Team tracks

  I guess they are less used these days than in the past. The branch line here had team track business( mostly lumber) about 20 years ago but the line was abandoned about 10 years ago with little team business at the end. Most of the loose car traffic I see now days when traveling seems to go to customer's spurs such as lumber yards, metal dealers,food and drink,fertilizer, grain,etc.It would be interesting to find out where some active team tracks still are located? ......DaveB

Team tracks

By definition, "team tracks" have no "spots" because there are no industries assigned to them.  There may be "spots" because the tracks might have different facilities (overhead crane, end ramp, loading dock, paved access), but they aren't industry specific spots.  They are public tracks and might have literally hundreds of customers use the same tracks.  If a customer leases a track (then by definition its not a "public" track) then it might have industry specific spots.

If a railroad creates some sort of break bulk facility then it might lease or make arrangements for specific industries to be assigned specific parts of the tracks, but that's not a "team track".

Transload

Transload facilities are modern Team Tracks. Transload facilities often consist of 1 or 2 tracks on a concrete pad and are operated by private companies instead of the railroad. Sometimes transload facilities will also have rail served warehouses. Some transload facilities will have special spots for tank car loading, but otherwise they will just let the customer know where their car is when they arrive. They can receive almost any type of car.

There is a company on the sub that I model that was using a Team Track in Emerson, with a capacity for 8 cars, for transload for many years. They are currently building a 60 car transload facility north of Emerson since they have outgrown the track in town.

There is a company in Winnipeg that uses a truck with a pump on it to mix different grades of fuel in tank cars at a translaod facility. They blend fuel from several different cars into empty cars based on customer specs and ship the new blends out. < < VERY COOL

The team track is alive and well.

Team tracks in Plattsburgh, NY and Barton, VT.

I think it is for grain cars.

VTR promoted a team track this year in their calendar.  Its in Barton, Vermont not on the new section of TMTV's  TOMA...

Nick

Research...

Dear MRHers,

If I may...

- Not sure I'd commit to any hard/fast statements about whether a "team track" does or does-not have declared carspots, at least not without first stating the prototype RR and geographical location in question.

- That said, if I may quote from the Southern Pacific Industry Numbering System (SPINS) San Jose Zones 1-10 1972 document

The key from the car spot numbering list on the LH side is:

- Car spot code "90" is a "Team Track" spot.

NOTE! There may well be multiple linear car-lengths of capacity on the given specific track nominated as a "Team Track",
(Research point: Find "Track Chart", "Industry Lists", and/or "FogCharts" for your preferred RR and location)

but as long as the car has a "90" as it's SPINS spotting code, 
and there's enough linear track length to hold the inbound car on said track,
then it goes "on the team track"
(Research point: what happens if/when a car with a "90" spot code simply cannot be accomodated on the nominated track? IE "the Teamtrack is already full"? Hint: the answer lies in the other Spot Codes, and the procedure in the RH pane).

- However, take note of the other Spotting Codes listed. These most-definitely declare specific locations relative to specific un/loading equipment or locations, for which specific cars/lading would require. Would such loading facilities (and associated defined car-spots) be present on a "team track" as a modeller recognizes it? Possibly...

- If we step away from the railroad-terminology-specific "Team Track",
(which I fear is the root cause of much of the chargin in these kinds of conversations),

and instead focus on any situation with declared "car spots",
(which is where I suspect Lance M was originally aiming),

then we get into some really useful data.

Unfortunately Jerry Freadman's "Fogchart.com" site is no-longer live, but it can be referenced via the WayBack Machine. As an example, I'd reccomend checking out the FogChart for the "OC Switcher", a local based out of Albina Yard in Portland Ore.

Click HERE to download the "OC_Switcher" FOGChart PDF from the Internet Web Archive "Wayback Machine"

Of particular interest on this FogChart is the industries in Clackamas, specifically "Holman", "Whole Foods", and "Wymore". Pay attention to the notes for Holmans and Whole Foods, they form an entirely prototypical basis on which a Lance M-esque switching layout situation, or even a "Proto-nook" could be created.

Now, please keep in mind:
- SPINS are Southern Pacific (and successor RR) specific, 
- CLIC is the ATSF/BNSF equivalent,
- and Conrail/CSX have the ZTS system.
- Other RRs may well have their own versions

I hope this helps...
(Modellers, start your search engines...)

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Plattsburgh

Plastic pellets is my guess, the cars appear to have round hatches in the roof down the center and the trucks are the type that carry pellets and resins.  They are unloading directly into the trucks with no auger so that generally means a vac or pressurized system, which would be something other than grain.

Spots

If there is one spot for the entire track, then there aren't detail spots on the track.  You can't have assigned spots on a track that is used by more companies than there are spots.  A 10 car track might be used by 30 different companies, so no company has an assigned place.  They put the car where it fits and then drive the truck to the car.  In some places the team track might only be used by one or two companies, so the crews might generally put the same company's cars in the same place, so it looks like there are spots, but from a paperwork standpoint there aren't.  For example a company might have a vac truck or a auger/conveyor to empty/load cars.  They might be the only one using the track so they put their equipment in the middle of the track and the railroad spots the inbounds on one side and the company moves the cars because its easier than moving the auger.

