Production Company imported truck-loads of ice; some from Adelaide and some from Blayney (NSW). The latter was more reliable because when there was a heatwave in Broken Hill, there was usually a heat wave in Adelaide, which meant that Adelaide would also be suffering an ice shortage. The imported ice was packed with straw between each block to stop the blocks sticking together in the back of the trucks. The importing of large quantities of ice was costly and most difficult to handle. The packing of ice for the country centres required two blocks being placed in a large sack; sawdust was rammed between the blocks and between the outside of the block and the bag, which was then sewn up with a bag needle. Ice which was packed using this method carried wonderfully and, if the bag was not opened, would keep for weeks without any loss.It can be seen that the ice trade was an important one in the earlier days of Broken Hill.
MORE OF BROKEN HILL’S ICE AGE
A friend was kind enough to send me a copy of the Barrier Daily Truth dated 2nd August l999 featuring the article titled "Broken Hill's Ice Age".
I thoroughly enjoyed the article; particularly as ice manufacture dominated my life until I left home at the age of 24 to pursue a career on the mines. My father was the Archie Roberts (also known as Barney), referred to in the article as the owner of the New Ice Works located where Kentucky Fried now stands.
The article provides an excellent overview of this significant town industry. Perhaps, I can fill in on some of the detail as some of your younger readers may be interested in the size and complexity of the icemaking/cold storage plants, all of which used ammonia as the refrigerant gas. The ammonia compressors were belt driven from engines because Broken Hill's early 100 cycle electric power supply was not suitable for driving large electric motors. Even when the changeover to 50 cycle power supply commenced about 1940 the supply was too unreliable and too costly for the iceworks to use. In consequence, all of the ice making plants were powered by large heavy, slow speed engines, steam or producer gas until the late 1920s and producer gas or diesel until the late I 950s when a reliable 50 cycle electric power supply became available.
As at 1939, there were five ice and cold storage works, namely Broken Hill Ice & Produce Co., The New Ice Works, The Crystal Iceworks, The Railwaytown Iceworks and Grants Iceworks. Each had between one and three ammonia compressors of various sizes driven by engines of about 30 to 85 horsepower. In addition, there were about six butcher shops throughout the city with small ammonia plants for their cold storage rooms driven by small slow speed town-gas or diesel engines of about 10 horsepower. I believe that the two small ice plants operating on the mines were driven by electric motors of about 10 horsepower and connected to CPS power.
A large steam driven refrigeration plant was installed by the South Australian Brewing Company at its premises near the Jubilee Oval in about 1905. This was truly a magnificent plant comprising a single cylinder, horizontal, tandem-compound steam engine of about 80 horsepower directly coupled to a single cylinder, horizontal ammonia compressor with a common flywheel. It operated at about 120 rpm and had an eye catching, highly polished, fly-ball speed governor. Most of the output from this plant was apparently used for cold storage, although there was some icemaking capacity. Unfortunately, the cost of running and maintaining the steam side of this very fine plant made it uneconomical and it was closed down in about 1925. As Mr Craker notes, the plant was purchased by my father in about 1930. He separated the ammonia compressor from the steam engine, with gelignite, and used the compressor to upgrade his diesel driven plant at The New Iceworks in Oxide St. He sold the remains of the steam engine for scrap and installed the fly-ball as an ornament over the front gate of our home in Lane St where it remained for some 38~years.
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