Are team tracks still used? My understanding is that team tracks were used to allow customers to pickup there own freight from a nearby siding i.e. a boxcar would be spotted…the customer is notified and sends out a team of horses and wagon/truck to pickup the goods.
This sounds simple in theory…but I can see that being more complicated in practice. Somebody from the railroad would have to be present to sign off receipt of the goods and their condition for one thing. And you would probably need people to help with the unloading…the customer’s freight may be located under someone else’s freight for instance. Liability I imagine would also be a concern…if the customer fell or had an accident while picking up his freight the railroad would be responsible just as any business would be responsible for injuries that occurred on its property.
I created a post a while back asking the same question, only focused on rural grain loading team tracks. The answer at that time was: Yes. I’d noticed some covered hoppers spotted on a WSOR siding several years ago in SE Wisconsin, and there was a grain auger with its’ spout positioned over one of the cars. The forum confirmed this is reasonably common.
There’s also (I believe anyway) a team track-type operation in Isanti, MN, where the BNSF local occasionally sets-out a centerbeam flat car with building materials, and a local company comes and unloads it. Now, I’ve never personally seen them being unloaded, but I’ve seen the loaded car there and it empty the next day (thieves?).
You bring up a good point about thieves…wouldn’t spotting a load of lumber and leaving it unattended until the receiver unloads it invite theft? Especially building materials that are hard to trace… in some places the product WILL get stolen…there’s no probability about it.
There is a very interesting situation at Lacrosse, Indiana which I have noticed recently.
The old C&O mainline from Cincy to Chicago was recently sold off to a shortline operator. On the “mainline” (as opposed to a siding) there are often parked a few covered hopper cars (2-4 usually). The line sits adjacent to a farm and there is an auger right next to the cars. Interesting…is the farmer loading directly, bypassing the grain elevator?
Possibly … then again one would hope the Chesapeake & Indiana People (Indiana Boxcar et. al) have all their ducks in a row when the elevator operator gets ticked and seeks relief under the Elkins Act (which still has some teeth).
I know this is the wrong forum for this, but a team track is considered a good idea for a model layout. It helps ad interchange without having to put a whole industry there.
people using trucks on not-so sensitive shipments of bulk items are starting to re-discover this. Cross Docking/Distribution Center Operations that almost died are now slowly rebounding.
As DesertDog noted above, they are more likely to be called “transload centers” nowadays. They are still alive and well, although I’m not sure if they are getting more or less traffic nowadays. Here’s my reasioning for whether it’s more or less.
MORE: With many industries moving away from the tracks, a team track can be one of the only ways to load railcars. Some loads can’t be containerized, such as loads that require tank cars, covered hoppers, or open hoppers.
LESS: The container. Instead of going to team tracks when they move farther away from the tracks, industries will go intermodel and bring their goods to an intermodel center rather than a transload center.
My N scale layout has two as well, in New Moscow, ND on the Bismarck Branch, and in Wolverine, WI on the Rhinelander Branch, and both have scratch-built grain augers at the ready.
I’m late in replying on this as there have been several replies already but here goes anyway:
Yes, team tracks are still used, although they may not be named that in many cases. All that’s needed is a track that is accessible to trucks, with flat ground (paving or gravel preferred) on one side (two sides better), and far enough away from the main line for safety.
Nowadays, shipments are carload lots to one consignee so there’s not an issue with multiple shipments on the same car. Cars are unloaded or loaded by the customer with their employees and equipment (or their trucking firm’s). The railroad does not verify quantity or condition of lading, the same as for a car spotted at an industry’s own track. L&D (loss & damage) would be reported to a railroad claim agent. The liability issue is a good question, I suspect that there is something in the freight tariffs releasing the railroad of liability if the shipment is spotted for unloading/loading at a railroad-owned track for customer convenience.
Team tracks can be simple or elaborate, here’s two examples I’ve seen:
At Duluth, Minn. the BNSF used a track (part of an old yard lead) that curved off from the mains at their Rice’s Point Yard (ex-NP). The yard tracks are about 90 deg. to the mains and the leads curve around to connect to the mains. The track used (I don’t remember what it was called, something other than team track anyway) was about three cars long (all on a curve) with open ground (cinder fill) on both sides, and plenty of room to maneuver trucks. A local building products wholesaler received single car shipments of gypsum wallboard there, unloading the center beam flats with a large forklift that they brought on their flatbed trucks, and then removing the forklift after they unloaded the car.
A much more elaborate example are BNSF’s team tracks along Miramar Road in San Diego, consisting of two parallel tracks, one 17 cars long, and the other 15 cars long. Near the e
I thought the Elkins Act was a Teddy Roosevelt era piece of legislation that prohibited deviation from published transport rates (i.e. rebates of a portion of the freight charge). How does that apply to bypassing a grain elevator?
Elkins also prohibits railroads from playing favorites. The elevator has to pay for lease of the ground it sits on and the track it uses (unless it owns either). Everybody pays a like rate for lease use of track that is railroad owned (defines who owns, operates, maintains). Team tracks have to be designated and available to all. (In essense here - did Joe Farmer lease a portion of main track?..If so, the elevator can’t complain)…there has been lots of fun with this with the ethanol people in the past three years (go back and look at the threads talking about some of the naive assumptions of some of the ethanol plant builders)…Elkins is not as strict as it used to be, but the basic concepts apply) The Class 1’s still jealously audit industry track agreements for compliance reasons, the shortlines rarely do until somebody yells foul.
A more likely guess is that the cars contain fertilizer and the auger is used in unloading the cars into the farmers equipment on a load by load basis. And individual farmer rarely has the sales power to market his own grain outside of dealing a local elevator.
If the track being used is in fact the Main track…there must not be any through business beyond the point where the cars are spotted.
It’s my understanding that RR freight houses existed mostly for less-than-full-carload shipments, and with the advent of the interstate highway system, business from such shipments quickly evaporated from the railroads.
Could anyone imagine that freight houses might make a comeback for offline businesses if rising fuel costs somehow make rail shipments more cost-effective?
The LCL traffic that supported freight houses was pretty much replaced by LTL (Yellow, UPS, and others). Much of that traffic is already moving by rail in intermodal trains.
Although a little tardy in my response I’ll add my .02 as well.
Here in Tulsa the BNSF spots tank cars on an old industrial lead (facility now closed) and tanker trucks load/unload right there. I am not sure if they are loading or unloading the tank cars. The track itself is nothing special, just has a gravel road (if you could call it that) adjacent to the track. I have seen 4 or 5 tank cars spotted on this track and have witnessed the transloading (if you will) as recent as last month.
In addition to that, my wife used to work for a drywall company that received most all of its wallboard via rail at another not so special section of track that was a couple blocks from their location. They would just take one of their flatbed trucks over there with a forklift and unload it. I am not sure how the paperwork was handled since there were no railroad folks anywhere around when they received the wallboard (I will ask her).
I am modeling two such “tracks” on my layout. One for tank cars and one for wallboard (I guess I am not smart enough to think of other commodities to model or just plain lazy not sure which).