Railway Age April 2022

APRIL 2022

W W W. R A I LWAYA G E .C O M

AILWAY GE S E R V I N G T H E R A I LWAY I N D U S T R Y S I N C E 1 8 5 6

CLASS II, III

LEADERS

South Kansas & Oklahoma, Vermont Railway Take Top Honors

RAILINC 2022 FREIGHT CAR STATS

Heavyweights Dominate

PASSENGER RAIL FOCUS: SAN DIEGO railwayage.com

40-Plus Years ofAugust LRT2017 Growth // Railway Age 1

AILWAY GE

February APRIL 2022 2020

13 FEATURES 13

Short Line of the Year

16

Regional of the Year

20

Tech Focus – M/W: Crossties

32 36

Vermont Railway

42

Vermont Railway

South Kansas & Oklahoma

Products, Treatments and Tools

Railinc 2022 Freight Car Stats Heavyweights Dominate

Passenger Focus: San Diego Still Growing After 40-Plus Years

Timeout For Tech

Fourth in a Series With Gary Fry

DEPARTMENTS 4 6 8 45 46 46 47

Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People Professional Directory

COMMENTARY 2 10 48

From the Editor Financial Edge ASLRRA Perspective

Classified Advertising Index

COVER PHOTO South Kansas & Oklahoma SD402s 4156, 4157 and 4153 lead a unit train at Moline, Kans.

Mark Mitchell/SKOL photo.

Railway Age, USPS 449-130, is published monthly by the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation, 88 Pine St., 23rd Fl., New York, NY 10005-1809. Tel. (212) 620-7200; FAX (212) 633-1863. Vol. 223, No. 4. Subscriptions: Railway Age is sent without obligation to professionals working in the railroad industry in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. However, the publisher reserves the right to limit the number of copies. Subscriptions should be requested on company letterhead. Subscription pricing to others for Print and/or Digital versions: $100.00 per year/$151.00 for two years in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico; $139.00 per year/$197.00 for two years, foreign. Single Copies: $36.00 per copy in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico/$128.00 foreign All subscriptions payable in advance. COPYRIGHT© 2022 Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without permission. For reprint information contact PARS International Corp., 102 W. 38th Street, 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10018, Tel.: 212-221-9595; Fax: 212-221-9195. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canada Post Cust.#7204564; Agreement #41094515. Bleuchip Int’l, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Address all subscriptions, change of address forms and correspondence concerning subscriptions to Subscription Dept., Railway Age, PO Box 239 Lincolnshire IL 60069-0239 USA, Or call +1 (402) 346-4740, FAX +1 (847) 291-4816. Printed at Cummings Printing, Hooksett, N.H. ISSN 0033-8826 (print); 2161-511X (digital).

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April 2022 // Railway Age 1

FROM THE EDITOR Making the Obvious Less Obscure

A

while ago, I wrote a column on the euphemistic language (“words that hide the truth, that conceal reality,” as George Carlin put it) that has invaded corporate America. You know: “Management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area, so many people are no longer viable members of the workforce,” Carlin’s take on “fired” or “laid off.” It popped up again, in responses I requested from several Class I’s regarding a letter the National Grain and Feed Association (NGFA) wrote late last month to STB Chairman Marty Oberman complaining about poor railroad service being responsible for problems like malnourished cows.

Is that why I probably won’t be grilling steak on my barbecue this summer, because the price of beef will bankrupt me?

Here’s one response I received, within minutes of emailing a request for a statement: “We are committed to supporting our customers and moving forward together amid the ongoing supply chain and labor challenges, which we are actively working to address.”

Such euphemistic, corporate-speak statements that basically say nothing are, as my predecessor Luther S. Miller frequently cited, “The Pope is a Catholic” pronouncements that “make the obvious less obscure.”

Indeed, Luther, as you also frequently said, paraphrasing Jean Giraudoux: “The mediocre are always at their best.”

Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank Wilner once again gets the next-to-last word: “The NGFA letter echoes shipper concerns expressed during the STB’s

mid-March public hearing on a proposal to implement a reciprocal switching remedy. It goes to the core of Chairman Oberman’s probe of a railroad’s common carrier responsibility—a hazily defined duty of railroads to provide transportation or service on reasonable request.

“Since railroads were first regulated in 1887 as to rates and practices, Congress has never provided a statutory definition of the common carrier responsibility, leaving the four corners of that duty in regulatory and judicial limbo. Many shippers assert railroads are shirking that hazily defined common carrier responsibility for two reasons: One is to demarket freight considered only marginally profitable; the second because the shipper facility or some other aspect of the freight offerings is not compatible with Precision Scheduled Railroading.

“Allegations of freight demarketing are grimily similar to investment funds buying up rent-controlled residential buildings and then cutting services in an effort to drive out the renters with the object of converting the buildings to high-end condominiums for purchase.”

I’ve not identified the railroad with the “Pope is a Catholic” response, because I don’t wish to offend the legions of attorneys who vet everything except pre-sanitized boilerplate language. But a shout-out goes to BNSF for providing a detailed statement, an explanation that actually said something.

In my book, BNSF is really an acronym that stands for “Bulls__t Never Supersedes Frankness.” You can expect nothing less from the Farmer’s mouth!

