yokohama, and reefer trains ran from the port to U.S. bases around Japan. Around this time, the surviving pre-war refrigerator cars were gradually retired and replaced with newer types.

In 1966, JNR developed the refrigerated cars that could travel at . They were used in fish freight express trains. "Tobiuo" (Flying fish) train from Shimonoseki to Tokyo, and "Ginrin" (Silver scale) train from Hakata to Tokyo, were operated.

By the 1960s, refrigerator trucks had begun to displace railcars. Strikes in the 1970s led to a loss of reliability and punctuality, both of which are important for fish transportation. In 1986, the last refrigerated cars were replaced by reefer containers.

Most Japanese reefer cars were four-wheeled due to small traffic demands. There were very few bogie wagons in late years. The total number of Japanese reefers numbered approximately 8,100. At their peak, about 5,000 refrigerated cars operated in the late 1960s. Mechanical refrigerators were tested, but did not see widespread use.

There were no privately owned reefers in Japan. This is because national policies protected fish transportation, kept rates low, and made refrigerated car ownership unprofitable.

Refrigerated trains in the United Kingdom

thumb|right|1925 GWR Mica A ice-chilled van as preserved at [[Didcot Railway Centre. Preserved as a Tevan used for non-refrigerated perishable traffic such as dried tea.]]

Due to the shorter distance to be travelled in the United Kingdom, the need for refrigeration was limited to specialised goods, which could in express-train format - mostly run overnight to avoid delays from passenger traffic - be transported in suitable timescales of less than a day from the area of production to processing, or onwards to the point of consumer consumption.

Hence, whilst similar shipping requirements for cattle, fish, fruit, and farm-fresh produce existed, the need for refrigeration was often minimized by using non-stop express train service to the required destination. For example, the London Midland and Scottish Railway ran specialized express trains from meat producer hubs in Scotland and the North of England to the Smithfield Meat Market in London, with a dedicated goods station located below ground level directly into the market's slaughtering house. The LMS and the LNER also ran express fish trains from Fleetwood and Grimsby to Broad Street to access Billingsgate Fish Market.

The big four railway companies standardized their ice-chilled wagons within their own networks, which were built with more insulation, further minimizing the need for onboard mechanical refrigeration. The Great Western Railway designed and built their own Mica A (ventilated) and Mica B (Non-ventilated) vans for such express produce trains, with ice supplied by the original product producer from their own plant.

One specialized form of fresh-produce train that existed in the UK was the milk train, which, using specialized chilled, glass-lined wagons, remained in service until 1981.

Like many railways around the world, modern UK railways do ship specialized refrigerated containers on intermodal trains, with such trains now taking over the role again from long-distance trucking on hub-to-hub routes to reduce carbon footprint. DB Cargo UK runs Europe's longest-distance single-operator handled train from Valencia, Spain to Barking in East London twice weekly, in partnership with Eddie Stobart Logistics and retailer Tesco's, shipping fresh fruit and produce in refrigerated ISO containers.

Timeline

1842: The Western Railroad of Massachusetts experimented with innovative freight car designs capable of carrying all types of perishable goods without spoilage.
1851: The first refrigerated boxcar entered service on the Northern Railroad (New York).
1857: The first consignment of refrigerated, dressed beef traveled from Chicago to the East Coast in ordinary box cars packed with ice.
1866: Horticulturist Parker Earle shipped strawberries in iced boxes by rail from southern Illinois to Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad.
1867: First U.S. refrigerated railroad car patent was issued.
1868: William Davis of Detroit, Michigan developed a refrigerator car cooled by a frozen ice-salt mixture, and patented it in the U.S. The patent was subsequently sold to George Hammond, a local meat packer who amassed a fortune in refrigerated shipping.
1875: Samuel Rumph invented a railcar specifically to ship peaches, and a mortised-end peach crate, making possible large-scale growing and long-distance shipping of peaches

Two additional refrigerated unit-train services were announced in 2013, the Green Express, from Tampa, Florida to Kingsbury, Indiana, operated by CSX and the Tampa Port Authority, and the TransCold Express operated by McKay Transcold, LLC and BNSF, connecting the California Central Valley with the midwest.

AAR classifications

{| class="toccolours"

|+ AAR classifications of refrigerator car types

! bgcolor=#cc9966 | Class

! bgcolor=#cc9966 | Description

! bgcolor=#cc9966 | Class

! bgcolor=#cc9966 | Description

|align=left |   RA

|align=left | Brine-tank ice bunkers

|align=left |   RPB

|align=left | Mechanical refrigerator with electro-mechanical axle drive  

|align=left |   RAM

|align=left | Brine-tank ice bunkers with beef rails

|align=left |   RPL

|align=left | Mechanical refrigerator with loading devices

|align=left |   RAMH  

|align=left | Brine-tank with beef rails and heaters

|align=left |   RPM

|align=left | Mechanical refrigerator with beef rails

|align=left |   RB

|align=left | No ice bunkers — heavy insulation

|align=left |   RS

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator — common ice bunker car

|align=left |   RBL

|align=left | No ice bunkers and loading devices

|align=left |   RSB

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator — air fans and loading devices

|align=left |   RBH

|align=left | No ice bunkers — gas heaters

|align=left |   RSM

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator with beef rails

|align=left |   RBLH

|align=left | No ice bunkers — loading devices and heaters

|align=left |   RSMH  

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator with beef rails and heaters

|align=left |   RCD

|align=left | Solid carbon-dioxide refrigerator

|align=left |   RSTC

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator — electric air fans

|align=left |   RLO

|align=left | Special car type — permanently enclosed (covered hopper type)    

|align=left |   RSTM

|align=left | Bunker refrigerator — electric air fans and beef rails

|align=left |   RP

|align=left | Mechanical refrigerator

Note: Class B refrigerator cars are those designed for passenger service; insulated boxcars are designated Class L.

References

;Notes

;Bibliography

Boyle, Elizabeth, and Rodolfo Estrada. (1994) "Development of the U.S. Meat Industry" — Kansas State University Department of Animal Sciences and Industry.
Hendrickson, Richard, and Richard E. Scholz. (1986). "Reefer car 13000: a postmortem." The Santa Fé Route IV (2) 8.
Pearce, Bill. (2005). "Express Reefer from troop sleeper in N." Model Railroader 72 (12) 62–65.
Reefer Operations on Model Railroads with an emphasis on the ATSF April 15, 2005 article at The Santa Fe Railway Historical & Modeling Society official website — accessed on November 7, 2005.
Thompson, Anthony W. et al. (1992). Pacific Fruit Express. Signature Press, Wilton, CA. .
White, John H. (1986). The Great Yellow Fleet. Golden West Books, San Marino, CA. .

External links

Guide to Rail Cars

History

Background: North America

Early attempts at refrigerated transport

Meat

Fruit and fresh produce

Ice

Mechanical refrigeration

Cryogenic refrigeration

Experimentation

Aluminum and stainless steel

Preservation

Refrigerator cars in Japan

Refrigerated trains in the United Kingdom

Timeline

AAR classifications

See also

References

External links