O.T.~ Anyone knowledgeable about refrigeration in the group?

I came into possession of a LOT of these expansion valve mechanisms. They were spare parts for railroad refrigerator cars, and must have been a common failure point in that cooling system. Those cars originally had Detroit diesel driven generators, which powered the refrigeration systems in the car. Those types of systems have all been rendered obsolete, and thus all the spare parts that they kept around are going by the wayside. There were two service men in town the railroad would call, one to work on the Detroits, and one to work on the refrigeration systems.

The loads these reefer cars carry are very valuable, and when the refrigeration system went down it was "all hands on deck" to get it back up and running. The refrigeration man recently passed away, so I can't get any info out of him.

There were a couple of the Detroit power plants kept around for spares, but they went in the scrap dumpster without me there to save them. They had a locked container with the rest of their spare parts, and yesterday they decided to clean it out. I thought I'd take all these valves apart and salvage the brass and copper.

But, I'd hate to ruin something that may have some usefulness somewhere else.

There are no industrial or commercial refrigeration companies anywhere close to my locale, so I thought the next best thing would be to ask here. I thought maybe they were an item that still had some current application in the refrigeration industry. And, yes, I have google it...but it doesn't answer my question.

NEW IN BOX they sell for about $100. So they have a value, if you can find some one needing one. Likely a good EBAY item for about half that cost. Part number shown is still in use for commercial cooling and HVAC.

A local independent reefer guy might buy one for the shelf. Alco TXVs are common in Carrier and I think ThermoKing but have specific superheat settings per unit and don’t play well with others. As you said, cargoes are precious and no big outfit like ConGlobal etc would mess with even a new in box TXV from the internet,