A refrigerated van (also called a refrigerated wagon) is a railway

goods wagon Goods wagons or freight wagons (North America: freight cars), also known as goods carriages, goods trucks, freight carriages or freight trucks, are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. A variety of wagon types ...

with cooling equipment. Today they are designated by the

International Union of Railways The International Union of Railways (, UIC) is an international rail transport industry body based in Paris. History The railways of Europe had originated during the nineteenth century as many separate concerns across numerous nations; this le ...

(UIC) as Class I.

History

The first wagons were cooled with

ice Ice is water that is frozen into a solid state, typically forming at or below temperatures of 0 ° C, 32 ° F, or 273.15 K. It occurs naturally on Earth, on other planets, in Oort cloud objects, and as interstellar ice. As a naturally oc ...

that had been cut in winter from special pools or lakes. It was

Gustavus Swift Gustavus Franklin Swift, Sr. (June 24, 1839 – March 29, 1903) was an American business executive. He founded a meat-packing empire in the Midwest during the late 19th century, over which he presided until his death. He is credited with t ...

who succeed in the winter of 1877 for the first time in developing an efficient cooling system for railway wagons for

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

businesses and meat producers. It circulated air through the ice and then through the entire wagon in order to cool it down. This system was the basis of the success of the

Union Stock Yard The Union Stock Yard & Transit Co., or The Yards, was the meatpacking district in Chicago for more than a century, starting in 1865. The district was formed by a group of railroad companies that acquired marshland and turned it into a vast ce ...

, the Chicago slaughterhouses. The cooled wagons made it possible for the first time to transport the meat of slaughtered animals to the whole of the US. Later, manufactured ice was used, but this rapidly gave way to other means of cooling; the simplest was the substitution of normal (water) ice by

dry ice Dry ice is the solid form of carbon dioxide. It is commonly used for temporary refrigeration as CO2 does not have a liquid state at normal atmospheric pressure and Sublimation (phase transition), sublimes directly from the solid state to the gas ...

. With the increasing reliability of combustion engines, engine-powered refrigerator vans emerged. There are even vans whose cooling is achieved by the evaporation of liquid gas.

Construction

Compared with machine-cooled vans, ice-cooled wagons have the disadvantage of uneven temperature control, because the cooling effect is only achieved by air circulation. On the other hand, machine-cooled wagons are expensive to maintain and operate, but can be set to the desired temperature and maintained at that temperature throughout the entire journey. They are also better suited to transporting goods at deep-freeze temperatures of around , whereas evaporators and ice-cooling are more suited to maintaining temperatures of around .

Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus '' Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called plantains, distinguishing the ...

transport wagons with gas evaporators have an optimum internal temperature of In addition to proper refrigerated vans, there are covered wagons with thermal insulation and, in some cases, even those are equipped with refrigerating sets. These wagons can only operate at temperatures between , where a constant internal temperature is desired. In Asia, Chinese and Kazakh railways are experimenting with using refrigerated rail cars to transport sensitive consumer electronic goods manufactured in China to European markets. The products are transported in climate-controlled rail cars from factory towns in the interior of China to

Almaty Almaty, formerly Alma-Ata, is the List of most populous cities in Kazakhstan, largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population exceeding two million residents within its metropolitan area. Located in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau mountains ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

, and from there by air to Europe. The use of insulate climate-controlled cars makes it possible for these kinds of goods to be transported by rail even in winter, which had not been done previously.IRINA BEKTIYAROVA
Rail-Air Connection Can Bring Goods from China to Europe Quickly
2015-04-08

Use

In long-distance trains in the former

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

countries, refrigerator trains were used that comprised a refrigeration plant wagon, a guards van and several refrigerated vans. Most food is transported by road nowadays due to the shorter journey times. The stock of refrigerated vans owned by railway companies has therefore shrunk considerably. Most refrigerated vans in Europe today are operated by Interfrigo. These wagons are easy to tell apart externally: white vans are normal refrigerated wagons, blue ones with white stripes along the side are machine-cooled refrigerator vans.

Types

Almost all refrigerated vans currently in service are built to UIC standard classes. The two-axled wagons have the same overall dimensions as the

covered goods wagon A covered goods wagon or covered goods van (United Kingdom) is a railway goods wagon which is designed for the transportation of moisture-susceptible goods and therefore fully enclosed by sides and a fixed roof. They are often referred to simply ...

s of classes Gbs or Hbfs. 1) Refrigerated and insulated vans / Refrigerated vans with cooling equipment

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Refrigerated Van Food preservation International Union of Railways Freight rolling stock

Vans Vans (originally called the Van Doren Rubber Company) is an American apparel, accessories, and skateboarding shoes brand, established in Anaheim, California, and owned by VF Corporation. The company also sponsors surf, snowboarding, BMX, and ...

History

Construction

Use

Types

See also

References

External links