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Industry Indicators ‘FEBRUARY CARLOADS WERE UP 11%—BUT THAT’S MISLEADING’ “U.S. rail carloads were up 11.0% in February 2022 over February 2021, but that’s misleading—the big percentage gain is mainly a function of weak carloads in February 2021 caused by severe winter storms back then in Texas and elsewhere.” the Association of American Railroads reported last month. “For the first two months of 2022, carloads were up 3.6%. Total U.S. rail carloads in February 2022 were 915,329, an average of 228,832 per week. Other than February 2020, that’s the lowest weekly average for a February since sometime before 1988. U.S. intermodal volume in February 2022 was up 1.4% over last year. For the year to date, intermodal was down 7.2%. The two-month intermodal total in 2022 was 2.03 million units.

Since 2016, only 2020 was lower.”

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, FEBRUARY 2022 (% change from FEBRUARY 2021)

TOTAL EMPLOYEES: 113,822 % CHANGE FROM FEBRUARY 2021: -0.22%

Transportation (train and engine) 47,096 (+2.84%)

Executives, Officials and Staff Assistants 7,379 (+1.56%)

TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

FOUR WEEKS ENDING FEB. 26, 2022

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

FEB. ’22

FEB. ’21

% CHANGE

Grain Farm Products excl. Grain Grain Mill Products Food Products Chemicals Petroleum & Petroleum Products Coal Primary Forest Products Lumber & Wood Products Pulp & Paper Products Metallic Ores Coke Primary Metal Products Iron & Steel Scrap Motor Vehicles & Parts Crushed Stone, Sand & Gravel Nonmetallic Minerals Stone, Clay & Glass Products Waste & Nonferrous Scrap All Other Carloads

94,967 3,083 36,728 25,260 137,850 36,812 269,181 4,680 13,928 21,755 15,287 13,370 33,962 15,496 49,430 67,217 13,083 27,843 14,348 21,049

91,299 3,430 33,799 22,760 118,453 40,003 221,943 3,835 13,160 21,357 15,769 12,287 33,141 14,785 55,788 49,299 12,054 25,934 12,497 23,211

4.0% -10.1% 8.7% 11.0% 16.4% -8.0% 21.3% 22.0% 5.8% 1.9% -3.1% 8.8% 2.5% 4.8% -11.4% 36.3% 8.5% 7.4% 14.8% -9.3%

TOTAL U.S. CARLOADS

915,329

824,804

11.0%

286,671

294,095

-2.5%

1,202,000

1,118,899

7.4%

CANADIAN RAILROADS TOTAL CANADIAN CARLOADS

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Professional and Administrative 9,639 (-5.45%)

Maintenance-of-Way and Structures 27,798 (-0.54%)

Maintenance of Equipment and Stores 17,177 (-5.18%)

Transportation (other than train & engine)

Intermodal

FOUR WEEKS ENDING FEB. 26, 2022

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

FEB. ’22

FEB. ’21

% CHANGE

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

77,439 952,878

83,540

1,030,317

932,483 1,016,023

-7.3% 2.2% 1.4%

0 257,242 257,242

0 270,756 270,756

— -5.0% -5.0%

83,540

CANADIAN RAILROADS Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

4,733 (-0.36%)

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Source: Surface Transportation Board

Trailers Containers

77,439 1,210,120

1,203,239

-7.3% 0.6%

TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

1,287,559

1,286,779

0.1%

Source: Rail Time Indicators, Association of American Railroads

4 Railway Age // April 2022

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TOTAL U.S./Canadian CARLOADS, FEB. 2022 VS. FEB. 2021

1,202,000

1,118,899

FEBRUARY 2022

reliability

made CCB-II the industry leader.

FEBRUARY 2021

Short Line And Regional Traffic Index CARLOADS

BY COMMODITY Chemicals Coal Crushed Stone, Sand & Gravel Food & Kindred Products Grain Grain Mill Products Lumber & Wood Products Metallic Ores Metals & Products Motor Vehicles & Equipment Nonmetallic Minerals Petroleum Products Pulp, Paper & Allied Products Stone, Clay & Glass Products Trailers / Containers Waste & Scrap Materials All Other Carloads

ORIGINATED FEB. ’22

ORIGINATED FEB. ’21

% CHANGE

49,119 18,892 18,541 11,655 30,699 7,618 9,573 2,614 17,185 8,105 2,338 2,052 17,152 12,009 41,593 9,929 62,773

44,425 18,174 12,445 8,991 30,079 6,657 8,461 1,590 14,588 7,400 2,323 1,670 15,067 10,286 39,022 8,972 60,788

10.6% 4.0% 49.0% 29.6% 2.1% 14.4% 13.1% 64.4% 17.8% 9.5% 0.6% 22.9% 13.8% 16.8% 6.6% 10.7% 3.3%

Copyright © 2022 All rights reserved.

TOTAL U.S. Carloads and intermodal units, 2013-2022

(in millions, year-to-date through FEBRUARY 2022, SIX-WEEK MOVING AVERAGE)

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April 2022 // Railway Age 5

Industry Outlook “I have previously stated my concerns with the sufficiency of competition in the rail industry and my interest in exploring ways the STB can improve the rail industry’s competitive landscape in order to ensure fairer pricing.”

