Dealing with cast iron / stress?

[Sunset Machine]

Best guess I have is that an 1865 planer made its way to Hills Yard in Washington - the largest railroad repair yard in the US during the period. Not much else manufacturing-wise going on in the area. I found it in nearby Moses Lake a little over a year ago. The shop manager said it was there when he started working there 25 years ago; he said that they never used it and were making room for new machines. It was on the side of the road waiting for the scrap truck when I spotted it. Seems to work fine.

But back to aging cast iron - wasn't it the Germans who discovered that several freeze-thaw cycles accomplished the same thing but faster than the outdoor aging process back in WWII? Pop it in and out of your freezer a few times.