Back in the day...

Back in the day, refers were called ice boxes and we would put blocks of dry ice on shelves to keep things cool and…. No, I’m not THAT old! When I started driving 29 years ago though refers had around 6 manual single or double throw switches, 4 gauges – oil pressure, water temperature, volt meter and temperature gauge to tell you what the return temp was to make sure the temperature was kept at the right setting. We used a mechanical rotating dial to set the temp we wanted the refer to be.

The picture here is the modern refer that keeps food at a safe temperature while in transit. We still check the oil level manually despite there being an oil level sensor, we still check for coolant leaks despite there being a coolant level sensor (here though if we find a leak we can get it fixed before the sensor shuts off the refer – possibly spoiling the load). We still check the belts, look for broken wires to senors – despite the computer telling us if there is a broken wire or not and… (the water you see in the picture is from the rain outside) As you can see here the only thing wrong visually is the right door latch is broken. After the visual check we turn on the computer for it to do a self check. It has 49 self check parameters it has to meet in order for it to pass. This takes about 20 minutes to do. During this it will start, stop, check cooling power, heating power, defrost cycle, battery charged or not and many many other things.. If this all checks out THEN we can go load the trailer.

The refers we use have 100 gallon fuel tanks. The goal according to my boss is anywhere in the USA in 6 days for a running refer. The reason? That is how long the refers we use will run in high speed cool / heat for. The reality though the use of cycle sentry (turn the refer on / off according to a set of parameters) the refer can go for 10 to 14 days. Think of it this way – a load of frozen french fries that ships at -10 degrees. Since it isn’t that cold in Seattle, the refer is running. Once it gets to Spokane and further on into Montana, the temp can easily be colder than -10 and thus the refer only needs to run to keep the batteries charged – and from freezing up. We do use a fuel additive to prevent the fuel from gelling in the winter too.. Now the same load in August. Being 70 F plus in Seattle the refer will be running full time but not on high speed cool as the containers are very well insulated. Once it hit Spokane and going east, the temps can reach 100 F or more. That is when the refer will be in high speed cool most of the day and burn a lot more fuel… Once you think of all the refer loads going all over the place and the logistics of calculating fuel usage and all… I find it a bit amazing how it works so well.

Today among the loads moved was 42,000 pounds of Pollock going to New Hampshire and 32,000 pounds of various stuff going to a Walmart in South Carolina. Overall a good day at work. Tiger is reminding me of playtime before bedtime so….