— STB Chair Martin Oberman

A Primer on Reciprocal Switching THE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD (STB) is considering finalizing a long-pending, shipper-instigated rulemaking that could loosen the standard for imposing a competition-enhancing Reciprocal Switching remedy created by Congress in 1980. The proceeding is officially known as Ex Parte No. 711 (Sub-No. 1). Its roots date to 2011.

The remedy is intended to create tworailroad competition at origin or destination shipper facilities physically served by only one railroad. The remedy has never been imposed, however, with shippers alleging a too-difficult-to-meet evidentiary standard—that a railroad is engaging in anticompetitive behavior. The standard was established in 1985 by STB predecessor Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC).

Railroads oppose any loosening of the standard, alleging that doing so would undermine a railroad’s ability to price differentially (charge shippers with fewer competitive options more to make up for competitive traffic that cannot be priced at full-cost recovery), create operational inefficiencies, discourage future investment in rail infrastructure and equipment, and unnecessarily and unjustly transfer “wealth” from railroads to rail customers.

The evidentiary standard aside, reciprocal switching means that a railroad with sole physical access to a shipper facility transfers shipper freight cars to a near-by junction point with a second competing railroad. The second railroad pays a compensatory per-car 6 Railway Age // April 2022

switching fee. The enhanced competition can serve as a freight-rate cap and a spur to improve service quality.

Railroads have long voluntarily switched cars on behalf of each other where they find it economically justified. St. Louis Terminal Railroad Association and Belt Railway of Chicago perform reciprocal switching for numerous railroads, while Conrail Shared Assets does so in three locations for CSX and Norfolk Southern.

Involuntary reciprocal switching became a shipper objective beginning in the mid1970s when Congress began a rollback of railroad economic regulation, easing burdens for abandoning lines, canceling joint routes and rates, and merging. Often, a choice of multiple railroads for the linehaul movement was reduced, with shippers alleging escalating freight rates and servicequality reduction.

In partially deregulating railroads in 1980 (the Staggers Rail Act), Congress—with railroads in agreement—authorized the ICC to enhance competition at sole-served shipper facilities by imposing a reciprocal switching remedy. The 1980 law left to regulators the task of establishing standards for relief. Congress said in a conference report accompanying the Staggers Rail Act that reciprocal switching should be “an avenue of relief for shippers.”

In a 1985 rulemaking (Competitive Access Rules), the ICC established that a reciprocal switching remedy be restricted to where it “is necessary to remedy or prevent an act that is contrary” to rail transporta-

tion policy or is anticompetitive.

Subsequently, the ICC denied a reciprocal switching remedy to a shipper known as Midtec, saying it had considered “classical categories of competitive abuse,” including foreclosure, refusal to deal and price squeezing, and “found none”—that “a mere preference for the opportunity to obtain lower rates is not sufficient” to justify a grant of reciprocal switching.

Not since has a shipper request for a reciprocal switching remedy been granted by the ICC or STB. Remarkably, the legislation was opposed by the National Industrial Transportation League (NITL), the shipper group now leading the effort to liberalize the reciprocal switching remedy.

In 1998, after the Senate Commerce Committee urged the STB to develop a record on rail access and competition issues, STB Chairperson Linda J. Morgan responded that if Congress wished less-restrictive standards for a reciprocal switching remedy, change would be “more appropriately resolved by Congress.”

In 2001, with Morgan still Chairperson, the STB established new, more restrictive rail merger rules. There were no changes made to the Competitive Access Rules’ evidentiary burden in non-merger proceedings, meaning shippers were still required to demonstrate anticompetitive behavior when seeking a reciprocal switching remedy.

No further progress on changing the reciprocal switching remedy standards was made until July 2021, when President Joe Biden issued Executive Order No. 14036 encouraging the STB to complete this open rulemaking.

Significant is that the issue is not whether there should be a reciprocal switching remedy, but rather the standards to be applied by the STB in granting the remedy.

The import that stakeholders attach to the outcome is revealed in the number and obvious high-dollar cost of attorneys and expert and less-than-expert witnesses who have been testifying. For example, “Supplemental Comments” submitted to the STB by the Association of American Railroads contained 612 pages, even though the STB had admonished parties not to repeat what they had previously filed.

– Frank N. Wilner, Capitol Hill Contributing Editor railwayage.com

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MARKET For KLW, Cummins, ‘The Next Step in Tier 4 Repowers’ KLW (Knoxville Locomotive Works, Inc.) and Cummins Inc. last month completed a prototype KLWX 4400 ACT4, a remanufactured line-haul locomotive equipped with an EPA Tier 4-certified, 4,400-hp Cummins QSK95 prime-mover. It is currently operating on CN, undergoing reliability and performance testing.

Remanufactured from an EMD SD70MAC, it sports such features as AC traction inverters with individual axle control, an engine control system with integrated CANBUS and AESS, and a thermostatically controlled split-cooling system.

NORTH AMERICA

Britain’s DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT (DFT) has awarded the GOAHEAD GROUP (a joint venture of GO-AHEAD and KEOLIS) a national rail contract (NRC) to continue operating the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern rail services. Branded Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), the NRC is for the largest passenger operator on the British network.

The new contract commenced April 1 and will run until at least April 1, 2025. There is an option for a three-year extension.

