Any good on-line videos showing North American railway LCL station/terminal operations?

[greyhounds]

chutton01

ETA: I just reread Greyhounds post. Were you involved when traditional rail LCL services (i.e. small lots gathered up at a freight terminal or station and shipped in a boxcar vs. containerization or TOFC) ended - Jeff Wilson's "Industries Along the Tracks 2", which has a section on LCL and Package (with a few interesting images) pretty much places that at the end of the 1960s/early 1970s (and the end of REA around 1975). How did the Freight Forwarding companies fit into the picture?

I never worked in a railroad operated freighthouse. I started with a forwarder called Merchant Shippers located at 1601 S. Western Ave. in Chicago.  The freighthouse was owned by the Burlington Northern and known as "BN House #7."

We took in small LCL/LTL shipments gathered by truck and worked them across a dock consolidating them in to TOFC trailers and some boxcars.  The boxcaars were pimarily used for destinations where we didn't have the volume to make two trailer shipments in the alloted time.  House #7 was much smaller than the C&NW Priviso facility.  

The need for two trailer shipments came from the asinine government economic regulations that could not deal with trailer loads.  They could only deal in carloads.  Two tailers made a carload so that was what you had to ship.  Either that or pay a significantly higher rate.  The trailers didn't have to physically move on the same car, or even be shipped on the same day.  But you had to ship two within a 48 hour period.  It was dumber than Blazes, but nobody ever accused the government regulators of inteligent thought.  The other use for boxcars was for very low density freight such as Christmas Tree ornaments. 

"City Trucks" would be sent out to various areas of the city.  A truck dispatcher would direct them to pick up various small shipments.  When their shift was over (or when the truck was full) the drivers would return to our dock.  At the dock Teamster dock workers would hand unload the city trucks onto small carts (as seen in the C&NW film) and the carts hand towed across the dock to the vehicle bound for the proper destination rail terminal.  The truck dispatcher routed each shipment using a book that had all the possible destinations.  i.e. a shipment to Glendale, AZ would go in a Phoenix bound trailer. 

When the outbound trailer was loaded it was drayed to a Chicago rail ramp for movement west.  It was a BN house but the ATSF was the primary carrier to California and Arizona (followed by the C&NW-UP route with their "Falcon" service.)  To compensate the BN all Santa Fe loads were routed BN-Chicago-ATSF.  This gave BN 17% of the through rate revenue even though they never turned a steel wheel under the load.

We also recived freight from regional LTL motor carriers and major eastern ltl motor carriers that did not operate west of Chicago.

Boxcars primarily went to lower volume places such as Tucson or Yakima. You couldn't hold a boxcar forever to get it full so at the end of the week the BN would "Pull the House" and send the cars on their way.  Yakima was a straight BN run, but Tuscon had to get on the SP.  I don't remember the routing but BN-Kansas City-Rock Island-Tucumcari would have worked.  It would have been slow but it would have worked.

As to the role of forwarders, they were typical midlemen.  The bought the best suitable service from any number of possible transportation companies, then aggregated the services as appropriate to provide a better transportation product to the customer than was possible from any of the individual transportation producers on their own.  They did this all under one management instead of spreading accountablity for any damage or service failures among several connecting carriers.

The market loved forwarder service.  The government regulators hated it.    

After deregulation a major trucker, JS Hunt, evolved to resemble an old time forwarder before the government killed such entities.  (Although JB does primarily deal in truckloads instead of LTL.)  The government needs to learn to leave well enough alone.  But that just doesn't seem to be in their DNA.

 

[Paul_D_North_Jr]

I believe the PRR also had a movie about LCL, but I'm not certain, and have no idea of how to find it, either on-line or off.

- Paul North. 

[chutton01]

cacole

There's a Youtube video from the 1940s produced by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad with quite detailed information about LCL operations at their massive Proviso Yard, which at the time was the largest in the U.S., called "Rolling the Freight"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcqQUsZiksU

Practically every facility and structure shown in this video has been demolished, even the massive Merchandise Mart

Cool, thanks.
Yes, the middle part of that video, covering the Proviso Freight (Transfer) House did indeed cover CN&W LCL operations quite nicely, although some things were only mentioned in passing (understandable, as it wasn't a training film, but a PR film). They even mentioned the movable inter-platform "bridges" that cross the internal tracks, which is always neat.
As an aside, I didn't realize that Chicago's Merchandise Mart had it's own LCL operation, at least according to that video. BTW, I hope you meant the station under the Merchandise Mart was closed, as the Merchandise Mart building seems to be going quite strong.

