Hi everybody
After recommendations to add a team track to my layout, I think I may have finally found a way to fit it in.
Now, i’m realizing I have a few questions about team tracks in general.
How did they work? Was it as simple as a crane, and two ramps, one on the side and one in the back?
How did they get their names? Is it because all of the ramps etc work as a team, or because different industries teamed up to get a team track, or something else?
Thanks everybody
My understanding is that team tracks are often paired, and this is so that box cars can be lined up, side-by-side with the doors open, so that a ramp can be placed between them. The car farthest from the vehicle ramp can be loaded by passing materiel from a truck through the closest open car by a team of loaders.
Maybe I’m all wet…woudn’t be the first time! [D)]
Edit- after I posted this, I returned to Armstrong’s “Bible” and found, as correctly stated below, that the name came from the teams of horses, called “drayage”, that transported produce and other materiel to these tracks for loading onto industrial trains.
It was because different industries used the same track. I have seen team tracks with nothing more than a ramp. I would imagine some didn’t even have that.
No crane required. No ramps needed on the end. the idea was a place to transfer freight from box cars to other forms of transport, originallt wagons, now trucks. I think I read that the team name came from the teams of horses that pulled the wagons, though I could not say why.
Ah, thanks so much everybody!
To add a bit, in modern times (last few years) I have seen several area which may be considered team tracks, which basically had a siding, a wide area of gravel or dirt or asphalt, and that’s it - at these places (Ironbound in Newark, and Long Island City, NY) they were unloading frozen foods (and maybe fruit/vegetables) from reefers into refridgerator trucks - the trucks simply backed up to the reefer door.
The Teamsters’ Union name also is derived from teams of hourse, (those guys who drove the wagons, and thus was applied to a union of truckdrivers - which eventually added quite a few other crafts).
Nowadays we also have largi***ransload centers, same idea but with multiple numbers of sidings, often with some sidings specifically designated for transloading one type of commodity liquids, plastic pellets, grains, lumber, etc.
A team track functioned very much like the general delivery window at the Post Office. Not every industry in a town had a siding on the railroad. Off-line industries could nevertheless take advantage of railroad services by receiving their carload shipments, and loading their outbound freight ( carloads ) at the team track in town. Team tracks were designed with carload shipping in mind. Less-than-carload shipping would be coordinated by the railroad agent in town, probably at the station itself.
Because basically any type of freight might be delivered to the team track, it’s a very useful destination to include in your town’s trackage. There was no need to have any facilities other than a siding and a level area for wagons or motor trucks to pull alongside the railroad car. In later years, or if the need arose, there might be a ramp, or a platform or crane. These would probably have been added on a case by case basis to a team track that had a demonstrated need for the improvement.
-Ed
That is correct. The term comes from the days when most factories were served by railroads even though they were not close to them.
Teams of horses would move the wagons, hence “team tracks”. A modern use of the word is “teamster” as in the trucker’s union.
Even if a factory had a regular siding on one railroad they might also recieve frieght on a nearby teamtrack served by another railroad. Remember we model railroaders wouldn’t think of doing it that way but the prototype would, saving expense as well for the shipper and reciever.
Team tracks can look like vacant lots or be fully paved. Most in Philadelphia were cobblestone or Belgium blocks drive ways paralleing the siding. This kept the wagons and later trucks from getting stuck in mud. The earlier post on double or even triple rows of boxcars is correct. They had to be positioned just right to allow for passing through them. Reading Company’s Willow and Noble Streets yard was one big team
track arrangement . The frieght house had six parallel tracks.
Hope this helps, Chris
Today some short lines use Distribution Centers for customers that doesn’t have a rail siding.The customer doesn’t touch the freight till it arrives at their receiving docks.
There is a team track in Bossier City, LA along the side of Barksdale Blvd, on the KCS main from KC to NO. This track is known as track 6 of the Bossier City yard although it is not in the yard.
Most recently it has been used for unloading gravel to dump tracks. Sometimes there are other things going on there. We drove by yesterday and there were about 10 18-wheelers parked there. I presume truckers just parked them there while they were in town for Thanksgiving. There was no activity.
Just one more point, not only did commercial customers pick up their freight right out of the boxcars, there were cases in which individuals went to the team tracks.
I can remember in Cincinnati going to the team tracks and buying a Christmas tree right off the boxcar. It’s been a while but was part of the holiday tradition.
Dale
The simplest team track I saw was in St. Louis in 1979. The track ran out into the middle of a vacant lot. The lot looked like they had put the track down on a razed building, that had been buldozed flat. On the track sat a single 40’ box car. In front of the door on one side it had two poles held up by cement in tires with a chain between them. On the chain was a hand crayoned sign that said “Team Track - No Parking”.
the term team track came from the early days of railroading and the westward movement in america after the civil war. town A is a railroad town, towns b,c, &d are not, so wagons would line up at the siding to await loading, wagons were pulled by teams of horses,mules, or oxen, then they would leave for the proper town unload and return to reload, usually 2days as the teams were pulling heavy freight wagons across country, sometimes more time due to weather.
try a magazine search at the top of the page i think either model rairoader or rmc did an article on team tracks a while back, also i think trains had an article as well
hope this helps
tom
I’m also interested in team tracks, mainly in the late 50’s. While I understand how they work, I’m not quite sure how they look. I have a rough idea but I’m not sure about the details. For example, would the tractor trailer pull up and create a T with the platform? This of course would have to make the team track quite far away from the road in our model world to allow space for the tractor to pull in realistically. Maybe someone has a diagram/picture/etc of a small town team track?
It would really help.
I remember seeing a 50’s era photo of a train stopped at a grade crossing and there was a pickup truck backed up to a boxcar, loading or unloading products. I guess there wasn’t much street traffic as the train was blocking the road as the loading took place. It probably didn’t take but a minute or two to do it.
I wish I could remember where I saw the picture.
Jarrell
Team tracks can have any number of configurations depending on the nature of the customers using it. It could be as simple as a single track siding where trucks simply back up to the the freight car and unload the cargo. You could have ramps at the side or end of the tracks or both to assist unloading particularly loads that might come in on flat cars. Overhead cranes are another option if there are customers who are going to receive heavy equipment or containers. You could have multiple tracks where box cars could be unloaded side by side or you could have space between the tracks for trucks to drive between to unload cargo from both tracks. The purpose of team tracks is to either serve multiple customers who might not do enough business to warrant their own siding or to serve customers who are located off line. Decide what types of customers your team track(s) is going to serve and design the tracks appropriately.
About 1954, my trucking company was stripping about four boxcars a week
in Pikeville, Ky…cereal out of Minnesota… canned goods from the plains states, etc… and delivering all over Kentucky… nothing there but a
short siding… and a lot of mud!
In Cincinnati the ones where we would go to purchase Christmas trees as an individual customer right off the boxcar were multiple tracks in an open area sort of like a parking lot. For those who happened to be at this year’s NMRA convention and might have seen the former B & O freight house just down the hill from the convention center, the tracks were just about a block or two east of that location on the same street. There were more in the same area and also a lot of the fruit and other produce was unloaded in the area. Lots of street running there.
Several of the other replies go to show that whatever configuration fits your layout would be just fine.
Dale
Again, thanks so much!