WABTEC has been selected to modernize an additional 330 GE Dash 9-44CW units for NORFOLK SOUTHERN (NS). The new order will bring Wabtec’s total number of power upgrades for the Class I railroad to more than 950 upon completion of work in 2025. This is Wabtec’s third major order from NS since 2015. It follows the Aug. 6, 2021 celebration of Wabtec’s 1,000th locomotive modernization in North and South America—a rebuilt 1998vintage GE Dash-9 for NS. To date in the Americas, Wabtec has delivered more than 1,100 modernized locomotives, whose control systems have been replaced to transform DC-traction units into AC units. The most recent NS order will have Wabtec transforming locomotives that are more than 20 years old into AC44C6Ms. For each unit, this will add another 20 years of incremental life, plus improve fuel efficiency by as much as 25%; increase reliability by more than 40%; boost haulage ability by up to 55%; and reduce maintenance, repair and overhaul expenses by 20%, Wabtec said during the March 23 announcement. The AC44C6Ms will feature Wabtec’s FDL Advantage engine

8 Railway Age // April 2022

upgrade and include Trip Optimizer, SmartHPT and Distributed Power.

HITACHI RAIL will build a $70 million factory and test track in Washington County, Md., with operations commencing in winter 2023/24. Its first order is a fleet of 8000-series rapid transit railcars for the WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY (WMATA), which in 2021 awarded Hitachi a contract to design and build an initial order of 256 cars to replace aging 2000- and 3000-series cars that have been in service since the early 1980s and were manufactured by Italian firm Breda (now Hitachi Rail Italy). If all options in the contract are exercised, 800 cars will be supplied to the agency, worth up to $2.2 billion.

Hitachi announced last year it would manufacture the carbody structure, fit out the trainsets, and carry out final assembly at a new Washington area plant, with initial preseries trainsets expected to be delivered in 2024. The facility will be located on a 41-acre plot in the greater Hagerstown, Md., region, near the Hopewell Valley Industrial Park. It will be 90 minutes from WMATA’s Greenbelt Rail Yard, where deliveries will occur. railwayage.com

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Financial Edge

REF 2022: High-Fives, Hugs and Handshakes!

A

fter a 2020 Rail Equipment Finance Conference that more or less shut off the lights heading into the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2022 Rail Equipment Finance Conference set a tone for normalcy in a rail market finding its footing heading into an uncertain future.

The 330 attendees of the REF 2022 conference were treated to a full roster of 37 speakers over two and a half days.

Here’s a summary of what was said at this year’s conference.

Dr. David Humphrey, REF’s railcar guru from Railinc, noted that the North American railcar fleet shrunk by almost 30,000 railcars. Other notes: Covered hoppers represent more than 50% of the total fleet, and along with tank cars have seen the largest increase in total fleet capacity in the recent era.

Dr. Sergio Rebelo, MUFG Bank Distinguished Professor of International Finance at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, noted that while inflation increases are real and surprisingly high, the recent increases are based on a recent baseline where the reported numbers are showing higher increases than what is actually happening (versus the five year break-even inflation rate).

Wage growth and employment openings remain high. The ongoing war in Ukraine will continue to impact world trade, the energy picture and ongoing polarization of U.S. politics.

Thomas Ellman and Eric Marchetto, CFOs from GATX and TrinityRail, respectively, discussed their ongoing support for Rail Pulse, and the ongoing need for additional and sustainable loadings growth.

Both see interest rates impacting car costs and lease rates, and are expecting current lease rate increases to remain sustainable in the medium term. Employment difficulties are an issue, but less so in Mexico.

Robert Pickel, National Steel Car, sees stronger new railcar demand in 2022, especially in covered hoppers for plastics and grain and in boxcars and intermodal cars. Commodity prices remain the overwhelmingly volatile part of the new car equation.

10 Railway Age // April 2022

Eric Starks, FTR Transportation Intelligence, highlighted the ongoing and sustained demand for trucking while tracking the decreasing rail market share as measured by ton miles. Starks sees new railcar deliveries in 2022 at 43,000; they will advance to 53,000 in 2023 before reducing to below 40,000 in 2024 and 2025.

Philip Baggaley and Edward Murphy from S&P Global Corporate Ratings discussed the uncertain impact of the Ukraine war on North American energy prices and supply chain disruptions. Railroad credits have remained strong with improvements in operating ratio (OR) with decreased loadings levels. S&P does not see any additional railroad mergers post Canadian Pacific/Kansas City Southern.

Jesse Crews, Trinity Industries, discussed the tank railcar market, noting that 81% of the tank railcar fleet is owned by private investors and that 60% of the tank railcars are less than a decade old.

The tank railcar fleet has increased loadings by roughly 30% since 2011.

Oliver Wyman’s Adrienne Bailey discussed the great pivot: the need for North American railroads to pivot away from a focus on OR and toward expanded loadings growth at higher margin levels.

The key statistical takeaway on this point: Since 2006, Class I railroads have freed up 120 million train miles of capacity on the rails. It’s revenue, it’s market share and it’s long-term growth. It’s necessary now.

Ron Sucik of RSE Consulting, covering the intermodal market, expects supply chain difficulties to continue into the second half of 2022 and an ongoing shift to nearshoring. Sucik also sees TTX adding an additional 3,300-6,600 intermodal platform capacity in 2022 and 2023 through a mix of leased cars and new car purchases.

Jeff Blake, The David J. Joseph Co., highlighted the sustainable aspects of the steel industry and its pivot toward a greener future with lighter railcars with increased capacity.