Article on Transload

http://www.progressiverailroading.com/rail_industry_trends/article/Transloading-provides-railroads-with-another-way-to-attract-business--52369

Good thoughts Bill, above is a good article on transloading

Chris

Nope, NO spots for team

Nope, NO spots for team tracks on short lines I ran. First come first served even at trans loads.

The only exception would be a track which is leased by a customer for transloading ... but then it wouldn't be a team track.

Barry

Shortline-ing

No, Prof. we didn't need

No, Prof. we didn't need fancy stuff like that.

I just made up a simple "document" on a yellow legal pad listing:

Car initial/number; load or mty; destination and maybe contents if the crew didn't know by looking at the car type and matching it up with the customer or if there were more than one customer (plastics companies) who received the same type of car. This "document" was also used as a switch, interchange and data entry list.

For the size of railroad (a dozen customers, 60 miles of track) it worked well.

Simple is always, better.

Barry

Another thing about that

Another thing about that railroad was that we only a couple of run around tracks and (it was) not convenient going north because a lot of our customer's spurs were facing point switches. In order to provide good service, after lining up our train in station order we would split our power (two GP15s back to back) and have one lead and the other on the rear. Because both crewmen were engineer/conductor qualified they would trade off units and duties depending on the operation.

By running the train north on Mon. and Wed, this way we could easily "spread" cars going up and then on Tues. and Thurs. going south we would put the units together, back to back to simply, pull all the mtys for interchange going home. Fri. was always up for grabs but we generally stayed at our base to switch a plastics plant (two tracks each holding 10-12 cars) which often took two to three hours. This was due to the plant wanting specific cars at specific spots (modelers would have loved this) but to us it was a real pain especially during bad weather like winter with lots of snow and ice. We never had a simple switch like pull all cars mty off one track and fill it with lds off spot/newly arrived in interchange. Nope, it was like: spots 1,2,3 mty pull/replace with three other cars in specific order. Spots 4 and 5 are half lds pull and set to hold track (we didn't have one so used another vacant spur) and repot with two, half load cars off the hold track. Then spots  6, 7 and 8 get turned around 8 to 6, 6 to 7 and 7 hold. 8-10 pull all mty respot with specific cars.

In order to switch this industry you first had to find all the cars they wanted to spot (hold/interchange/spur) and put them in correct, track order on the run around track. Then pull the entire industry track out and switch it cutting out mtys and holds and cutting in other loads and holds. Not a lot of fun.   

Barry

Plastics plant...

Barry, could you elaborate a little on the kind of cars you brought to the plastics plant please?  Was it a pellet manufacturer? Butadiene, Acrylonitrile, and Styrene coming in?  What kind of cars exactly for what came in? 

thanks 

Randy

Detail Spots

Detail spots are a local thing.  They are rarely placed on a waybill.  I did a study of prototype waybills on a class 1 railroad and out of several hundred waybills I looked at, only a few had any kind of spot (mostly generic spots) and none had detail spots.  

Detail spots are assigned by the local industry and communicated with the switching request the industry gives the crew or railroad, or they are standing instructions given to the crew.

Randy, they were all plain(

Randy, they were all plain( no marks other than reporting ones) ,white and gray plastic pellet covered hoppers.

All the outbound freight (bags, sheets, diapers etc.) went by truck. Years ago I switched another plant and they shipped out plastic cups, eating utensils, plates fast food containers , etc. in former 86' auto parts, box cars. These loads were quite lite weight and cubed out before they weighed out. This was back in the 80s and it all shortly went to truck.

Barry 

Quick notes, will flesh out later today...

Dear MRHers,

Got to duck out of the house for a few hours, so I'll quote these as a memory jogger for myself,
and come back to flesh them out later...

Happy Modelling,
Aiming to reconcile "what the paperwork clearly says" with "the daily actions observed in-the-field",
Prof Klyzlr 

Thank you

Transload facilities

Seaford Lumber

Yup, Seaford Lumber looks just like an average (small) transload facility!

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/48565-seaford-lumber/

present-day reload scenes

Present-day UPRR reload tracks at Albany Oregon. A maintenance office and supply depot are also located here. Track dead-ends to the right, a stub remnant of the old Corvallis and Eastern.

Nice pictures

The ultimate "transload" facitlity -- containers

Coos Bay

Part of the issue with Coos Bay being an intermodal terminal is it would have to be big enough to have trains to connections.  When you load a car, you are still off on a branch line and would have to get to the trunk line at Eugene.  If you don't have enough business to make a solid train for a destination terminal then you would have to aggregate blocks into one train, then take it to someplace else, bust it up and make pick ups for other trains.  The route would also have to have double stack clearance specs.  The next challenge is having a westbound flow to the port to drive containers and platforms to the port to be loaded.

None of this is insurmountable, it just takes volume. 

I thought I would throw this out for those people constructing scenarios to justify freelance operations.

"When you load a car, you are

Yeah, LA, Oaktown,Portland ,and Seattle  all have a eastbound mainline nearby. Their ports also are more developed and can handle more traffic. Coos Bay shipped a lot of forest products so it's traffic would naturally fall off as the tree harvesting focus moved farther north. Santa Cruz doesn't ship out as many schooner loads of lumber these days either.....DaveB