in Denver, for example, was supplied from a source more than 100 rail miles away –the ice all being unloaded from standard uninsulated boxcars during the winter months.23
Most railroads had standard plans for ice houses with and without icing platforms. The standard construction of the houses depended largely on the climate in which the railroad operated. That is, cold weather railroads could get away with cheaper construction than could warm climate railroads. Interestingly, none of the historical
society or general railfan standard plan books that I’ve seen have plans for ice houses. Even the Principal Assistant Engineer of the C&NW was quoted as lamenting as to “the small amount in- formation on this subject available in engineering literature . . .”24
The individual companies had vary- ing ideas about insulation, size of ice rooms, etc. A common dimension with most railroad and packing house ice houses was the depth (length). This number was almost always between 32 and 40 feet. It was sometimes less, but rarely was it more. This was considered to be the ideal depth of an ice room, while the width of the room was often the same dimension or close to it. Ice rooms of 36′×36′ or 36′×40′ area were common. It was considered good prac- tice to restrict the contents of a railroad
AUTHOR’S COLLECTION: WISCONSIN; CIRCA 1905-1906
This photo postcard shows an ice harvest on an unknown Wisconsin lake. Of interest are the tools displayed in the photo: several ice saws with their cocked handles, at least two snow scrapers with two-horse hitches and two marker plows cutting the initial lines for the next round of ice harvesting. This picture shows in striking detail how labor and equipment intensive ice harvesting was. It is not clear from the photo where the ice house actually is. Note how very straight the cut lines are and how square the corner of the cut ice is. This was absolutely necessary for high-quality ice. The gentleman with the long pole was an floe-man whose job it was to guide the long floes of ice to the chute where they were cut (with the ice saws again) into individual cakes before being elevated out of the water.
ice room to a maximum of 1,000 tons. This generally meant the ceiling height topped out at about 40 feet.
End and side elevations: Union Pacific standard ice house
For example, the Northern Pacific’s standard 2,900-ton ice house was 36 feet deep, had two 36-foot wide ice
The UP icehouses were long, narrow structures designed to be sit- uated perpendicular to the icing platform proper. The UP houses were built on the ground; the piling is merely shown to represent the foundation of the house. Notice the tile drain running longitudi-
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN
nally the length of the house. All dimensions a modeler would need are shown. It is primarily the size of the dimensions, not the overall configuration of the house, that makes it different from the plan for the model creamery icehouse shown in the June, 2011, RMC.
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