Refrigerator Car
by Ivan W. Baugh
Refrigerator cars transport produce from the terminal to a distant terminal. At the terminal, farmers unload the produce from their trucks. Terminal workers loaded the produce on the cars, and place ice in the car to help maintain a proper temperature to keep the produce from spoiling while in transport.
Today, we have refrigerator cars that have mechanical refrigeration that you may hear running as a car passes on a train. These cars have insulation that helps maintain the appropriate temperature to help keep the produce fresh when it arrives at the distant terminal and is transferred to the market where you purchase it.
Older refrigerator cars looked like the following examples of reefers as they are often called.
Pacific Fruit Express (PFE)
Today, you may see reefers that look like this. They are much more heavily insulated. When you see them at night, you may notice a blue light on one end of the car. This helps identify it as a car that contains material requiring a specified temperature in transport.
Collection of pictures of stock cars and refrigerator cars (click on each picture in the page that opens to see an enlarged view of each picture)
