Noel's model railroad - Building a Ice Platform for your ReefersThis article from the Library...

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BUILDINGS Building a Ice Platform for your Reefers By Noel Widdifield Mar 29, 2006, 09:17

When I first got into Large Scale railroading, refrigerator cars (reefers)seemed to be everywhere. Back in 1992, I thought USA Trains billboard reefers were the most colorful of all of the Large Scale freight cars on the market at that time.

Although I admired them, I didn’t buy any because they were not in the 1/29 scale that I was modeling in standard gauge. Over time I added ARISTOCRAFT reefers to my freight car collection that were available in 1/29. As recent USA Trains 1/29 scale cars included many new reefers, I added them to my railroad as well.

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Having so many reefers on my railroad, I needed to think about using them realistically and operating them prototypically. My railroad is set in September 1954, which meant that all of my reefers were ones with roof ice bunkers requiring ice to keep the contents cold. Therefore, I would need an icing platform for loading the ice into the cars.

Two books on reefers provided me a significant amount of information about the history of these colorful cars. They describe the operation, servicing and what these cars transported.

Fresh meat, milk products, fruit and vegetables were delivered on a year-round basis. The resource books are Refrigerator Car Color Guide by Gene Greene



and The Great Yellow Fleet by John H. White.

From these books I learned that refrigerator cars were introduced on American railroads following the Civil War. A table in The Great Yellow Fleet shows there were only a little over 1300 of these cars in 1880. By 1930, the high point for railroad refers, that number grew to over 181,000. Because the railroads did not show much interest in owning these cars, most of them were built and owned by private lines.

In fact, the railroads usually owned only about 1/6th of the total reefers at any time. That is the reason they come in so many colors and owner or product names. Probably more than half of them were painted yellow or orange, and the rest were painted every color available.

Technological aspects changed over the years resulting in much improved efficiency in the cars.

Numerous patents were issued to many inventors and car builders for innovative cooling systems and insulation. The basic technology consisted of building the car bodies of what was considered the best insulating material at the time and providing a cooling system to keep the products at the desired temperature while they were in route.

From the beginning until sometime in the 1970’s the insulating material was wood and the cooling system was ice.



In 1940, only a quarter of the cars were all steel, and the rest were wood construction. The mechanical reefer, which used a refrigeration system, did not become predominant until the early 1970’s. Fans to circulate the air inside the reefers were used with the ice-cooled cars beginning in the 1940’s. Thus, if your railroad is set anywhere before about 1972, most of your reefers should be ice cooled and wooden sided. All of mine are.

If you have ice-cooled reefers then you need an icing platform somewhere on your railroad to service all of those reefers. That is why I decided to do the research to scratch build an icing platform for my indoor railroad.

I had never seen a real-life icing platform but had viewed many in railroad books.

They were long platforms built to the height of the roof of a reefer, and some were built to service a full train of reefers at one time. One on the Southern Pacific in Roseville, California, had dock space for 254 cars. This allowed them to service more than one train at a time. The one shown here in Refrigerator Car Color Guide was in Columbus, Ohio, and could service twelve cars at a time on each of two tracks.



After researching icing platforms on the internet and finding very little about Large Scale models of them, I decided to build one by using the pictures available in the two reference books I had. I set about doing some basic drawings of the platform.



I used a scale ruler to measure out the basic dimensions for the platform and then used the drawings as a template for constructing the timbers and braces.

I purchased a large amount of basswood before I began.

I then cut out enough timbers for the platform using my hobby table saw.



Then I cut the inner braces with my razor saw.



Using my template, I laid out and glued the uprights and crossbeam for each set of platform legs. I did this by placing pins to hold the wood in place while the glue dried.



I also used long clamps to hold the wood tightly and drilled and inserted brads in the wood to add strength.

I nailed and glued the inner braces in place and returned each set of legs to the clamps to allow for final glue drying.



I built up each set of legs individually and completed all of them before moving to the next step in construction.

Since the platform would be 4 feet 6 inches in length and the basswood was only 24 inches long, I had to build the stringers with a brace in the middle. I did this by drilling holes and inserting brads and gluing short strips to the side of the stringers.



I then cut cross braces from the same material as the stringers.

I glued the cross braces and the stringers in place, nailed them and clamped them to allow the glue to dry.



I used waxed paper to prevent glue from getting on the kitchen counter where I was working. It took several different types of clamps to hold the structure.



While the glue dried, I cut enough wood to plank the entire deck of the structure. I wanted to use individual planks to make in look authentic.



I cut a lot of wood planks to cover the 4 1/2 foot platform! I then glued the planks in place one at a time until I completed the platform deck.



After the glue on the platform deck was completely dry, I turned it over and began to fasten the platform legs in place.



Here again, I used both glue and small brads to fasten the legs.



Once the platform legs were all fastened and were drying, I fashioned “concrete” foundation blocks from basswood.

These would later be placed under the legs to provide a firm base to help support the platform.

I next secured the cross braces to the platform legs.



I glued and fastened each brace with small brads.

The cross braces added considerable strength and stability to the platform.



With the platform complete, I placed it on the floor and put some refers next to it, to see how it would look when finished.



Each icing platform usually had an icehouse attached to keep the ice cold until it was loaded into the refers.

