The record-union., 1899-07-30

in the high Sierras, switched out at
the local ice depots at Fourteenth
street, on the north levee, and are
there unloaded and the ice slowed
away ready for packing into the ice
tanks of the refrigerator cars at night.
Electricity and horse power play
prominent parts in unloading and
loading the ice, and at the C. F. x.
plant is to be seen a horse which is
strictly business It comes near to be-
ing an automaton- When the chute in
which the great cakes are carried up
to the storage-room is filled, the ami
NAL needs no word. 1t knows. And
when the chute has been cleared, it
calmly stops, backs up and chews the
cud of sweet and bitter fancy until
another load is ready, when it again
goes through with the same perform
ance The other company employs
electricity, instead of horse power, but
either force is adequate to the need.
About 100 tons of ice are so used
each night to say nothing of the vast
amount sent daily to icing depots at
various points throughout the valley.
At such outside points where depots
with ice after loading the cars, but by
the time they reach this city the sup
ply is at least half gone-melted-and
the cars are sent to the local depots, re-
iced and put into the trains that are
being made up for rapid transit to the
East.
But at many outside points there are
no icing depots, and cars which re-
ceive loads at those points are iced
here before being distributed, in order
that the fruit may not suffer during
it's trip to this, the distributing point.
By the time the cars return here load
ed the ice in many instances has al
most entirely disappeared, and the
tanks must be refilled from the floors
up.
THE PROCESS OF ICING,
While not complicated one, requires
skill in the operators. And old hand
will easily perform a task which would
break down a green one, for the sim
pie. reason that the former would de-
pend on skill, the latter on strength
Icing crews in this city consist Of from
four to FIVE men, and they can easily
ice car in ten minutes. Such crew
that time, but the men were working
at high pressure and for a record, and
could not have kept up that lick for
any considerable length of time.
Each car has an ice reservoir on
top, and a tank on either end. One
man attends to distributing the Ice,
his first work being to fill the top
reservoir, after which the great cakes
are shunted into the end tanks. When
these are filled with the big cakes the
packer breaks the ice into small parti-
cles and fills in chinks and crevioes I'M
til, in the smaller cars, 5000 pounds
four tons) and in the larger 10000
pounds. or five tons, have been slowed
away.
Regardless of the night trip through
the valley and the foothills, at least
half the ice is melted by the time the
trains reach Truckee and Boca, and
at one of those points they are re-
filed. The crews at those points are
kept informed by telegraph as to the
time a fruit train will arrive, and
preparations are made accordingly The
ice is got in readiness, being placed on
platforms ready for the chutes AT
those points ten cars are easily iced in
an hour, and after a two-hour halt the
fruit again speeds forward through
canyon, over mountain, across desert
and past the Great Salt Lake to Og-
den, where the next icing depot is
located.
1t takes time, labor and ice to get
fruit out of California, even after it
has been placed on board the cars.