50 BULLETIN 1385, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 
In carload shipments the eggs are packed in the standard Euro- 
pean export cases and the cars are loaded to the roof. These cars 
are about one-half the length of the ordinary American freight 
car, very light in construction, and 10 long tons (22,400 pounds) 
are considered a carload. Thus it requires 100 to 110 cases to make 
a minimum car, which also fills the car completely. 
There are practically no refrigerator cars in Europe. Because 
of the cooler summer climate it is not as necessary to use refrigerator 
cars as in this country, yet they would be of great benefit in such 
countries as Russia, Rumania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, and 
Italy, from which countries direct transportation can be made to the 
large continental markets or to channel ports. Because of the method 
of packing eggs in wood wool in boxes, however, there would be but 
little advantage in refrigerated transit unless the eggs were precooled 
before packing, because the package would prevent the refrigeration 
from reaching and cooling the eggs. 
Eggs take fast freight service in Europe, as do other perishables. 
Solid trainloads of eggs are not uncommon, especially from Russia. 
The forwarding of freight is often in the hands of large forwarding 
companies. These companies arrange for the assembling of carloads 
of eggs at certain points arid then forward them by fast freight to 
large markets like Berlin or Paris or to ports like Riga, Memil, 
Danzig, and Hamburg for transhipment to England. 
PRESERVATION OF EGGS 
Eggs are preserved from the season of high production in the 
spring to the season of scarcity in the fall by two methods, pickling 
and cold storage, of which pickling is by far the more common and 
most extensively used. 
PICKLING 
By pickling is meant the preservation of eggs by immersion in 
limewater, water glass, or salt, or combination of them. By far 
the greatest number is preserved by immersion in a plain saturated 
solution of lime. The preserving vats are located in a cellar, where 
the temperature is cool and even. The wooden kegs and casks 
formerly used are now being replaced by cement vats which vary in 
size. Some of them are about 10 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 6 
feet deep, and hold approximately 60 European cases of eggs of 
120 dozen each. The method of preparing the limewater consists 
of making a saturated solution from quicklime, placing the solution 
in the vat until it is about half full, then putting the eggs in the 
solution by hand or by means of loosely woven baskets, care being 
taken that no cracked eggs are included. The baskets of eggs are 
submerged in the limewater and carefully emptied. As the specific 
gravity of eggs and limewater are approximately the same, there 
is very little danger of breakage, because even a very fresh egg 
sinks slowly. Badly shrunken eggs with large air cells, having less 
specific gravity than limewater, rise to the top whence they are 
removed. As the eggs are put in, the level of the solution rises until 
when the vat is full there is about 2 inches of limewater above the 
tops of the eggs. 
Special care is taken not to disturb the eggs after they are placed 
in the solution until the time comes for their removal. A slight 