I began the construction of my icehouse with the floor frame made from basswood.



I glued and nailed the frame and attached the legs and braces to the frame.



I planked the deck along side where the icehouse would be built.

Using my hobby knife and a straightedge, I built the icehouse from basswood by first cutting out the sides, ends, and doors.



I constructed the doors by gluing the frames in place and clamping them while they dried.



This was easy since I was leaving the doors closed on the building. I then glued the doors to the front of the building.

I next glued the building together using ¼ inch square stock to add strength to the building corners where I glued it together.



I taped the building so that I could spray paint it.

I sprayed the building with a flat grey that matched my other NYC support buildings.



I cut two pieces of styrene to make the roof and glued them to the building.



For the roofing material, I used sandpaper and glued it in place using the White Lightning All Purpose Acrylic Caulk.

Gluing it required several clamps.



I sprayed the sandpaper with flat black paint and touched up the edges with a brush.

Many railroads delivered the ice they used in the reefers by rail, but my railroad has the ice delivered by truck.

To move the ice from the truck unloading area up to the icehouse required a conveyer. I built this using basswood to make the conveyer structure and the belt support.



The actual belt was made from a piece of male Velcro.

For the stairs on the platform, I used a Plastruct stair and railing set.



The railing for the platform was constructed from basswood.



The finished icehouse and platform was almost ready for final painting.



In order to promote faster melting and quicker cooling, rock salt was put on top of the ice after it was loaded into the reefer bunkers. The salt was kept in boxes under the platform at regular intervals that corresponded to the car length.

It was shoveled into the reefer bunkers after they were filled with ice. I constructed saltboxes from basswood and fastened them below the platform at the appropriate intervals.



Now that the entire structure was basically completed, I fastened the “concrete” blocks I had constructed earlier to the legs of the platform. To do this, I turned the platform over and nailed and glued the blocks to the legs.



The platform and railings were stained with a light green stain. I used this color because the few color pictures I had of the real platforms showed that the rock salt and the ice caused the wood on the decks of the structures to appear greenish.



The legs of the platforms were stained a dark brown to make them look like they had weathered and aged.



I painted the “concrete” block with concrete colored paint.

Because I wanted to allow the icing crew to see at night when some of the icing operations would take place, I decided to add operating lights.

I used the light fixtures available from Bridge Masters that come pre-wired. I fitted a piece of basswood along three of the platform legs.



I inserted the light fixture through a piece of ¼ x ¼ inch basswood that was already stained.

To hold the light poles in place, I fastened them with brass screws to the legs.



I used a piece of brass channel painted flat black to fasten the wires in place down the back of the basswood and glued and clamped the brass in place.

The three lights provide just enough light so that the night crew could do their jobs.



The ice blocks weigh in at about 300 pounds and are difficult to move by hand. On the real platforms, a conveyer system was used to move the ice out to the loading area and along the platform to the cars.

The icemen walked along with the ice blocks and used ice tongs to guide the slabs along the platform and around corners. I simulated the conveyer with narrow strips of male Velcro.

The whole structure was ready to be put in place to see if it would fit in the area I had reserved for it. It went in place just as planned.



Now all I needed was ice and the carts and chutes that the workers used to actually load the ice into the bunkers on the cars. I had some excellent pictures from the Refrigerator Car Color Guide.

The pictures had workers in them so I was able to determine the measurements of the carts and chutes by estimating the height of the men in the picture. I made a crude drawing of the carts and chutes using graph paper.



I used this as the pattern to cut out the parts for the carts from basswood.

I glued and clamped the parts together to form the carts.



I completed two of them and then discovered they were too wide.

Using my table saw, I cut the carts down to the correct width.

Using styrene, I cut out and constructed the chutes.



I sprayed them all a flat grey undercoat.

The carts were painted an oxide red and I made one look older and more used than the other by leaving some of the flat grey showing through.



I left the chutes grey. I ordered the wheels for the carts when I first drew up the plan for the carts, but I still haven’t received the wheels. I will post a picture or two of the carts with wheels when they finally arrive.

The only thing remaining was finding some ice for the icing crew to put in the bunkers on my reefers. On real railroads in the early days, ice was cut from frozen lakes in the winter months and stored in large insulated icehouses for use during the rest of the year. In the 1930’s and 1940’s most railroads began to make their own ice. The ice was frozen in large 300-pound blocks.

These were formed in large forms that looked much like rectangular Popsicle molds. Many of these facilities could make several hundred of these ice blocks in a single day. By 1954, when my railroad is set, all class one railroads used these large blocks and/or crushed them to make crushed ice for their reefers. You can see these blocks on the platform in the picture.

To replicate ice blocks, I purchased two lengths of clear acrylic and cut them into ice block size lengths.



I then sprayed one side with flat white paint to make them look as if they were covered with frost.

After trying them on the platform, I realized that they were too square to look realistic.



I ground the blocks down around the edges on my grinder, and they looked much more realistic.



I also ordered some fake acrylic ice cubes to be used as the crushed ice carried in the carts.

I had to order these in very large quantities, so if any of you need fake ice cubes, just let me know.

After completing the icing platform, I now have a way to ice my reefers realistically and the platform makes a great attention getter on my railroad.



Noel's model railroad - Building a Ice Platform for your ReefersThis article from the Library...

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