A designated public siding owned by the railroad where local businesses without their own private spurs can spot railcars for loading and unloading. Customers bring their own trucks, cranes or manual labor to transfer goods directly to and from the cars. These tracks serve as a flexible transloading point for low-volume shippers or irregular shipments.
Heard on the job
The lumber yard doesn't have a spur, so we'll spot those two centerbeams on the team track for them to unload.
Insider tip
The name comes from the horse-drawn team wagons that early merchants used to cart freight away from the rails, but the shared-access model remains exactly the same.