ICV 4 Wheel Van

["Derick Wuen" <cullend@webone.com.au>]

Terry Cunningham wrote in message <7q9u2g$3oa$1@the-fly.zip.com.au>...
>
>Does anybody know the road number(s) of the NSWGR Insulated 4 wheel vans
>coded ICV that have the end doors. (Lloyd's kit)
>--
>Regards
>Terry C.


My references do not help on this (John Beckhaus, Railway Freight Wagons
of/in NSW, 1970 and 1982 respectively, PTC Freight Vehicles (diagrams) book
1979).

A photograph published in AMRM some years ago shows a side-door ICV numbered
N2X and labelled "to operate in Darling Harbour area only".

I have a theory to try out on NG participants.....

ICV (Insulated CV?) vans were owned by FJ Walker meat supply concern. FJ
Walker at one point operated the Waterside Cold Stores facility, a giant
cold storage for meat hacked into a sandstone cliff on Darling Island, and
connected by rail to the metropolitan goods line at Darling Island Junction,
near what used to be Pyrmont B power station.

Some meat stored here may have been destined for road delivery to Sydney
metropolitan area, but a significant amount was destined for export via
refrigerated ship. The facility probably chilled the meat to shipping
temperature whilst awaiting the next empty ship. It was thus a sort-of
"surge tank" for chilled meat. It was the task of the ICV vans to transfer
the chilled meat from this facility to the wharf where the ship berthed. As
most of the wharfage in Darling Harbour (west side), Pyrmont and Darling
Island was served by rail, this provided for flexibility of berthing
refrigerator ships.

For most of the period it was in operation, the meat inbound to the facility
was probably killed at Homebush Abattoir on a dedicated branchline further
west in Sydney. I can imagine transfer runs of MRC and TRC bogie
refrigerator vans shuttling between Abattoirs and Darling Island. The
inbound livestock came from all over the state to Flemington saleyards,
adjacent to Abattoirs, mostly on block livestock trains running to specially
accelerated schedules to preserve the condition of the livestock. Of course
now the Flemington area is market area and Homebush the site for the
Olympics, a far cry from their dedication to "noxious" industries.

It is also possible that the cold storage facility received "country killed"
meat, and meat from the Riverstone complex.

The original redbrick portion of the storage facility was extended in cream
brick to form a really large complex, and the track arrangement was also
intriguing. There was one loading/unloading track under cover connected by
points at the Darling Junction end of the facility, but the "dead" end was
connected by a traverser to the two  adjacent tracks. The traverser looked
as if it could hold a bogie van or 2 four wheelers. Strategically placed
electrically driven capstans were evidence that vans were shunted along the
under cover track and traversed out onto the adjacent track by wire rope and
capstan, not by locomotives. It is also nice to conjecture that from time to
time the 19 class 0-6-0 or 73 class DH hauling inbound vans from Darling
Island Junction escaped from the facility via a capstan assisted trip on the
traverser.

I never did see the facility in operation, all replaced by containerisation
by the time I discovered it. I last visited in 1996, but I think I saw that
the facility being demolished in 1998 from a quick glimpse across water from
the harbour bridge.

Given the above, I don't know how an end-loading ICV would fit in with rail
operations of the storage facilities. Maybe there was some unloading
advantage at the wharf. How about this for wild conjecture? End-loading ICVs
were hoist aboard the refrigerator ships and unloaded in the hold, the
end-loading facilitating this.

I would be grateful to hear from anyone with more knowledge about the
storage facility, its opeartion and the "captive" ICV's. It would help me
with my model which is (slowly) taking shape on a shelf above the computer
at which I am now writing.