I was curious – is there any prototype for operations where goods are delivered in say regular 40’ box cars and then transferred to something smaller, like a 20’ box or some sort of industrial flat/box for delivery either within a factory or within a larger factory complex?
Any photos of the real thing or models thereof?
Thanks
Todd
Team tracks exist where goods are transferred from railroad cars to trucks. And then trucked back to the plant, store, etc.
If you search Google (or others) images on team tracks you should get some photos.
Good luck
Paul
[:-^]
Hi Todd,
What you are speaking of happened all the time back before containers.
Either a straight truck ( usually a 20 to 28 foot box or flat deck) would back up to the open side door of the railroad car and the transfer would begin . This would happen by hand or by two wheeled dollies or four wheeled pulled flat dollies and later by fork lifts. I was mainly using a 30 to 36 foot semi trailer in those years.
I, myself, back in the early sixties, did lots of this… My father had two general freight lines and the railroad (CN) would spot a car of fruit, apples, peaches,pears, plums or apricots, half way up those lines. I would leave the city with a full load of general freight and by the time I got to where the CN. had spotted the car I would have enough room for taking on the fruit for the far end of the line. Then returning mainly empty I would again stop at the CN car and load the rest of the fruit for the rest of the line closer to the city. The reason for this was to save us mileage or the use of another truck. If the fruit had been left in the city for us we would have had to put on a separate truck just for the fruit. It also gave the merchants a little better break on the transportation costs as we didn’t have to haul it so far. and the RR. could drop the car or pick up the empty as they were passing through.
Johnboy out…hadn’t thought about that for awhile.
[{(-_-)}] What did he say ???
“There is a prototype for every thing.”
But what you are describing, trans loading, unloading one car to load the freight into another car, is laborious, and subjects the freight to yet another round of breakage and pilferage. No shipper likes the idea, and neither does any real railroad. The old fashioned 40 foot box car could be run along city streets and into industrial sides on VERY sharp curves. It’s hard to imagine a location that a little track work would not make accessible to standard 40 foot cars.
Right after the Civil War, the non-standard gauge railroads converted to standard gauge, just to avoid the transloading. When you think about regauging every locomotive and car, and respiking all the track, that’s horribly expensive. But they went to all that trouble just to eliminate the transloading required at the change of gauge.
[:-^]
I think you missed my point David,
This was not a full shipment going to one merchant or wholesaler.
Each time I took on the half load of fruit it was then delivered to about 15 to 20 delivery points, and then the same on the return trip. The merchants had received a break on the fruit by getting together and purchasing a car load . There is no way that the railroad would spot the car in each town let alone at each merchants place and even if they did, by the time that all took place the fruit would have been spoiled and no one would have wanted it.
DAVID… Think country not City. But even in saying that, it’s not correct. There are lots of areas of the city where smaller wholesalers or merchants are not near RR tracks. What do you think the RRs themselves had trucks for and then think about the business of REA. They all had delivery services for their customers and not every customer got a car load lot.
Johnboy out…been there, done that…[swg]
Not so likely that you would transload directly from 40 foot railroad cars to shorter railroad cars (which is how I read your question) at the entrance to the industry, but it would not be weird to have transloading from normal gauge cars to narrow gauge cars (which tended to be smaller).
Smile,
Stein
Stein’s got it right. The most plausible situation would be the break of gauge at a transfer point.
Interurban’s sometime had such sharp curves that ordinary interchange boxcars couldn’t negotiate. So there was some need for transfer in such cases, so this could take place at a freighthouse. The interurban boxes would generally be smaller and they would likely have special radial draft gear to deal with the curves.
A transfer between bigger and smaller cars of the same gauge needs to have some such logic, as the more common place for this to happen was generally due to the difference in gauges. Labor was cheaper back then, but it still cost money, so people wouldn’t do such a thing without a good reason.
Todd,That was very common practice at one time-even into the 30s.
You see they unloaded standard gauge 40’ boxcars into narrow gauge boxcars-this also applied for coal and finish lumber.
