Team tracks frequently had pairs of tracks side-by-side separated by a section of pavement (or at least graded cinders). What would be a good spacing for team track pairs and between the pairs? NMRA spacing of 2 inches seems a bit wide to accomodate the practice of loading through one car to the one behind . The local concrete freight platform is 10 feet wide, but that seems tight for vehicle travel.
Thanks,
Kurt Laughlin
Team tracks were generally used to unload the railcar into wagons and trucks. The tracks were spaced wide enough for a truck to back up to the door of the car.
What you describe is more like a business where two tracks were laid side by side along a freight dock. The railcars were spotted with the doors oposite each other. The shipper could open both doors on the near railcar and one door on the far railcar, set a dock plate between them and load the far car. Dock plates were rarely more than 8’ in length. They had lift rings for forklifts to use and had one set of fixed “legs” and one set of movable “legs” to lock the plate between the railcars.
Many railroads had special team tracks placed on either side of a loading platform. Railcars would be spotted on opposite sides of the loading platform. Freight could be transferred from one railcar to the other across the loading platform. Many times, these loading platforms also had simple A-frame roofs.
Hope this helps.
Darrell, quiet…for now
Well, I might be using “team track” too loosely. There’s a good picture of what I mean (5-30 on pg 70 of Jeff Wilson’s “Industries Along the Tracks”) which shows the Chicago “Potato Yard”. There are parallel tracks with ground level paved areas between as well as a covered platform with tracks on one side and pavement on the other. The local (P&LE 11th St Sta) freight house had a 10 ft wide platform with an awning like you describe (sort of like a passenger platform) and two close set tracks on either side, and pavement outside of that. The platform was in line with the freight house and the tracks continued on so the inner pair hit bumpers at the station end while the outer pair ran next to the side of the building. There was a gantry crane at the far end of the platform and a short spur that came off the middle of the right outer track to a bumper. There was another spur off an adjacent parallel track that terminated in an an end ramp.
I think the NMRA standard is meant for parallel tracks where trains will be passing each other. For yard/dock situations like this, you’d want them as close as practical so you could bridge between adjacent cars with dock plates. The area between sets of team tracks is determined by what types of vehicles you have loading/unloading the cars. If all you’re using are forklifts and stuff, 10’ may be wide enough. If you have to back in trucks, it may need to be a little wider. You mentioned something about your local freight platform - do you know what they use(d) on the platform?
When I first started MR’ing, I was a little confused by the term “team track” but I think I understand it now after reading John Armstrong’s Track Planning book. The definition of a team track is it allows a truck or horse-drawn wagon to pull up alongside the car for loading/unloading. The label “team” refers to the teams of horses that used to pull wagons in the old days (same as where the Teamsters Union got their name). So a team track doesn’t necessarily mean there are 2 (or more) parallel tracks (which is what I thought before). It just means that it has access for road vehicles in the loading area, which implies that the whole area is paved or hardpack. For that matter, it’s probably not necessary to have an elevated dock platform next to the car, either (?) even though many team tracks probably do have them.
Maybe something like this Open-air Transload Building from Walthers would work for you. I haven’t seen the " Industries Along the Tracks" picture so I may be way off track here.
http://www.walthers.com/prodimage/0933/09330000002918.gif
Doug
Years ago when I was living in Eastern Idaho we used to load bagged potatos into box cars from the back of a stake-bed truck at a team track. At the time I was doing this there was only one track - if you looked closely, however, you could see where, at one time, there had been two. The Onion Specific had pulled the second track - it had been between the first (team) track and the siding off of the mainline. I remember some of the old-timers talking about prior times and how they used to load the cars on the far track through the near track. There was not enough room to get anything on the far side of the far track. I was told that the space between the cars had been about five feet. Add that to the 10’ width of the car and you come up with 15’ track centers - 2 1/16th of an inch in HO; 1 1/8th of an inch in N.
One more thing; a double-ended cement pad about 10’ wide had been poured adjacent to the near track and we usually unloaded across the side of the stake-bed via a couple of 1 X 12s for footing. When you were done you just drove off of the end of pad onto the cinders. You could back up to the freight car but your front wheels would then be off of the concrete. I did see a freight car being unloaded in that way one time but I don’t remember ever having unloaded a truck in that manner.
Well, I have some follow-up info. I found the fire insurance map for the station near me and it shows four parallel tracks with three platforms between. There is only part of one platform left and the cinder trackway between the brick pavement with stone curbs. The space between the curbs is 75 feet, the platform is 10 feet wide. If we assume everything was more or less identical and symmetrical, you’d have 30 feet of platform and 45 feet for four tracks/roadbeds. In other words, curb - 11’ 3" - 10’ - 11’ 3" -10’ - 11’ 3" - 10’ - 11’ 3" - curb. (An adjacent single track has a 8’ 10" space between curbs.) This 11’ 3" gap seems to be a bit narrow, clearance-wise. PRR standards placed freight platforms 3’ 8" from the gauge line, or 12’ 0.5" between platforms. Although the single remaining platform (the center one) is right in the middle of the 75’ track way, there are some indistinct foundations indicating that the outer trackway was roughly 9’ 6" wide. I’ll have to lay out the tracks using the PRR spacing (which I suspect were ARA standard) and see what I get.
Anyways, that still doesn’t give me a good number for HO spacing. . .
KL