(erielack) team tracks without platforms

[Edward Mines <ed_mines_@_yahoo.com>]

A lot of railroads had team tracks without platforms. Most team tracks I think.
   
  I unloaded a box car of  bags of charcoal for barbecues at one of these in 1967.
   
  I needed a summer job while I was going to college. I saw an ad in the newspaper from Manpower. It said something like - "wanted men, laborers, warehouseman - report for work 6-9AM". So I did. Turned out it was shape up work. 
   
  Sometimes the jobs were one day; sometimes they went on for weeks. I was a clean cut kid and a weightlifter so they welcomed me with open arms. I didn't have a car though.
   
  One day I was sent to the team track of the Long Island Railroad in Floral Park. The job was to unload a box car of bags of charcoal into the back of a pick up truck. There were 3 men - one in the car to toss bags to the man at the door, the man at the door who tossed the bags to a man in the truck and finally the man in the truck who stacked the bags. It would take weeks to unload a car that way.
   
  That day I had to pick up my paycheck so I went to the Manpower office after work. I got some strange looks. One of the older men said to me - "go in the wash room and take a look at yourself in the mirror". I did. I was green! I sweated a lot in the box car and some of the color must have come off of the blue and yellow bags. I took the bus from the job site to the Manpower office. I wonder what the other passengers thought.
   
  The door of the box car was hard to open and close. The men I worked with wedged a 2 by 4
  into the edge of the door and the bumper of the truck.
   
  That's a tough way to earn the minimum wage and they only paid me for 7 hours. I took home less than $10 for that days work.
   
  Ed Mines

       
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