John Ward, National Coal Transportation Association, had the first-ever REF reference to Joan Didion (The Year

of Magical Thinking) while discussing the ongoing regulatory struggle to move coal on the rails. Although loadings have increased due to natural gas pricing and met coal demand, Ward noted ongoing government regulatory pressure. Coal is being pressured by railroad service and maintenance issues.

Watco’s Stefan Loeb highlighted short line railroading’s positive growth and entrepreneurial bend. Investment in the segment is at all-time high levels. Watco has pivoted to focusing on terminal applications for service in addition to strategic rail line growth. Short lines can be a firstand last-mile tool to help engineer Class I growth. Watco is also backing Rail Pulse for smoother and more data-driven logistical success.

On boxcars, Ross Corthell, Packaging Corp. of America; Adam Simeon, Union Pacific; and Paul Titterton, GATX, discussed the need for sustainable investment and productivity and for the potential for Rail Pulse to help improve productivity and efficiency. Boxcar market share needs to be expanded and protected.

With almost the entire boxcar fleet being utilized and the fleet shrinking, future investment is key in supporting a market poised for additional growth.

The railcar valuation panel—Edward Biggs, Biggs Appraisal; Patrick Mazzanti, Railroad Appraisal Associates; Sean Hankinson, AITX; and Greg Schmid, Residco—indicated that railcar values (reflecting a broader increase in lease rates across almost all segments) have trended higher in the past 12 months.

This excludes the small-cube covered hopper market (sand and cement), which saw declines in FMV estimates. Biggest surprise? Older 4,750cf covered hoppers continue to show market strength and grip with valuations 30% higher than nominal scrap on a 42-year-old railcar.

PLG Consulting’s Graham Brisben in his energy market overview discussed the demand for renewable diesel, the slowdown in further expansion in the plastics market, and a potential game-changer in the movement of crude from Canada.

On the latter, the movement of DRU railwayage.com

Financial Edge

by rail (under the trademark DRUbit) could increase Canadian crude volumes dramatically.

Mike Cory, retired Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, CN, and Gil Lamphere, Managing Director, Lamphere Capital Management, discussed the post-Precision Scheduled Railroading environment and how the railroads could pivot to renew growth and increase loadings with Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William C. Vantuono. Both acknowledged dropoffs in service that corresponded to a decrease in loadings and the labor pool (rail is not immune to the labor issues impacting other industries) as surmountable obstacles on the road to loadings improvement.

Independent Wall Street analyst Tony Hatch echoed the run-up in short line valuations and explained how the railroads (post-PSR) have indicated they are pivoting toward growth and now need to back up those words with actions. The actions of the next generation of railroad leadership is the narrative driver going forward.

There was also a discussion about the improved focus on technology and excitement about the impending STB hearings on reciprocal switching.

Patrick Hurst closed out the railcar part of REF 2022 summarizing the covered hopper market. Quick takeaways on this market segment: Small cube hoppers are experiencing a “dead cat bounce” (Hurst’s choice of words!), retirements are outpacing replacements on larger capacity cars, PD hopper market continues to be an attractive investment, and plastics hoppers continue to receive further investment.

Day 3 of REF 2022 focused on the locomotive market. As one might expect, a hot topic of discussion was alternative fueling options for North American rail.

The program was led again by Dr. David Humphrey, who said that the locomotive fleet continues to decrease modestly in size while the average and median age of the locomotive fleet in NA continues to rise. What’s the cause? Fewer than 1,000 new locomotives were built in the past five years.

Don Graab, Triangle Brothers and railwayage.com

Associates, LLC, with assistance from Glen Rees (Cummins) and Greg Hall (Knoxville Locomotive Works), introduced a KLWdesigned and Cummins-powered road locomotive in testing on CN that uses a Cummins QSK95 engine. The locomotive is based around Tier 4 compliance with a move to carbon neutrality via use of renewable diesel. The trio discussed the trend in ESG at the Class I level and the long-term need for attention to ESG-related matters.

Glen Rees’ presentation can be summed up with the phrase: “Getting to zero (emissions) is not a light switch.” Cummins plays a leadership role in carbon-neutral engine tech. Starting with trucking and moving to locomotives, Cummins outlined its vision of the pathway toward a carbon-neutral future, including the idea of post-2030 hydrogen-based locomotive solutions.

Peter Thomas from Wabtec focused on the Wabtec path forward for renewal of the existing locomotive fleet by applying technology and turning the locomotive fleet toward more carbon-neutral positioning.

It originates with Wabtec’s FLXdrive 2.0 battery locomotive and moves to hydrogen (starting with rail yard-based solutions) and then to the road locomotive heading into a similar 2030 time frame.

Tom Chenoweth from NRE discussed NRE’s role in the CP hydrogen locomotive project and a variety of NRE’s battery and hydrogen locomotive designs. There was an additional discussion on the potential for Tier 5 emissions rules, how the industry might work on a phase-in of those regulations, the impact on existing tier level emissions standards, and on locomotives impacted by a significant change in the underlying rules. The road forward for locomotive owners is not likely to get easier to understand.

Stuart Biggs, Biggs Appraisal, discussed the changing locomotive fleet and the weak new-build market. While rebuilding continues, the Umler files do not require restatement or elimination of non-utilized or under-utilized units. Therefore, the addition of 140 SD40 locomotives into the national fleet while completely irrational technologically and operationally is data feasible. Go figure.

