Intermodal Reefer: Source of Power

Fuel while on a tractor. It has it's own fuel supply. Usually about 20 feet aft of the drives, you will see the small tanks.

When on a ship at the rack there is hundreds of volts and amps feeding it all the way across the ocean, plug em in. They will hum quietly for weeks and months keeping that beef in good shape until Japan or Somewhere.

Down in the engineering there is a one hell of a generator room bigger than most of our houses. 24/7 chugging away feeding 10,000 containers with righteous power if need be.

 

I think it's bad ###

 

Some chassis have generator on them

 

Erm small? Sorta.

Containers go onto the ship RIGHT NOW. TODAY TONIGHT. If you missed it at Baltimore, guess what, you get to drive to Norfolk to catch it before it takes off for Bremen leaving you baby sitting that beef or whatever for several months. Bremen will find another source and buy it them. You get to eat it.

Hence the tanks are small. I forget how many gallons, but when I went out with them to say Chrisfield to get crab for reefer container export, I had enough fuel in that chassis reefer to get there, load, and back to Baltimore. No dilly dally. Once on the ship it will be fine.

If I had to I can transfer fuel from tractor to chassis but considering what I had for a mid 60's mack and about 50 gallons tank it's not much to share there. So times a wasting, get going yer late already.

Container work for us was intense. Particularly the reefers. They have priority over everything else in the port.

 

Older units used a 'gen set' mounted under the center of the chassis. You would see some chassis with a plug up front that ran inside the frame to the belly mounting point

Real older units were like railroad reefers, a diesel engine running a reefer built into the end of the unit. they went out quick as the whole container went out of service when the engine quit.

The latest refer containers have the reefer unit in the front and an add on gen set that hangs on the front making it look similar to a reefer on a road trailer.