Cork insulation; a complete illustrated textbook on cork insulation ...

456
CORK INSULATION
As air circulation is one of the most important items to be
studied, it was necessary to adopt uniformity in the placing of the
air thermometers. Results which are comparable and practical have
been obtained by mounting each air thermometer on a block of cork
board, two inches thick and long enough to extend well beyond the
ends of the instrument. These blocks of cork were fastened to the
floor and ceiling beside the thermometers which were intended primarily
to register the dififerences in heat leakage and which were
fastened down tightly by two staples. The thermometers in the
commodity were imbedded between four and five inches whenever
possible. Every effort was made by the cooperating shippers to
furnish comparable lading, and the placing of the loads was super-
vised by the investigators.
It must not be inferred that the railroads were either indifferent
or antagonistic toward this research work. On the contrary, they
had almost without exception cordially assisted the investigators.
As the facilities for the acquisition of information became more
exact, and as closer correlation between car building and temperature
was shown, it was evident that cars must be built with <strong>insulation</strong> and
bunkers of varied construction, and, so far as possible, the cars to
be compared must be duplicates except for the one variable on which
information was desired. This need was explained to certain cooperating
roads, and they were also given just as much information
concerning the performance of their own refrigerator cars as we
possessed. A number of them were willing to build a few experimental
cars, and a few practically put their shops at our disposal.
What was quite as advantageous to the work, was the better understanding
on the part of the railroads of the aims of the Department
and the methods employed. These were personally explained to the
Vice Presidents of Traffic and Operation of practically every large
system in the country and in many cases to the Presidents as well.
Members of the Interstate Commerce Commission were also informally
kept in touch with the progress of the work. The fact that
the study of commodities in transit had shown that the same kind
of car was necessary to carry fruits, vegetables, dairy freight and
fish, and that the building of specialized cars for certain products
was unnecessary, was, of course, greeted with approbation by everyone
interested in the economics of railroading.
One of the favorable happenings in the doing of this transporta-
tion work was the fact that the men engaged upon it were also in
close touch or actually engaged upon cold storage investigations and
were familiar with many phases of the precooling and storage prob-
lems. In the course of the fruit and vegetable precooling work, the
investigators had observed the increase in efficiency when a slatted
rack, a few inches above the floor, was used. The addition of such a
rack to a refrigerator car seemed eminently desirable. Accordingly,
we asked the railroads to add them to certain cars for trial purposes.