Nostalgia & History > Ice Activated Air Conditioning

While having coffee with some friends the subject of passenger cars with ice activated air-conditioning came up. Both of the other two fellows have never ridden any passenger cars cooled with ice. The last time that I rode on a train with a car cooled by ice air-conditioning was in April 1985 on the former B&O "Royal Blue Line" which is CSX's Philadelphia Sub. This train has been featured on here before; however this subject had not come up. With this 5 car special sponsored by both Railroad Passenger Cars (RRP) and the Baltimore Chapter NRHS, the one car that was cooled with ice activated air-conditioning was the Pullman Diner Lounge car "Defender" shown on another trip in the attached photo. This was also the last time that any passenger car was iced for air-conditioning at the B&O Camden Station in Baltimore. Believe it or not, that air-conditioning did work.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

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Ice A/C was always the best. If you had ice and water, with good battery charge - you had Great cool air. Very little to break down.

bh35226 Wrote:
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> Ice A/C was always the best. If you had ice and
> water, with good battery charge - you had Great
> cool air. Very little to break down.

True, but as for efficiency, steam-ejector was probably the best. Once you got the car cooled down, maintaining it required less power then electro mechanical. Just a good supply of steam under pressure. SP started the A/C era with a number of ice activated cars, then switched to propane Waukesha, steam-ejector, some Pullman mechanical type, and following the war, went to electro-mechanical.

How much ice in one charge? How long did it last?

Saw an Ice bunker? being filled on a Soo Line car at StPaul Union Depot early 60's. Recall a huge hunk of ice going on the car!

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timz Wrote:
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> How much ice in one charge? How long did it last?

What's the outside temp?

I would think you would need literally several tons of ice over a 24-hour period to keep a standard heavyweight passenger coach cool in a warm, humid climate.

Are there any problems with my math? A typical school classroom may be maintained by continuous operation of, say, a four-ton capacity rooftop unit, delivering 48,000 btu/hr of cooling. This is approximate based on my experience as an a/c technician; an engineer maybe able to provide a better estimate of the cooling load. Ice delivers 144 btu per pound when it melts. Therefore the equivalent amount of ice to deliver the same amount of cooling would be 333 pounds per one hour to keep the classroom cool.

Do some more math and one can see how this would become impractical for continuous cooling of entire passenger trains in warm climates. An insulated reefer with a load that doesn't generate heat is a different matter.

I started riding trains outside the womb around 1940 in the San Joaquin Valley of California. All I recall is that it was more comfortable inside the train than outside during the summer.
Same for movie theaters, the other pioneers of a/c. Now my home's a/c is powered by the sun.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

timz Wrote:
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> How much ice in one charge? How long did it last?

Since this was a short excursion train trip from Baltimore, Maryland up to Wilmington, Delaware and return, the "Defender" was filled only the one time while in Baltimore. On a prior trip when the car was included going from Baltimore up to Cumberland, Maryland and return, the car received more ice in Cumberland before heading back. I was told that in the days when ice was used in all the air-conditioning systems, there were car men in each major city along a route where ice would be added. This was a lot of work for sure. I do not know how many blocks of ice were put into this car but I do know that the owner of this private car had the ice brought to the station as by this time (April 1985) the only regular passenger trains operating from Camden Station in Baltimore were the MARC Commuter Trains, and the Chessie System had no ice facility anywhere in the area since those types of passenger cars had not been used in many years. My point in my story is that this was the absolute last time that any passenger car with ice activated air-conditioning was operated on the B&O, the year 1985. The car was still nice and cool upon returning to Baltimore.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

When we ran the Prairie Trains in the spring at Rio Vista Junction in the 80's and 90's, we had two Pullman heavyweight cars we offered a first class service aboard. The Western Pacific solarium lounge 653 had a Waukesha ice engine that provided power to run the A/C. The second car was the 8 section solarium lounge "Circumnavigators Club" had an ice water circulation system. It required loading of the 200 lb blocks of ice in the bunkers under the car. Unless the temps soared, the car could manage to stay cool over two days. We had the ice delivered to the property and got pretty good at loading the bunkers in a timely manner.

It was the use of ice-activated air conditioning that gave us the "ton" rating for A/C units.
(A ton of air conditioning is equivalent to about 12,000 BTU/hr) Many rail cars had ice bunkers
that would carry about 5 (or more) tons of ice. Long term disadvantage to ice bunker air conditioning
was that to increase cooling, carmen would throw salt into the ice bunkers. That practice would finally
result in severe corrosion to the bunker and center and side sills of the car. A heavyweight car I own
was initially equipped with the ice system, it resulted in replacement of 30 feet of center sill, and
thirty feet of side sills on the car due to corrosion. (Luckily, that happened prior to my owning the
car!)

SR2 Wrote:
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> It was the use of ice-activated air conditioning
> that gave us the "ton" rating for A/C units.
> (A ton of air conditioning is equivalent to about
> 12,000 BTU/hr) Many rail cars had ice bunkers
> that would carry about 5 (or more) tons of ice.
> Long term disadvantage to ice bunker air
> conditioning
> was that to increase cooling, carmen would throw
> salt into the ice bunkers. That practice would
> finally
> result in severe corrosion to the bunker and
> center and side sills of the car. A heavyweight
> car I own
> was initially equipped with the ice system, it
> resulted in replacement of 30 feet of center sill,
> and
> thirty feet of side sills on the car due to
> corrosion. (Luckily, that happened prior to my
> owning the
> car!)
I don't understand the use of salt? Usually salt will cause ice to melt, for example: our roads and highways are treated every year with road salt during snow and ice storms. And it does help to melt the ice unless the temperature goes way down into the low 20's and teens. So how can the use of salt make the ice cool more? I never saw the use of salt on the B&O here in Baltimore or anywhere else along their lines.
John in White Marsh, Maryland

fact, the ice is going to melt and it's initial temperature is not 32F, more like 0F. by adding salt to the ice, you will lower the freezing point of the salt water when the melted ice becomes water, thus providing a lower temperature solution to increase the cooling ability more than water at 32F. it's kind of confusing. google, "adding salt to ice". dave, out.

Salt was commonly added to ice bunker refrigerator cars
to increase cooling account this would cause ice to melt faster.
Melting faster increased cooling power of ice.

The resulting salt water dripping from ice reefers caused the
rail web to corrode. The Burlington sprayed asphalt on the
rail web in the Chicago area to fight salt water corrosion.

I know they did this account when I visited a rail welding plant
asphalt treated rail caused a big fire when the power was applied
to weld.

My great aunt had a house in Sedalia, Mo. It was about four blocks from the Mop depot where I would spend as much time as allowed while visiting. The Mop had a afternoon run out of St. Louis about two hours ahead of the Colorado Eagle, no.15. It used mostly rebuilt heavyweight coaches. Some of these had ice activated air conditioning. These cars were reiced in Sedalia. The procedure was that shortly before train time a ice truck would stop on the grade crossing east of the depot and Carmen would transfer 200 pound ice blocks onto MofW hand cars on the passing track. The Carmen then pushed the ice down toward the depot. It took no.15 about four hours to make the 186 miles to Sedalia. In the heat of a nasty Missouri summer the ice would be gone by the time the bunkers were opened. The two carmen, each armed with ice tongs, would heave ice blocks from the hand cars into the bunkers. In the summer I always thought the ice ritual more entertaining than the platform side.

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The Bluewater Michigan NRHS had two ex-CN CCF coaches that had ice-activated air conditioning - I think the last time they were used was in the fall of 1995 on excursion trains to Cadillac, MI. Did anyone use ice-activated air conditioning after that? The systems still worked very well.