before refrigeration there was ice

[pdleth]

Off  the B&M mainline in Wakefield there was a spur to set cars to get ice from a local lake. It was cut from the lake and shipped via rail car to Boston, for use, any one have info on what was involved

[richg]

Cut the ice.
Move to ice house.
Pack in saw dust.
Ship out packed in saw dust via railroad.
Ship out via ocean going ships.

Do a Google search. You will find many links with loads of info about this issue.

Rich

[Jim Banner]

Ice was also used to air condition passenger cars.  The melt water gave a continuous supply of cold drinking water, slightly yellow and tasting faintly of sawdust.

Jim

[CNE Runner]

Ice harvesting was a huge business in upstate NY at the turn of the century. The process gave locals a means of making money in a normally 'slow' part of the year. There were several very large icehouses along the Hudson River in Poughkeepsie, NY...as the Hudson 'froze over' until the advent of icebreakers in the 1950s.

Jim is correct: the early models of heavyweight Harriman cars had the capacity to cool the car's interior with blocks of ice. I wasn't aware that the melt water was used as drinking water by passengers.

Refrigerated cars were (as previously mentioned) cooled by icing. The process also involved the addition of salt to speed up the process. These early cars were usually 'pre-cooled' before adding ice. A large car icing 'plant' was located in Maybrook, NY. As an aside a bridge, in New York City, had to be replaced as it was weakened by years of salt-containing melt water coming from thousands of refrigerated cars over the years.

Ray

[RAM]

I think Jim was just pulling your leg.  There is no was that the water from melted lake ice, that was stored in sawdust, would be safe to drive.

[CNE Runner]

RAM - Maybe it is the hour, or my tired old eyes, but I have no idea of the meaning of the last sentence in your post. So, Jim was 'pulling my leg' huh? Well Jim...winter is coming to Saskatoon...and it is a lot worse than it will be in Alabama.

Best regards,
Ray

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

RAM - Maybe it is the hour, or my tired old eyes, but I have no idea of the meaning of the last sentence in your post.

Maybe the gremlins got in his keyboard. Try:

"There is no way that lake ice stored in sawdust would be safe to drink."

[terry2foot]

Maybe the gremlins got in his keyboard. Try:

"There is no way that lake ice stored in sawdust would be safe to drink."

Whatever he typed or meant to type, the truth is that New England Lake Ice was shipped as far as India, to be used to cool drinks.............and it was shipped in sawdust.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic_Tudor for some more details,


Terry

[Jim Banner]

I think Jim was just pulling your leg.  There is no way that the water from melted lake ice, that was stored in sawdust, would be safe to drink.

Do you think the conductor that told me that about 60 years ago might have been pulling my leg?  I accepted his explanation of why the water had a yellowish tinge when viewed in a white paper cup and why it tasted a bit like wet wood smells, with just a hint of turpentine added.  His story may or may not have been true but I have never been given a better explanation.

Perhaps there is some misunderstanding of just what "stored in sawdust" means.  The ice was cut in large pieces, typically 3 to 4 feet wide by 6 to 8 feet long by whatever depth the water had frozen to when the ice was cut.  These one to two ton blocks where winched onto sleds and pulled by teams of horses to the ice house.  There, they were stacked up to make a large pile of ice weighing around one to two thousand tons.  Typically, they left about 2 feet of space between the pile and the walls of the ice house.  As the pile grew, this two foot space was filled with sawdust.  When the pile was finished, another couple of feet of sawdust was put on top of the ice.  As ice was taken from the pile for whatever use, the sawdust was rearranged to keep the rest of the ice covered.

Ice for reefers was cut to a more of less standard size - I don't know how big but from old photos the blocks look about 2 cubic feet each.  They were big enough that they were slid, not carried, out of the ice house and onto the roofs of the reefers but small enough to drop through the icing hatches.  Undoubtedly the large blocks of ice got a lot of sawdust on them but by the time they were reduced to smaller blocks, there would not have been a whole lot left.  I am guessing that for icing passenger cars, they probably used an old broom to take a couple of swipes at each large block to get the worst of the sawdust off it.  What remained did not interfere with cooling the passenger cars and if it flavored the drinking water, well, at least is was cold.  Fortunately, the sawdust was typically spruce, pine and fir, but no hemlock.  As for the water itself, the river and lake water in Western Canada was quite drinkable 60 years ago and for the most part still is.  Glacier ice, popular with tourists for cooling their drinks, is a whole different story.

I am sorry to say I never saw the ice gathering and distribution process personally.  The above information is based on local practice as told to me by people who were actively involved and in many cases backed by photographs.  As an old guy who almost always wears a stripped railway cap, I am often approached by other old guys who used to work for the railroads.  A word or two to let them know you are interested in what they did for the railroad gets them talking for hours.  The same thing happens at train shows.

Jim       

[pdleth]

I would think that the only reason for the saw dust was to keep all those blocks from freezing together. The only thing I remember as a kid wast to never eat yellow snow

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

I would think that the only reason for the saw dust was to keep all those blocks from freezing together. The only thing I remember as a kid was to never eat yellow snow

That's still good advice. 

[CNE Runner]

I don't know about you guys, but I took two things away from this thread:
    - Canadians are tough people (drinking wood tasting, yellow water),
    - Jim probably is old enough to have watched ice being harvested.
All kidding aside (I can probably never visit Saskatchewan), the whole topic of ice harvesting and transportation of same is fascinating. An icing operation (be it harvesting or icing refrigerated cars) would be a great theme for a mini layout. There are several kit manufacturers that produce structures suitable for this process.

Cheers,
Ray

[Doneldon]

I would think that the only reason for the saw dust was to keep all those blocks from freezing together. The only thing I remember as a kid wast to never eat yellow snow

pd-

Well, the piles of sawdust on top of the ice were very efficient insulation.
And, the price was right. But you are also correct: the sawdust also kept
the blocks from freezing together.
                                                   -- D

[pdleth]

Would  you use a piece of lexan to model the ice?

[Jim Banner]

Lexan would be good for newly cut ice which tends to be dull looking.  Older ice, where the surface has melted and refrozen, might be better modelled with acrylic.  The surface of acrylic is hard enough to polish.  Lexan is too soft to polish.  Both can be cut and sanded.

So what you choose could depend on the scene.  A winter scene where the big slabs of ice are being harvested and stored away might be best with Lexan.  But a summer scene where they are using blocks of ice to ice a reefer might be best with acrylic.

Jim