The Rip Track

Have you ever wondered how the freight handlers loaded and unloaded box cars at multitrack freight houses when there wasn't a platform beside every track? They lined up the boxcar doors on adjacent tracks and put plates between the cars to bridge the gaps. Essentially, the cars on the outer tracks would become very short platforms to reach the cars on the inner tracks. This view is of the Milwaukee Road's Galewood Yard in Chicago, April 1943.

Photo source information

This image is a crop of a photograph by Jack Delano, who was employed by the United States Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information. The original image is in the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, call number LC-DIG-fsac-1a34816 DLC. The library asserts on its copyrights page:

Photographs in this collection were taken by photographers working for the U.S. Government. Generally speaking, works created by U.S. Government employees are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States. However, they may be under copyright in some foreign countries and privacy and publicity rights may apply.

This and an enormous number of other railroad photos can be viewed on the Library of Congress's American Memory website.