Reefer question

[nachoman]

In researching my "prototype" railroad, the narrow gauge Morenci Southern in Arizona, I have learned that the terminal town of Morenci had an ice house next to the tracks, and I have seen photos of refrigerator cars in the Morenci Yard, circa about 1910. I don't know the specifics of how it all worked, but Morenci was basically a company owned mining town, and the railroad was basically a property of one of the mining companies. In other words, the mining company was responsible for the town and the well being of the mine workers that lived there. Piecing things together, I assume the reefer cars were loaded with ice in Morenci, taken downhill the 20 or so miles to the standard gauge interchange, where they awaited transfer of perishables from standard gauge reefers. I wouldn't normally think such a short journey would require iced reefers, but this is hot Arizona and I do know there was an ice plant next to the tracks for some reason.

My example is a little bit different because it was not the shipper of the perishables that was responsible for making sure things were kept cool, but instead the recipient. But, it serves as an example that things could have been handled differently depending on what the circumstances were. In my case, the dominant circumstance was the standard gauge-narrow gauge interchange. But I could see the type of perishable being shipped, the geographic location of the terminals, or the location of the ice plant all being circumstances that controlled the hows and whens of when a reefer was iced.