So I was looking over a couple old MR’s that were talking about the Winston Salem Tar Branch. I always liked that one and was thinking of stealing a few design elements for my main project layout.
One thing that left me scratching my head is the one track identified as the “Liberty Street Annex”. Nothing in the magazines, forums or elsewhere sheds any light on what this track is for. None of the industries has a loading dock adjacent to this track. One video talks about picking up a car from the track and respotting another, but not what industry they were being used by, or why they were on that track.
So can anyone shed some light on this? Not necessarily for the WSS Tar Branch layout specifically, but in general, what would such an “annex” track be used for? Storage for extra cars? A place to put overflow loads when the regular car spots for a company are all being used already?
A quick Google search suggests that “Annex” could be the name of the street, not a track (see page 668 on linked page below). That doesn’t answer what the track was for, but may solve the mystery of the name.
I’ve not seen the term “Annex” used by a railroad to name a track, but it could have happened somewhere.
Annex, by definition, means to add as an extra, or adjoined to, or associated with a main structure or facility to provide additional space for accommodations.
So, on the WSS lay out, the Liberty Street Annex, would be additional space for extra cars needed for customers on Liberty Street.
Hm. I forgot that this one was more prototypical that some projects. So yeah, it makes sense that the track was referred to by the name of the street. So that answers that.
And if the track was in fact just extra car space for the railroad’s customers, like Mike suggested… I guess that answers my question.
If I recall correctly (and I may be completely wrong) in the videos on that layout the annex track was the place were they delivered supplies for building a highway that was being built over that part of the Tar Branch. Of course I could be wrong, if so feel free to correct me.
Tracks have names. The Corn Track might lead to the corn elevator. The Coal Track leads obviously to where they unload corn. The Wearhous track is along side of the warehouse.
Its just a name so that rail roaders will know what track and what location on that track they are supposed to place their cars.
They call you Bob. If you have a track outside of your garage, they might call it the Bob Track. And yes, people do have tracks outside of their garages.
And the Corn track could be a track that used to have a corn elevator on it 200 years ago, and now serves (insert random industry here). Railroad names tend to stick around long after the source of their names!
This seems to confuse even some book/magazine writers and publishers. Railroads had to have a name for everything, so every siding or spur track had some type of identification. Sometimes it was from the industry being served, or a nearby street, or the name of the owner of the farm near the track. So you’ll see a sign on the railroad saying “JOHANSON” and a book will have a picture in it saying “Here’s a Milwaukee Road “Hiawatha” going through Johanson, Wisconsin” when all it is is an identifying sign for the nearby switch for the sidetrack that ran along side the Johanson tree farm when the line was built.
