TRANSCRIPT

Interview with Llewellyn Smith - He Describes the Blower Car Invented By E.D. Smith

Speaking of rail cars and my great grandfather, E. D. Smith, if there was a technological breakthrough in his day it was outside of the plant, and that was the Blower Express Rail Car. And essentially what it is, if you think of a box rail car there were these big, I will call them bellow horns that came out of the roof of the car facing the direction going forward. So when the train would move forward, the air would come in the bellow horns and go down these pipes. The pipes passed through an ice box that was built in the rail car itself. And through that it took the air from outside, chilled it and dispersed that air inside. And why that was important, it allowed E.D. Smith to open up new markets for the Niagara fruit industry. We could ship as far as Winnipeg where before fruit was spoiled as far as Sault Ste. Marie and it wouldn't get beyond that, so that was a very important innovation.