Team Track

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_track

A team track is a small railroad siding or spur track intended for the use of area merchants, manufacturers, farmers and other small businesses to personally load and unload products and merchandise, usually in smaller quantities.^[1] The term "team" refers to the teams of horses or oxen delivering wagon-loads of freight transferred to or from railway cars.^[2] Earliest rail service to an area often provided a team track on railroad-owned property adjacent to the railroad agent's train station.^[3] As rail traffic became more established, large-volume shippers extended privately owned spur tracks into mines, factories, and warehouses. Small-volume shippers and shippers with facilities distant from the rail line continued using team tracks into the early part of the 20th century. Improved highway systems and abandonment of low-volume rail lines made full-distance truck shipments more practical in North America and avoided delays and damage associated with freight handling during transfer operations.^[4]

A team track is a track that may be used by any local customer not otherwise served by the railway to received shipments. It allows anyone to ship or receive via the railway, even if they do not have their own spur.

A team track is often as simple as a short spur with a completely open area beside it that trucks (or in the old days, wagons drawn by teams of horses (where the name for the track comes from), can pull up beside the car and unload/load their goods.

Some team tracks had a ramp beside the track for loading flatcars, some even had a small overhead crane for unloading larger equipment out of open cars.

A modern example in my home town is a local telephone pole company that is actually located several miles outside town, but received poles in gondolas or flatcars at a track in town with a simple driveway beside it. (Although a traditional team track could be used by anyone. The utility pole company is the only customer using this track.) There are no facilities whatsoever. Just a single ended spur with a driveway beside it where the poles are transferred from the railcar to the flatbed trucks. Usually anywhere from 3 to 6 cars are received at a time, and make take a couple days to unload them all.

As usual, Wikipedia is about 75% correct. Team tracks are still in use around the country, although many have evolved into something more elaborate and are often called "transload centers." Many transload operations are run by trucking and warehouse companies. The UP and CSX websites both have pictures and descriptions of what they commonly receive or load for shipping. Plastic pellets, cattle feed, corn syrup, fertilizer and lumber are commodities that I see unloaded at team tracks or transload centers here in Arizona. John Timm

bazonkers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_track

A team track is a small railroad siding or spur track intended for the use of area merchants, manufacturers, farmers and other small businesses to personally load and unload products and merchandise, usually in smaller quantities.^[1] The term "team" refers to the teams of horses or oxen delivering wagon-loads of freight transferred to or from railway cars.^[2] Earliest rail service to an area often provided a team track on railroad-owned property adjacent to the railroad agent's train station.^[3] As rail traffic became more established, large-volume shippers extended privately owned spur tracks into mines, factories, and warehouses. Small-volume shippers and shippers with facilities distant from the rail line continued using team tracks into the early part of the 20th century. Improved highway systems and abandonment of low-volume rail lines made full-distance truck shipments more practical in North America and avoided delays and damage associated with freight handling during transfer operations.^[4]

You're 100% correct, John.

The last sentence in the Wikipedia quote is particularly obnoxious and misapprehended. 

(Wikipedia, n: A great idea now in the clutches of fools. )

RWM

Guys,Technically there are no team tracks.

They are called  transloading terminals/distribution centers.

http://www.transflo.net/?fuseaction=transflo.main

 http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Customers/Distribution%20Network/Facilities/Distrib_Network_Header.html?facilityType=BULK&facilityID=40127

Be sure to check the commodities handle list.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks now I understand. Sean

To put in short, a team track (transload center for you picky ones...) is a spur where the tracks meet the pavement, allowing trucks or maintence vechiles to get right up next to the trains. Commonly found in railyards, where repair trucks need to get next to a specific car (or loco), which may be gridlocked in the middle of a 100 car road freight.

analog kid

To put in short, a team track (transload center for you picky ones...) is a spur where the tracks meet the pavement, allowing trucks or maintence vechiles to get right up next to the trains. Commonly found in railyards, where repair trucks need to get next to a specific car (or loco), which may be gridlocked in the middle of a 100 car road freight.

 A team track and a RIP (Repair-in-place) track serves two totally different functions.

 A team track is a plain spur where one or more customerers loads or unloads a RR car directly into trucks, without the customer needing to to have a spur into their own plant/business. In the olden days, cars were unloaded by a handful of sweating men one crate, barrel, plank etc at a time.

 A RIP track is a place where the railroad repairs RR cars.

 Only thing those two have in common is that you need access along both kinds of tracks to get road based equipment up along the side of the RR car.

 A transload center is a business, often railroad owned, which usually has specialized equipment to quickly and efficiently unload cars of a given type (e.g. plastic pellets) into trucks for several customers. They often also have some storage, so RR cars and be unloaded as they arrive and be quickly released for another trip, even though the truck taking stuff onwards is not standing ready when the RR car arrives.

 Transload facilities (and intermodal terminals, where containers are lifted off trains to be reloaded on trucks) are more modern ways of moving stuff to customers not having their own private spur, while cutting back on the labor intensive and time costly improvised unloading and loading more common on team tracks in the past.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

 I have included a team track in each of my layout's towns, as they can handle almost any type of car.  While I'm modelling the late '30s, this would be fairly typical of what you might find anytime between the early 1900s and the mid-to-late-'50s:

Loading or unloading directly between rail car and truck (in some small towns, this was done at a level crossing, with the train pausing while the transfer took place - easy to fit into almost any layout):

The same operation could take place across a platform - this could allow unloading to take place while the truck or wagon was not present, freeing the empty car sooner.  The ramp was useful for unloading machinery or automobiles, too:

Bulk commodities, such as coal or gravel could also be received:

And by reversing the machinery, the same type of products could be shipped out.

For larger and/or heavier items on flatcars or in gondolas, some yards had an overhead crane on-site:

This simple building serves as an office for the Agent, and also as a lunchroom when other yard employees are on duty:

In some smaller towns, there could be a shed of some sort where lcl shipments could be stored for later pick-up - this would allow the car to move on to the next town down the line:

Here is a couple of views of the larger team track area, in the centre of the photo:

And here, at far right:

As you can see, it doesn't take up much room.

Wayne

BRAKIE

Guys,Technically there are no team tracks.

Technically, that is incorrect. I am looking at a number of prototype materials of various eras that specifically use the word "Team Track", even in the modern era.