Reading one of Eric’s posts on another thread got me wondering what exactly does that mean.
Chad the term “team track” dates back to early days of RRing, especially in the western states. It is basically a siding in town where wagons would back up to a freight car to oad/unload, and since wagons were pulled by teams-horse,mule or oxen- they had to wait to load/unload. Since the wagons were pulled by teams thats where the term “team track” orginates. At least how I understand.
Tom
I’ve always thought it was derived from the term “drayage team” (as in a team of horses drawing a wagon), where you could pull the wagon up to the car to be loaded or unloaded.
I kind of figured that’s where it originated, but what would define a team track today? You don’t see to many wagons loading from railcars these days.[(-D]
A team track is a siding which is not specified to one shipper. I am not an expert on this, but it would be considered a track in which anyone could load or unload a car, granted that you had the requirements such as authorization, insurance, etc.
ed
That makes sense Ed.
It is a siding or stub track off the main.
Located with road access, it is designed to allow shippers who have no rail access of their own to access railcars for unloading.
Usually designed for single car loads or small multiple loads and the tracks are often not much longer than ten car lengths.
They have facilities, such as a crude ramp, and a place where a large truck can park next to the track.
Example use would be a small manufacturer, who makes limited runs of plastic moldings.
Because they can not afford the cost of building a spur or siding of their own, or because of the location of the plant makes it impossible to build a spur too, getting a hopper of plastic pellets spotted next to their facility is impossible.
But the only cost effective way for them to ship or receive the plastic pellets or powder in quantity is by train.
They need access to a rail road, hence a team track where we can spot a single load of plastic pellets for them to unload to trucks…
In this instance, they may get together with other users of the same product and arrange delivery so they can all unload what they need at the same time, and share the cost of the team track fee and switching services.
They may not use an entire hopper load at one time, either.
For that, they lease a spot on the team track for weeks, or a month, and “rent” the car as a “storage faculty”, till they have used the entire contents.
More common is to lease a specific time and space on the team track, we spot a hopper of their material there on the given day, they transload the entire contents to a truck, and truck the material the remaining distance to their facility.
Works just as well with pipe, lumber, farm equipment, anything that can be easily transloaded to a truck.
You have probably seen a team track, and not recognized it for what it was.
Ever see a covered hopper in a siding, being unloaded by a truck with hoses ru
If they invented it today it would probably be called a “transmodal materiel transfer area.” Or something like that…
Do not forget that some cars are loaded as well at these facilities. There is still some single or multiple loads that originate at team tracks.
Thanks for the explaination Ed.[;)]
Very true, we spot a lot of empties at out at ODT Team track on the north shore…lots of single loads of pipe and drill stem come out of there.
It’s still called a team track despite no teams of horses, similar in a way to how we now think of “teamsters” as truck drivers, even though it really means someone who drives a team of horses.
Ed:
I noticed while looking at your tariff the term “industry track”. That might be the new term associated with it.
ed
Bulkmatic is one team track system, But seldome do I see boxcars being unloaded in this fashion
Most of the time the term “industry track” is used by us (PTRA) as the term applied to the track beyond the point PTRA ownership and maintenance ends…often about 15 to 25 feet past the switch off of our running rails.
From that point on, the track belongs to the particular industry.
Repair and upkeep of the tracks is the responsibility of the industry.
Repair and upkeep of the switch and the first few feet of track is ours.
Several of the industries here have their own small yards and use contract switching services inside their plants, so knowing where their track ends and ours begins is important, as the contract switching services can not use our tracks.
The only team track we have is listed in our timetable is ODT Team Track, ODT being the initials of name of the pipe company that uses it most often.
See page 11, top paragraph of the tariff for the charge at teh team track.
Interesting stuff through out the tariff, did you note what we get to weight a car on our (railroad) scales?
At $300.00 a pop, we can make a pretty penny just weighing cars…which is done at least once a day, usualy on the morning trick.
Ed
I learned something new today. When I look around in my town, I see a couple team tracks. One is used for offloading siding and drywall. The other is used to load recyclable cardboard bales, and other things into boxcars.
I also figured out, that even though the sign said" Murphy Siding", in reality it was probably “Murphy Team Track.”[B)] At least I didn’t grow up on the CN line south of Belle Fourche, S.D.-near “Jolly Dump”[(-D]
Even though it was “invented” on just about the first day a train ran, guess what the marketing folks call a team track? Why, it’s an Intermodal Transfer Facility.
“Intermodal Transfer Facility” was probably a term invented because “Team Track” sounded too much like a group involved in some sort of competition on MTV.[}:)][}:)]
Murphy - slow down a bit. Some of what you were looking at were industry tracks , not team tracks. The concept of “Public Team Track” and industry track under the rules of the Elkins Act need some explaining here. (This is where shortlines and some larger RR operating departments get themselves in trouble with some of the few federal auditors still out there. In the 1980’s, SP got some HUGE fines from ICC auditors because some of their operating supervision were ignorant of tenets of the Elkins Act.)
This is why the railroads are still so big on lease and contract of track and facilities internally. They cannot play favorites to one industry at the expense of another. Although Elkins Act rules got watered-down in 1983 and again in 1990, the basic premise is still intact and in effect.
Just because you can drive a truck up against a track for railcar unloading does not instantly make it a team track. Bulkmatic charges a fee to use its facilities and therefore cannot be considered as a public team track in the true sense of the word.
Where I grew up, the “house track” doubled as a team track. It was a house track if you unloaded the car from the depot side, and a team track if you unloaded it from the other side. A local cartage company used to bring newsprint from box cars to the newspaper building, unloading cars from this track.