Refrigerator car

A refrigerator car is a railway freight car with insulation, its cargo space is constituted by an enclosure by the side walls and the roof box.

After the presence and type of cooling device they are divided into:

• Heat protection car without cooling device
• Refrigerated trucks with refrigerated containers, the coolant is usually water or dry ice
• Machines refrigerated trucks with their own cooling units

History

The first cars were cooled with water ice, which was won in the winter in special pools or lakes. On behalf of the Chicago industrialist and meat producers Gustavus Swift succeeds in winter 1877 for the first time, to develop efficient cooling railroad cars. It is ensured by the circulation of air, that the cooled air is cooled by the ice throughout the wagon. This system became the basis of the Union Stockyards success, the slaughterhouses of Chicago. Cooled by the first car, it was possible to transport the meat of the slaughtered animals through the entire United States. Later, they used machine-made ice cream - and quickly went to other refrigeration over: was the easiest to replace the water ice by dry ice. With reliable internal combustion engines of the machines cooling car came on. Also, there are refrigerator car, the refrigerating power is generated by evaporation of a liquid gas.

Temperature regulation and use

Heat protection cars, ie those refrigerated trucks with insulation but without coolant, in the temperature range from 4 ° C to 16 ° C in operation, where a constant internal temperature is desired. They are used for the transport of dairy products, preserves or fruit. Refrigerated trucks for transportation of bananas have a gas evaporator and reach an internal temperature of 14.4 ° C.

Refrigerated trucks with refrigerated containers have the problem of inaccurate coolant temperature because the cold is distributed only by air circulation. The coolant used, water or dry ice, ensuring a temperature of 4 ° C to -18 ° C. They are used for the transport of meat, beer or fish. Freezer trucks provide a temperature of -10 ° C or -20 ° C and used for the transportation of frozen foods.

Engine cooling cars have cooling units with which a desired temperature can be set; this can be between 20 ° C. to -30 ° C. They are therefore suitable for frozen goods transport over long distances. Although machines refrigerator cars are expensive to maintain and operate, they offer over other cooling car types the advantage that they comply with the prescribed temperature throughout transport, which is of great importance for the observance of the cold chain during transport of food. In the long-distance transport of the former Eastern Bloc countries throughout cooling features are used, which consist of a machine carriage, an escort and several refrigerated trucks.

Most food transport have now been shifted to the road because of the shorter transport times. The refrigerator car park of the railway companies is therefore shrunk significantly. Most refrigerated trucks are now handled by Inter -Interfrigo. This refrigerated truck can be easily distinguished externally: White cars are normal refrigerator car, blue with white longitudinal stripes are machine refrigerator cars.

Identification and classification

According to UIC include refrigerator cars in Europe always to the freight cars of the special design. All freight cars that participate in international traffic within the UIC railways must be labeled with uniform genus characters and a uniform car number. All refrigerated trucks are therefore marked with category letter "I".

The generic letter "I " has the meaning that they have a thermal insulation class IN, have an air circulation by wind engine, equipped with floor grid and ice chests of at least 3.5 m³ or more for freight wagons with temperature influence. This description applies to the simplest version of a refrigerator car, and deviations from this design are represented by letters. Before the introduction of this UIC classification refrigerator cars were in Germany with the generic characters " Gk " marked the end of 1942 with the generic character "T" and four-axle refrigerator wagon with the generic characters " GGK ", plus any sub-class characters.

Standard wagons UIC

Many refrigerator cars were built according to the guidelines of the UIC. The UIC began in the 1950s, with the unification of the construction of freight cars; the result of this unification led to the ordinary wagons. Developed by the UIC freight wagon types are given in UIC leaflet. Since refrigerated trucks are one of the freight cars of the special design, these will be built according to the UIC leaflet 571-3 as ordinary wagons or as UIC standard wagons. The two-axle refrigerator wagon agree in their main dimensions of the covered goods wagon type Gbs match.

1) cooling and thermal protection cars / machines Kühlwagen

Literature and sources

• Helmut Behrends, Wolfgang Hensel, Gerhard Wiedau: Wagon archive. Volume 2: German Federal Railroad and German Reichsbahn. Trans VEB Verlag für Transportation, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-344-00330-5 (railway vehicle Archive 7, 2).
• Stefan Carstens: freight wagons. Volume 2: Stefan Carstens, Hans Ulrich servant: Covered wagons - special designs. Revised, updated and expanded edition of the first edition from 1989. MIBA -Verlag, Nuremberg 2000, ISBN 3-89610-251-6.
• Stefan Carstens: The freight cars of the DB AG. Facts, figures, trends, photos. MIBA -Verlag, Nuremberg, 1998, ISBN 3-86046-030-7.
• Wolfgang servant: Painting and name of freight cars. The external appearance of German freight wagons from 1864 to today. Verlag Dr. Bernhard evening, Stuttgart 1992, ISBN 3-926243-11-2.