David Scott of CNGmotive discussed the pathway to carbon neutrality through the use of renewable methane. This is a solution with proven technology available right now. Most important, locomotive technology already uses natural gas as a fuel, so a conversion to the utilization of renewable and/or synthetic methane is an easy pivot with immediate environmental impact and a cost structure that aligns with current fuel expenses. CNG is looking for a sponsor railroad to help advance the cause of carbon neutrality by embracing a test of CNG in North America.

Jason Kuehn, Oliver Wyman, looked at the emissions targets of the Class I railroads while addressing the unique challenges facing emission curtailment in North American rail (length of haul and network interoperability). He noted that biofuels do not represent a long-term solution to the emissions puzzle. He also noted the challenges in converting line haul units to hydrogen for broad-based use. Key takeaway: The issues regarding curtailment of GHCs are economic rather than technological.

To close REF 2022, the locomotive appraisal panel— Patrick Mazzanti, Greg Schmid and Rick Orty, Metro East Industries—took the stage. While lower horsepower units continue to hold value, larger, six-axle units are showing some weakness.

The high horsepower used locomotive market continues to suffer from oversupply and market contraction.

Fun in the sun (and in the conference ballroom) at REF 2022. Great people, great speakers and great content. See you next year at REF 2023!

Got questions? Set them free at dnahass@ railfin.com.

DAVID NAHASS President Railroad Financial Corp.

Railway Age // April 2022 11

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

VERMONT RAILWAY

Vermont Railway

R

ailway Age’s 2022 Short Line of the Year is the Vermont Railway (VTR).

Part of the Vermont Rail System, this Class III serves its namesake state and adjoining portions of New York and New Hampshire, and also won the Railway Age 2012 Short Line of the Year award. Following is the story of its ambitious main line tunnel reconstruction project, as told by the railroad.

Established in 1964, the Vermont Rail System now operates more than 400 miles of track and hauls in excess of 25,000 freight cars per year, with more than 90% of that railwayage.com

traffic serving local business. It employs 150 dedicated railroaders. The company also runs seasonal excursion and dinner trains, and provides complete freight car repair and inspection services from its certified car shop facility in North Walpole, N.H. Over the past 58 years, VTR has embraced change and welcomed opportunity, all while staying true to the mission statement: “Serving America’s Industry With Pride.”

In 2019, VTR embarked on a main line tunnel reconstruction project with the state of Vermont, in conjunction with the town of Middlebury, New England Central Railroad (NECR), lead designer VHB,

Kubricky Construction Corp., and Engineers Construction Inc., as well as numerous other parties.

The two Middlebury bridges, often referred to as tunnels, were built in the 1920s. They not only provided access over

April 2022 // Railway Age 13

the railroad tracks and a 20-foot-deep rail corridor, but also ran through and tied together the National Register-listed Middlebury historic downtown business district. However, they had become structurally deficient, threatening safety for vehicles, bicyclists and pedestrians above, and the operation of the railroad below.

The corridor had been plagued by drainage issues that resulted in continued speed restrictions along with vertical and horizontal clearance limitations.

The Middlebury tunnel project put the VTR main line out of service for 10 weeks during construction, which included severing and rebuilding 3,500 linear feet of railroad track, crossties and ballast; excavating tens of thousands of cubic yards of soil and bedrock; constructing a new drainage system by microtunneling through solid rock 30 feet below grade; assembling 422 individual pieces of precast concrete fabricated in New York; and reconstructing both Main Street and Merchants Row, including new sidewalks and lighting. For close to a year prior to the shutdown, VTR had to adjust its daily train operations to accommodate tight 20-hour work windows and to minimize impacts on customers. To guarantee rail customers uninterrupted service during the shutdown—a priority for VTR—all rail traffic through Middlebury was diverted onto an alternate NECR route that ran on the opposite side of the state.

VTR, working closely with the Vermont Agency of Transportation (VTrans) and NECR, established a plan for two detour trains each day. The trains were powered by eight GMTX GP-38-2s leased by VTR and operated over NECR from Burlington to Bellows Falls, Vt.; additional train crews were also brought in, and trained and qualified on both railroads. In some cases, partial off-loading or complete transloading of product from railcar to truck was required at VTR’s Riverside Reload Center in Bellows Falls, before cars could be accepted onto the detour route.

VTR had one important goal: No direct impact to customers. Thanks to years of planning and strong VTR-NECR communication—and despite the pandemic—there were no customer complaints, according to VTR President Selden Houghton.

While work continued in and around the tunnel until spring 2021, the rail line 14 Railway Age // April 2022

railwayage.com

VHB

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

“coming together for the common good” was key to managing project complexity and pandemic-related challenges. “The

team members both in and outside of Vermont Rail System were instrumental in making this project a success,” he said.

Vermont Railway

through Middlebury officially reopened on Sept. 18, 2020.

The project was a success for VTrans, Middlebury, and VTR and its customers.

Houghton reports that the state-of-theart infrastructure not only accommodates the “high and wide” shipments of tomorrow—vertical clearance was increased by more than three feet by excavating downward—but also significantly enhances a historic Vermont town—maintaining the existing roadway profiles and avoiding impacts to the adjoining sidewalks and historic buildings.

