Whats the history behind air-conditioning in IR?
Prior to the 1930’s, various arrangements for cooling the interiors of passenger coaches existed, mostly for the first-class coaches. From the 1860’s onwards, it was quite common to hang moistened mats of khas to cool the air by evaporation. In 1872, the Saunders system was introduced, which consisted of a long duct running along the length of the coach and beneath it, with a funnel for air intake on one side, and multiple sheets of wet khas matting in the middle, which both filtered the dust out of the air and cooled it by evaporation; the cooled air was admitted into the coaches by apertures in the floor. Often, the simple expedient of placing large blocks of ice (in bamboo or wicker containers) in the compartments was adopted. After electric fans were introduced, this method of cooling continued to be in use, with the ice placed in the path of a fan’s air-stream. As late as 1958 on the Vijayawada division, for instance, passengers could rent an open zinc-lined box that carried a hun
