Getting Real Column - 6
9-10: These two photos at Ogden in 1962 illustrate part
of the icing process. At left, a workman is opening ice
hatches, and at right the estimator chalks an amount of
ice needed to top off the bunker (in hundredweights) on
the hatch plug. The same amount would be noted on the
clipboard in his left hand for that car number. This chalking
operation is for the operator of the icing machine moving
along the deck. Chalking was not needed in the days of
icing with hand tools. –both photos, PFE, courtesy CSRM.
9
arrangement for yard space wherever needed to make sure
the car supply would be there.
At peak harvest times in August, September and into October,
even PFE’s enormous fleet of some 40,000 cars was not
enough. Under agreements with other refrigerator car own-
ers, PFE would borrow extensively from the fleets of American
Refrigerator Transit (ART), Merchants Despatch (MDT), Fruit
Growers Express (FGE), and others, to achieve a sufficient car
MRH-Sep 2013
