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Operationally, this would be a real challenge. Both livestock and iced refrigerators are high-maintenance, time sensitive shipments. Delays caused by icing are hard on the chickens and delays caused in the care and feeding of the chickens would cause inefficiencies in the iced refrigeration. This would be a fun puzzle on an operations oriented layout. Originally posted by scsshaggy - April 24 2017 :  8:16:41 PM

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Some live poultry cars were built with a dual purpose in mind. These cars had half the number of cages at one end of the car with the other end of the car containing an ice-cooled refrigerated section for moving eggs. The magazine Poultry Monthly stated in 1897: “In these the poultry can be fed and watered en route. Arrangements have also been made so that eggs and poultry can both be sent in the same car, if a car-load of neither can be made up. The live poultry shipping business is rapidly increasing in the West since these improved shipping facilities have been put into operation.” An attendant was sent along with each poultry shipment to care for the birds en route. He lived in what was termed a “stateroom” at the center of the car complete with a bunk, stove and sink. It’s safe to assume that there weren’t many other amenities in the eight-foot wide room and the smell was surely unpleasant, along with all of the noise from the birds. They were watered from a rectangular tank at the top of the car. Originally, this tank held 750 gallons of water, but later versions of the car held only about 300 gallons. The attendant walked along a walkway at the center of the car, feeding the birds from a 50 bushel bin of grain that was located below the floor in the stateroom.

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Well Red, you could have slipped in under SOTW as "Snow Plow of the Week." Nifty piece. Originally posted by Chops124 - April 26 2017 :  10:48:08 AM