The hump yard portion made me grimmice a bit, due to some non-ergonomic moves on the part of the employees - especially the car inspector who kept bending over to check the passing car's trucks - that must have played heck on those guys' backs later in their life (didn't some railroads at the time have inspectors sitting in pits in the middle of the hump yard tracks so they could check as the cars rolled over them?)

ETA: I just reread Greyhounds post. Were you involved when traditional rail LCL services (i.e. small lots gathered up at a freight terminal or station and shipped in a boxcar vs. containerization or TOFC) ended - Jeff Wilson's "Industries Along the Tracks 2", which has a section on LCL and Package (with a few interesting images) pretty much places that at the end of the 1960s/early 1970s (and the end of REA around 1975). How did the Freight Forwarding companies fit into the picture?

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

cacole

 

I believe what was then called Proviso Yard is now known as the Clearing Yard, but has been greatly reduced in size.

It's still called Proviso Yard.  Clearing Yard is the BRC's massive facility with a bi-directional hump located just south of Midway Airport.

[Firelock76]

The New Haven Railroad produced a film in 1942 called "A Great Railroad At Work" that showed pretty much everything, including LCL operations.  It's 45 minutes long and one of the best railroad promo films ever done.  I don't know if it's available on-line but a You Tube search may prove productive.

If you live here in the US there's a DVD set available through various retailers (Wal-Mart, Target, Barnes and Noble, et al)  called "Railroads, Tracks Across America" which is a collection of 36 period railroad promo films from the 30's through the early 60's which will also have what you're looking for.  The price is very reasonable, in the $15 range, more or less, depending on where you find it. 

[cacole]

There's a Youtube video from the 1940s produced by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad with quite detailed information about LCL operations at their massive Proviso Yard, which at the time was the largest in the U.S., called "Rolling the Freight"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcqQUsZiksU

Practically every facility and structure shown in this video has been demolished, even the massive Merchandise Mart, and even the Chicago & Northwestern is a fallen flag, having been absorbed into the Union Pacific Railroad.

I believe what was then called Proviso Yard is now known as the Clearing Yard, but has been greatly reduced in size.

 

[greyhounds]

I was going to suggest "Operation Fast Freight" but you already know about it.  I don't know of any other videos on the subject.

I can describe the process in detail if that does you any good.  I started out in civilian transportation doing an internship on a LTL/LCL freight dock in Chicago.  We loaded outbound in both TOFC trailers and boxcars.  Mostly TOFC by then.

That was between years at grad school while getting a MS in transportation from Northwestern.  My thesis was "The Transportation of LCL/LTL Freight by Railroad." Let me know if I can be of any help.

 

[chutton01]

Stuff from the 1940s-1960s, since by 1970 LCL operations in the US had become an asterisk in the weekly car-loading stats.

The UKians had BTF (British Transport Films) & British Rail itself cranking out all sorts of great films concerning their LCL freight business, including service, operations, safety, and (I guess) propaganda films like this one which shows off the then-new facilities at Sheffield (Note, I started the video when the narrator begins describing the old inefficent Sheffield freight facilities before going on to the new, because the old facilities had cool-looking powered capstans and freight wagon elevators. Also, that clip ends with video describing operations at the then-new Tinsley Marshalling Yard, the "Most advance hump yard in the world" - from Wiki: "[Tinsley] could not handle longer wheelbase wagons, which were already becoming more prevalent and required individual shunting". Good one, BR ).
Here's another BR regarding Parcels/LCL that's quite detailed, although terminal equipment and operation is not really featured, it does covers more loading and tracking procedure.

I found a few American videos that somewhat describe LCL handling, although usually incidentally rather than as a main feature:
Santa Fe - Right and Wrong Way to Deliver a New Television (BTW, I like the lumber load straightener structure shown in that video, but it's not LCL terminal related)
Norfolk & Western - Operation Fast FreightAgain, actual terminal operations are incidental to the video, which is more "how does a rail car get from A to B fast".
I guess I'm looking for more video following how the LCL freight got from the customer/truck, was processed/handled/warehoused, and then got loaded into the outbound freight car (or visa-versa, going from an inbound freight car to the customer), with more emphasis on freight handling procedures and equipment.

Thanks