Re: Loading Ice into Reefers at Durango.

Here is some refrence material which Rod suggested I post to this thread. I'm not sure haw much that ice house was used in the period after the Farmington branch was Narrow Gauged, it seems to me that the large shipments of fruit had declined by that time and that the cars could have been iced in Alamosa prior to being needed in the Durango area. There would have had to been an application for the cars similar to this application for stock cars.


Here is a portion of a Durango valuation map which shows a 12 foot wide Ice platform on the north and west sides of the ice house
.

and a Photo from 1940 showing the ledger on the west side of the Ice house.


One should keep in mind that an icing platform was not the only way to ice cars. Worst case procedure would be an inclined board, a pair of ice tongs, some rope and some strong men.

Here is one solution from a 1914 issue of Popular Mechanics.