The completion of this project also helps pave the way for Amtrak’s long-awaited service extension into Burlington later this year. Vermont Rail System currently hosts the Ethan Allen Express from New York City into Rutland, Vt., and is pleased to support the state of Vermont in its efforts to expand this service to the “Queen City.”

VTR’s Houghton credits the teamwork of all parties involved in the project, saying a focus on quality customer service and

railwayage.com

April 2022 // Railway Age 15

Regional of the Year

R

ailway Age’s 2022 Regional Railroad of the Year is the South Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad (SKOL), a Watco subsidiary. Below, the Class II—also selected as the Railway Age 2008 Regional of the Year—shares how partnerships and customer-centricity have led to its success.

The 433-mile SKOL runs through southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma, and serves 81 rail customers at 94 locations. It transports mineral, chemical, agricultural and industrial products. Volumes exceed 60,000 carloads per year.

Southeast Kansas is known for its rich mineral deposits, including coal, zinc, lead and calcite. Calcite is the primary component of limestone, which is used 16 Railway Age // April 2022

in the production of cement—SKOL’s largest commodity. Grain is SKOL’s

SKOL customers were in dire need of increasing their carload weights to the 286K standard. second-largest commodity with crops of c or n, w he at a nd s oy b e a n s g row i ng

in sout heast Ka nsas.

SKOL customers were in dire need of increasing their carload weights to the industry standard 286K. To accommodate such heavier carloads, SKOL sought a CR ISI Prog ra m g ra nt to improve ra i l infrastructure. It enlisted help from the Watco corporate team and sponsorship from the Kansas and Oklahoma departments of transportation to submit a request.

In 2020, the Federal Railroad Administration awarded SKOL $27 million to upgrade track; replace rail, ties and ballast; and repair bridges and crossings, so 80% of the railroad, or more than 300 miles of track, could be brought up to 286K standards. The total capital project value, with matches from the railroad and the states of Kansas and Oklahoma, railwayage.com

Jay Hastings/South Kansas & Oklahoma

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was $41 million. Despite the pandemic— with a shortage of labor and materials and a disrupted supply chain—work began in 2021 and completion is slated for the end of this year.

The upgraded transit times for most trains will be cut by half, and train speeds will increase from 10 mph to 25 mph on much of the upgraded track. Due in part to these improvements, Watco customer Bartlett Grain chose to build a $350 million soybean crushing facility along the line in Kansas. When it opens at the end of 2023, 6,000 annual carloads of grain will be added to SKOL to feed the new plant. Watco also anticipates an additional 1,500 carloads of soybean oil and biodiesel to be generated in conjunction with the crushing facility. To handle this new traffic, SKOL is projected to spend an additional $46 million to upgrade the 18 Railway Age // April 2022

remainder of the railroad to 286K. Customer-focused, SKOL teamed with BNSF in May 2020 to provide unit train

SKOL teamed with BNSF in May 2020 to provide unit train service for a longtime fertilizer customer. service for longtime fertilizer customer Coffeyville Resources. The SKOL team moves fertilizer from Coffeyville to

Columbus, Kans., to interchange with BNSF for continuation to Nebraska, an important market for Coffeyville Resources, whose product is used on the corn grown there. To help facilitate efficient service, SKOL uses BNSF locomotives; trains are staged in Columbus and ready for the Class I railroad crew. Since the project began, the regional railroad has moved seven unit trains of 90 cars per train.

Only weeks after the unit train service was under way, a fire damaged a 505-foot-long wooden trestle bridge in southeast Kansas, interrupting cement, rock and sand traffic, as well as grain product moves to the Port of Catoosa.

SKOL again partnered with BNSF, and within days, had an agreement in place to keep cars moving.

SKOL customer Cornejo Materials railwayage.com

South Kansas & Oklahoma

Regional of the Year

Regional of the Year

incident, but the Watco team did a great job of communicating and worked with us throughout the whole process, and we couldn’t have asked for more cooperation from them than what they provided.

A class act, and they went above and beyond to provide world-class customer service during a difficult time.”

The bridge repair, originally estimated to take 30 days, took only 16. The ability to make up so much time and pass that along to customers was due to detailed

planning, daily briefings and debriefings; well-coordinated delivery of vast quantities of treated bridge timber; and seamless cooperation among multiple contractors, including two major bridge companies that performed safely as one team.

“The Watco/SKOL team is all about getting it done,” says Cornejo Vice President of Aggregate Sales Chris Blasdel.

“When presented a challenge, they have always responded with a solution.”

Jay Hastings/South Kansas & Oklahoma

in Kansas has a sand plant in Oxford, a quarry in Moline, and a stone yard in Wichita. It told the regional that the communication during the bridge outage was excellent and crucial for staffing.

Another customer, Ash Grove Cement, noted that SKOL helped find alternate carriers and handled billing for all parties. “Our customers never missed a beat,” says Mark Kreiser, Manager of Logistics and Marketing ServicesCentral Region. “It was an unfortunate

railwayage.com

April 2022 // Railway Age 19

Technology Focus — M/W Pictured: Specialty Southern Yellow Pine bridge timbers (Dense Select Structural Grade, Kiln Dried to 25% MC) from Gross & Janes Company.

