NEW REFRIGERATOR CAR

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 10, Issue 69, 6 January 1947, Page 6

NEW REFRIGERATOR CAR

TESTS CARRIED OUT ON U.S. RAILROAD

METHODS OF SHIPPING PERISHABLES

Six railroad refrigerator cars of new design", loaded with frozen foods, are rolling across the country as a moving laboratory to test better methods of shipping perishables, states the Christian Science Monitor. The Association of American Railroads announced that the cars were loaded at Hillsboro, Oregon, and are being sent to Cincinnati, Ohio, with research engineers aboard the train. The objective is to determine what further improvements can be made in insulating refrigerating cars.

The tests are being made jointly by the Association’s Refrigerator Car Research Bureau, the United States Agricultural Department, and the National Bureau of Standards. The cars, built by the American Refrigerator Transit Company of St. Louis contain insulation ranging from 3 to 7 inches in thickness.

Before the cars were loaded, devices were installed at 20 different points, both outside and inside, to measure the heat transmitted through the insulating material. By means of electric cables, these devices are connected with an instrument panel in a railway business car where a crew of research engineers checks the temperature readings of each instrument both while the train is moving and when not in motion.