Refrigerator Car - Timeline

Timeline

• 1842: The Western Railroad of Massachusetts experimented with innovative freight car designs capable of carrying all types of perishable goods without spoilage.
• 1851: The first refrigerated boxcar entered service on the Northern Railroad (New York).
• 1857: The first consignment of refrigerated, dressed beef traveled from Chicago to the East Coast in ordinary box cars packed with ice.
• 1866: Horticulturist Parker Earle shipped strawberries in iced boxes by rail from southern Illinois to Chicago on the Illinois Central Railroad.
• 1867: First U.S. refrigerated railroad car patent was issued.
• 1868: William Davis of Detroit, Michigan developed a refrigerator car cooled by a frozen ice-salt mixture, and patented it in the U.S. The patent was subsequently sold to George Hammond, a local meat packer who amassed a fortune in refrigerated shipping.
• 1876: German engineer Carl von Linde developed one of the first mechanical refrigeration systems.
• 1878: Gustavus Swift (along with engineer Andrew Chase) developed the first practical ice-cooled railcar. Soon Swift formed the Swift Refrigerator Line (SRL), the world's first.
• 1880: The first patent for a mechanically refrigerated railcar issued in the United States was granted to Charles William Cooper.
• 1884: The Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch (SFRD) was established as a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to carry perishable commodities.
• 1885: Berries from Norfolk, Virginia were shipped by refrigerator car to New York.
• 1887: Parker Earle joined F.A. Thomas of Chicago in the fruit shipping business. The company owned 60 ice-cooled railcars by 1888, and 600 by 1891.
• 1888: Armour & Co. shipped beef from Chicago to Florida in a car cooled by ethyl chloride-compression machinery. Florida oranges were shipped to New York under refrigeration for the first time.
• 1889: The first cooled shipment of fruit from California was sold on the New York market.
• 1898: Russia's first refrigerator cars entered service. The country's inventory w reached 1,900 by 1908, and 3,000 two years later, and peaked at approximately 5,900 by 1916. The cars were utilized mainly for transporting butter from Siberia to the Baltic Sea, a 12 day journey.
• 1899: Refrigerated fruit traffic within the U.S. reached 90,000 short tons (81,647 t; 80,357 long tons) per year; Transport from California to NY averaged 12 days in 1900.
• 1901: Carl von Linde equipped a Russian train with a mobile, central mechanical refrigeration plant to distribute cooling to cars carrying perishable goods. Similar systems were used in Russia as late as 1975.
• 1905: U.S. traffic in refrigerated fruit reacheed 430,000 short tons (390,089 t; 383,929 long tons). As refrigerator car designs become standardized, the practice of indicating the "patentee" on the sides was discontinued.
• 1907: The Pacific Fruit Express began operations with more than 6,000 refrigerated cars, transporting fruit and vegetables from Western producers to Eastern consumers. U.S. traffic in refrigerated fruit hit 600,000 short tons (544,311 t; 535,714 long tons).
• 1908: Japan's first refrigerator cars entered service. The cars were for seafood transportation, in the same manner as most other Japanese reefers.
• 1913: The number of thermally insulated railcars (most of which were cooled by ice) in the U.S. topped 100,000.
• 1920: The Fruit Growers Express (or FGE, a former subsidiary of the Armour Refrigerator Line) was formed using 4,280 reefers acquired from Armour & Co.
• 1923: FGE and the Great Northern Railway for the Western Fruit Express (WFE) in order to compete with the Pacific Fruit Express and Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch in the West.
• 1925 to 1930: Mechanically refrigerated trucks enter service and gain public acceptance, particularly for the delivery of milk and ice cream.
• 1926: The FGE expanded its service into the Pacific Northwest and the Midwest through the WFE and the Burlington Refrigerator Express Company (BREX), its other partly owned subsidiary. FGE purchased 2,676 reefers from the Pennsylvania Railroad.
• 1928: The FGE formed the National Car Company as a subsidiary to service the meat transportation market. Customers include Kahns, Oscar Mayer, and Rath.
• 1930: The number of refrigerator cars in the United States reached its maximum of approximately 183,000.
• 1931: The SFRD reconfigured seven reefers to utilize dry ice as a cooling agent.
• 1932: Japanese Government Railways built vehicles specially made for dry ice coolant.
• 1936: The first all-steel reefers entered service.
• 1937: The Interstate Commerce Commission banned "billboard" type advertisements on railroad cars.
• 1946: Two experimental aluminum-body refrigerator cars entered service on the PFE; an experimental reefer with a stainless-steel body was built for the SFRD.
• 1950: The U.S. refrigerator car roster dropped to 127,200.
• 1955: East of Eden popularises refrigerator cars by featuring a major plotline where James Dean's father tries to go into the business and fails when all the produce melts during transit.
• 1957: The last ice bunker refrigerator cars were built.
• 1958: The first mechanical reefers (utilizing diesel-powered refrigeration units) entered revenue service.
• 1960s: The flush, "plug" style sliding door was introduced as an option, providing a larger door to ease loading and unloading. The tight-fitting doors were better insulated and allowed the car to be maintained at a more even temperature.
• 1966: Japanese National Railways started operation of fish freight express trains by newly built "resa 10000" type refers.
• 1969: ACF constructed several experimental center flow hopper cars incorporating mechanical cooling systems and insulated cargo cells. The units were intended for shipment of bulk perishables.
• 1971: The last ice-cooled reefers were retired.
• 1980: The U.S. refrigerator car roster dropped to 80,000.
• 1986: The last reefers in Japan were replaced by reefer containers.
• 1990s: The first cryogenically cooled reefers entered service.
• 2001: The number of refrigerator cars in the United States bottomed out at approximately 8,000.
• 2005: The number of reefers in the United States climbs to approximately 25,000, due to significant new refrigerator car orders.