Ice Sources

In cold climates, ice for reefers was harvest in the winter, stored in large warehouses, and kept until needed. It is hard for moderns to believe that properly stored ice would last through the summer in such facilities. Railroads would have large ice farms dedicated to this procedure. Blocks were cut to uniform size, usually 22" wide by 22 or 33" long, with the thickness determined by nature. The minimum thickness required was 5", but many were up to 15" thick. For the Santa Fe, Gallinas Canyon near Las Vegas, NM, was one of the better natural ice sources. After the 1930s, it became uneconomical to move ice from this location to ATSF ice houses, and this facility was closed in favor or artificially manufactured ice.

The larger mechanical ice plants on the railroads would produce ice all year long and stored as 300-pound blocks in large warehouses.

Railroads maintained a fleet of ice cars for the purpose of moving ice from their plants to wherever it was needs. Some ice plants simply could not keep up with the demand, so surplus ice from one plant would be moved to another or to stations that had no ice facilities. The Santa Fe used old reefers or old boxcars for this purpose and often ran them until it was not economically feasible to rebuild them. Some of their old truss rod reefers remained in service until 1956. The Santa Fe operated 300 ice cars in 1941, 313 in 1951, 171 in 1961, 111 in 1971. The fleet was retired or moved to MOW service in 1972.

More information on salt and ice cars can be found in both the Reefer book and the Boxcar book published by the Society. The boxcar book notes that between 1953 and 1954 Santa Fe converted 35 BX-3 and BX-6 boxcars to Ice service. They had their sliding doors removed and refrigerator doors added. Some received radial roofs. In 1956, 25 cars of the BX-12 class were converted to ice cars by adding insulation, floor racks, and surplus refrigerator doors.

The Santa Fe Live List book shows BX-24 (former KCM&O, truss rod frame) series 40100-40141 being converted to salt service in 1947 and given reefer doors. Photos are included in the boxcar book. These cars ran until 1954. In 1951 and 52, 45 BX-3 and BX-6 cars were converted to Salt service. They were routed from Hutchinson and Lyons Kansas. 42 of these survived until 1958 when they were converted to ice cars. In 1957, 30 BX-63 steel cars were converted to salt service with one car operating until 1973.

Railroads also had fleets of salt cars to service their icing facilities. Santa Fe had approximately 50 in service at any one time. These were box cars converted for this purpose. Most of Santa Fe's salt came from the Hutchinson, KS, area.