During the period of 1900 through the post WWII period there were a great many team tracks adjacent to the many railroads that ran around and through Toledo, OH. The various railroad freight houses also had team tracks near them. I have several questions regarding what the normal prototype operation would be for a team track.
When a car is to be spotted on a team track, how is the customer notified that the car is ready to be unloaded or loaded?
Does the customer have a certain time period to unload/load the car?
If the customer exceeds the given time period, is there a charge for the extra time?
Does the customer then notify the railroad when they are finished with the rail car and how?
I am asking this in relation to card or waybill operations on a model railroad. I am working on modeling the Manufacturer’s Railway that operated along the Maumee River in Toledo, OH. This line had several team tracks on its two branches in addition to the various spurs that directly served on line customers.
American railroads operate on a system of interchange. They exchange cars with each other. The railroads charge each other money for using the cars. This expedites the car on its way, and expedites the return of the car to its owner when it is empty. When a car is loaded, the owner gets a cut of the freight charge for using their car. Each railroad that handles the car gets a cut of the charge. The railroad that loads the car gets the largest cut, then the line that delivers the car gets the next largest. Any intermediate roads get an equal cut of the rest. Each railroad that handles the car then has to pay a daily fee (called per diem) to the owner. This accrues at midnight. The freight charge allows for the shipper and consignee to each have 3 days to load or unload the car. If it takes longer they have to pay an extra fee, called demurrage. It is in everyone’s best interest to load the car, move it to its destination quickly, empty it and send it on its way home as quickly as possible. When the car is spotted at the team track either the local freight agent or the local depot agent will phone the customer. The 3 day loading/unloading period begins at that time, and the clock keeps ticking until the customer calls the agent to release the car.
Let me tell you from experience that can add up quickly. It was in about 35 years ago when I was the receiving manager at a Washington D.C. furniture store. We had 24 hours starting at midnight the day we were contacted. Weekends and holidays excluded.
A secretary received calls but this time didn’t relay the message. The railroad didn’t contact us a second time for a number of days, weeks if I remember correctly.
I also remember that the daily rate increased as the days went by. Not positive.
most larger terminal operations had a clerical position in the freight office who took care of notifying customers when their cars arrived, he also was the guy the customers would contact when ordering an mty for loading or releasing cars back to the railroad.
this job kept the records for demurrage charges and made out the industry switch lists for the crews that did the actual setting and pulling of the cars. there was usually a designated yard track for cars arriving that went to team tracks or local industries and he was kept advised of any cars placed in that track and given the bills or paper work for them.
at smaller stations, this work was taken care of by the freight agent or agent/operator who also usually handled these functions for adjacent towns where there was no railroad office.
cheap long distance phone service and fax machines have made these jobs obsolete today and one central location often handles customers for hundreds of miles in both directions. also the decline of small shippers such as local grain elevators has made the small town or traveling agent a thing of the past on many lines.
A siding near my boyhood house functioned as a team track for deliveries of lumber to a local lumber yard/hardware store. When I was a boy the siding was within sight of the store so they probably knew their shipment was in even before the station agent gave them a call. They’d get to it pretty fast as I recall. Eventually that lumber yard closed but another one farther away took over the shipments at that spur. They needed to called I am sure. Someone told me that the first time they got lumber on a center beam (versus the boxcars that I remember as a kid) they – you guessed it – emptied it wrong and tipped it over. The helpful drawings that tell you not to do that were probably covered up by lumber!
That particular siding was not entirely a team track. Right off the spur there was a Deep Rock oil facility; then came a tannery that got hides in boxcars, then the area where the lumber yard unloaded, then a plant that got (sometimes still gets) plastic pellets in covered hoppers to make plastic bags, then another tannery; further down an old auto dealer had unloading docks which makes me wonder if they got autos shipped in boxcars way way back, then the site of a coal and ice dealer that was gone by WWII and across the street a gray iron foundry. What remains of the spur has been featured on Mark Hintz’s website: