Friday, November 11, 2016

Getting Carleton County Potatoes to Market!

The Carleton Railway leases additional reefers to keep up with demand (click on picture to expand):

It is a November morning in 1965 and two venerable old RS-3s at the front end of a long string of potato reefers stop to collect four more loaded cars from the potato warehouses in South Newbridge.  Railway management prioritizes potato shipments during the fall season -- this train is running as a second section on the schedule of the "Mail Express" limited passenger train, so those potatoes will get to the U.S. market as fast as possible and in plenty of time for American Thanksgiving.  Note also that management has gone farther afield to locate sufficient rolling stock to meet the seasonal needs of the potato industry; with apple shipments waning along the east coast of the US, a string of available Virginian and Ohio reefers were located and leased by the Carleton Railway for the fall season.  They join the strings of MDT, ART, FGE, and other less common reefers that have traditionally taken thousands of loads of Carleton County potatoes to market each year.  The V & O reefers have no charcoal heaters, but barring unusually cold weather in December their insulation should suffice to keep the potatoes from freezing at least until Christmas.  


1 comment:

Unknown said...

I'll never understand how the CRR leases all the clean cars. The AVR has also followed the practice of seasonal leasing, but only seems to be able to access the well worn units. I guess the "big Guys" get first pick.