Todd,
the Nevada County Narrow Gauge and Southern Pacific RR interchange at Colfax, where they load/unload their freight as an example of prototype operations.
Ed
Actually a little different take but the PRR and the East Broad Top narrow gauge met at Mt. Union PA. There was an overhead crane that would lift one end of the boxcar while workers rolled the standard gauge truck out and placed a narrow gauge truck under the car. This was repeated for the other end and the load sent on its way down the East Broad top.
Since you’re asking about a factory or factory complex, the example of rural narrow gauge lines wouldn’t really apply. Anyway, I don’t think there are any good examples that come to mind. It seems to me a few large warehouses and freight houses had tracks for small flatcars to be loaded with freight and moved within the warehouse, but these were more like baggage cars with flanged wheels rather than true railroad cars…and was inside the building, not from building to building.
Generally if an industry was receiving or shipping a lot of stuff by rail, they’d try to set up their plant so regular freight cars could be spotted right where they were needed. Like at a brewery, one area would be set up for receiving cars of grain, malt, etc. and another area would be set up for reefers or plug-door boxcars to be loaded with the finished beverages and shipped out.
I had an N scale creosote treating plant that handled materials on both standard gauge railroad cars and 2 foot gauge tramway cars. “Green” (untreated) pole and tie blanks came in on standard flatcars and gondolas. Then were usually stacked in a kind of open stack that air to circulate as they dried, removing moisture to allow more creosote to be pressure-forced into the wood. When properly seasoned, the materials were placed on 2 foot gauge tram cars to be pushed into retorts where creosote was forced into them by pressure and heat. Then the treated ties, utility poles and fence posts were piled for storage until ordered by customers, and shipped out on standard flatcars or gons.
This is probably not what you meant, but is a bit of an analogy to what you describe…
I have a vague recollection of a magazine article from probably 15 or 20 years ago describing a freight transfer dock operation somewhere in Ontario, CA. The operation was almost certainly pre-WWII. Two main lines met in whatever town this was. There was a long freight dock with a track on each side. LCL cargo would be offloaded from boxcars on one side and loaded in cars on the other side.
For example, a car from the north had two LCL loads, one LCL load headed south, and one headed east. The eastbound LCL load would be offloaded at the dock and placed on a boxcard headed east.
This was in the day and location with lots of small towns along the routes so ample opportunities for LCL traffic. If you model pre-war traffic this would be a quite an operations generator. I am thinking this was an article in Railroad Model Craftsman - only because I searched the MR index and didn’t get a hit.
George V.
Since the IP’s question is rather general, a few specifics:
Hardly a comprehensive list.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
If the carload of goods is for a factory complex, it would be unloaded and distributed (if necessary) by whatever in-plant system was in place (usually trucks). It’s unlikely that the car would be tied-up long enough to incur demurrage fees.
Most railroads offered less-than-carload (LCL) service. For this, customers could send or receive small shipments that didn’t require all of the space afforded by a 40’ boxcar. The shipment could be picked up and delivered by the railroad or by the shipper/receiver at either end, usually in trucks or wagons, depending on the era.
Large operations usually involved a freight house, with many tracks. The cars would be spotted with the doors aligned, then plates were placed to allow workers to move between cars on different tracks, and, via the freight house floor or open platform, between cars on the same track. If a car came in with goods for destined for 10 different locations on 8 different railroads, for instance, the individual consignments would be moved (or not) as appropriate. When a car was deemed to be “full” or at a set time when a train was to leave for that car’s destination, the car would be sent on its way. This was usually a round-the-clock operation, and can be modelled (on a much smaller scale) with Walthers REA freight/express building.
A more manageable version would be a team track. A car spotted there could be for a single customer, who would use trucks or wagons to pick-up or deliver the goods, but the load could also be LCL. In this case, an agent would notify the various recipients and might move all of the car’s contents to a temporary storage facility, in order to free-up the car.
A team track takes up little space and can be used for most types of freight cars. A modern equivalent would be a trans-loading facility. I modelled team tacks in most of my small towns, with various amenities as space allowed.
Most can handle hopper-to-truck freight: