Talk:Refrigerator car

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Good article Refrigerator car has been listed as one of the Engineering and technology good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
October 3, 2005 Good article nominee Listed
Trains Portal
Sel week 9, 2006
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To-do
list

Pending tasks for Refrigerator car:

 (purge cache –  edit this list)
  • Expand the history section describing the technology's development from iced reefers to mechanical reefers.
  • Discuss some of the larger refrigerated car operators like Pacific Fruit Express
  • Discuss Tropicana's Juice Trains, the only unit refrigerated trains still running in the US
  • Discuss the different types of refrigerated cars further, mentioning milk tank cars
  • Add photos of iced reefers, icing platforms, repacking the ice, mechanical reefers
  • Discuss the refrigerator cars use in passenger service for express refrigerated freight shipments
  • Expand the section on Mechanical refrigeration
See also Wikipedia:WikiProject Trains/Todo

[edit] GA Re-Review and In-line citations

Members of the Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles are in the process of doing a re-review of current Good Article listings to ensure compliance with the standards of the Good Article Criteria. (Discussion of the changes and re-review can be found here). A significant change to the GA criteria is the mandatory use of some sort of in-line citation (In accordance to WP:CITE) to be used in order for an article to pass the verification and reference criteria. Currently this article does not include in-line citations. It is recommended that the article's editors take a look at the inclusion of in-line citations as well as how the article stacks up against the rest of the Good Article criteria. GA reviewers will give you at least a week's time from the date of this notice to work on the in-line citations before doing a full re-review and deciding if the article still merits being considered a Good Article or would need to be de-listed. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us on the Good Article project talk page or you may contact me personally. On behalf of the Good Articles Project, I want to thank you for all the time and effort that you have put into working on this article and improving the overall quality of the Wikipedia project. LuciferMorgan 00:30, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More info...

This was recently added to the article by an IP user, but needs some serious cleanup for better integration...

Her's some more information on Moving perishable loads,and mechanical refrigeration. Wel start with that one:
In these cars,are mostly 57ft long. One end houses a compresser and a heat exchanger. Here's how it works: Some gases( like ammonia) gather a lot of heat.( Thats all this is moving heat from inside the car to the outside). Starting from the compresser end: the hot gas is compressed, and moves through the heat exchanger-the ammonia changes into a liquid, gives up it's heat to the air moving over the coil. because it's under pressure it moves into a long tube. that tube is in the roof of the car. any heat in that space is absorbed by the ammonia, and boils it. then its' into the compresser, and the cycle repeats itself. The cargo space is heavily insulated, and is fitted with hollow bulkheads. a seperate fan moves air throughout this space. A diesel engine is used to power the whole works. Forget that axle generator crap. think it through- a car stops, the refridgerator stops. Not to mentian different car speeds, etc.
Another refridgerator car type uses a cold gas only(think liquid nitrogen). At loading, a large tank of this liquid is placed in the car. a controlled valve is used to release the liquid, which quickly boils, and absorbs heat. While this system is simpler, it's more expensive.
Please note that these car types are only used to move loads that most remain frozen( ie fruit juice concentrates, frozen meat, ice cream)
The car type used to move perishable but not requiring freezing loads is the RBL(reefer, bunkerless) type. This car features both a seal( a piece of heavy plastic glued to the sides, roof, and floor of the car),and thick insulation. The door is also insulated, and a thick seal is used on the closed door. To load:
1) the load itself is chilled, to remove any heat. ie a beer shipment is chilled to 6 degrees C.
2) very cold air is blown into the car-any heat is removed, and the car is chilled
3) the car is quickly loaded. Bulkheads or inside doors are used to protect the load from moving.
4) the doors are sealed and locked. Becuase the load and car inside are chilled, and the thick insulation and vapour barrier prevent heat gain, the load stays cold.
Typical loads in these cars are: canned bottled drinks, fruit, beer( Nicknamed beer cars), plywood, medical supplies, packed food, and any load that needs to be kept cold, but not frozen.

I hope to be able to do it myself later today, but if another editor can get to it and add citations to reliable sources, all the better. Slambo (Speak) 10:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)