CROSSTIE

MARKET OUTLOOK Suppliers cover today’s often challenging crosstie market—from the latest products, treatments and tools to sustainability and end-of-life planning.

hile the crosstie industry faces continued pandemicand weather-related supply chain challenges, 2021’s passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) offers encouragement. To find out the impacts on projects for 2022 and beyond, Railway Age turned to the Railway Tie Association (RTA) and suppliers, which also provided a market outlook and the latest on products, treatments and tools.

RTA RTA is forecasting the purchase of 18.669 million new wood crossties in 2022, comprising 14.230 million by the Class I railroads and 4.439 million by smaller markets. This is up 1.9% from 2021, when a total of 18.326 million crossties were purchased by Class I’s (14.230 million) and smaller markets (4.096 million).

RTA expects 2023 will see a 2.0% boost

20 Railway Age // April 2022

from 2022 estimates, with the purchase of 19.046 million ties, including 14.603 million by the Class I’s and 4.444 million by the smaller markets.

Wood maintains a 93%-plus market share for ties installed in North America, according to RTA, with concrete and steel and/or plastic/ composite ties having about 6.5% and 0.5% shares, respectively.

RTA Executive Director Nathan E. Irby outlined the 2022 crosstie outlook for Railway Age. “Wood crosstie primary production is marginalized due to commodity pressures, labor inconsistencies, machinery/equipment (supply chain) shortages, Canadian tariffs, rising fuel prices and weather (seasonality) issues,” he reported. “To qualify each would require a dissertation, but the focal points are commodity pressure and shortages. Hardwood lumber for solid-wood flooring and pallet stock saw such high swings in pricing starting Q4 2020, and are just now showing

signs of plateauing; they dominated sawmill production and left many crosstie purchasers wanting more for well over a year now.

The pandemic-related supply chain shortages and labor inconsistencies continue to plague many sawmill producers to run efficient and full shifts. Raw material (log) supply is fair-togood for most sawmills right now, but spring rains/bottomland flooding will likely cause some disruption in flow, albeit those being normal challenges.

“In summary, I see no significant increase in wood crosstie primary production in calendar-year 2022, yet I postulate there will be enough to go around. One factor keeping us from falling into a dreaded tie shortage is the end user, i.e. railroads. They are having some of the same labor inconsistencies/supply chain shortages (not to mention record-level inflation that may alter/lower capital budgets for the immediate future) and may not need as many ties because they simply cannot get railwayage.com

Gross & Janes Company

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them installed into track.”

Technology Focus — M/W As for IIJA’s impact with more federal dollars available for railroad infrastructure programs, Irby said that it will “certainly assist in providing some much-needed funding for maintenance of rail systems in various capacities, especially those that have been on the backburner for some time. Chuck Baker, President of the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, is actively connecting/observing municipalities and short line and regional railroads co-funding projects in piecemeal fashion that will get a host of things accomplished to improve rail systems in towns/cities and industrial leads.

“As for the Class I’s, they are keeping that information closely guarded for now, and as aforementioned, they are bearing their own burdens despite potential dollars available in the far future. As wood crosstie production hopefully realizes gains as other commodities soften and labor becomes more consistent, normalization of supply/demand is expected and much welcomed. That might catalyze a slight boost in above-normal annual demand due to railroad funding and their ability to act.”

Irby told Railway Age while railroad wood crosstie replacement programs (annualized) “are mostly flat from year to year with a variance, in general, of only a couple hundred thousand year to year, for main line track ties, yard ties and industrial leads,” bridge, road crossing panels and specialty ties “are in a near-constant state of high demand due to the low number of producers able to perform such tasks.”

This has accelerated recently, Irby reported, “due to a larger wood crosstie treater on the West Coast closing its doors and further shortening the list of approved suppliers the railroads can use. So, shrunken supply of switch-machine, signal ties, turnouts, and bridge timber producers, plus more roads seeking slightly increased demand for engineered wood products for such—compared with solid-sawn products—are all factors contributing to higher demand. Those suppliers with the ability to elevate and custommachine wood into small-batch orders for bridges and road crossings will be busy for the foreseeable future.”

Irby said that research and development “is centered around extending tie service life in track.” RTA’s ongoing—since 2008—and collaborative industry research projects are monitoring crosstie treatment performance.

Railroads, too, are engaged in R&D. Irby reported they are: • “Exploring crosstie railcar-type alterations to reduce human exposure during 22 Railway Age // April 2022

unloading at trackside.

• “Conducting small-scale, RFID tagging of individual crossties to track treatment, wood species performance, etc.

• “Employing track/crosstie mobile inspection vehicles that ride the rails and x-ray system components for wear and vulnerability.

• “Performing remedial treatments of high-value bridge and road crossings with pastes, plugs, rods, and combinations of each with secondary preservative delivery methods to extend service life of ties/timbers already in place.”

As for crosstie disposal, Irby explained that “the fundamental value proposition comes to play, as the age-old challenges of supply/demand, environmental regulations and chain-of-custody prevail.” Railroads’ two main options for used crosstie disposal are landfilling or grinding for cogeneration.

“On the R&D side of the spectrum, many are working on the capture of the carbon content of wood and improving how used ties are processed to separate the preservatives from the wood,” Irby said. “Therein lies some potential harmony of lowering the environmental impact and a gain of a value-added product, but the extent of each and the embodied energy costs associated with them keep revealing ‘bad math’ until, perhaps, some new technology will emerge to right the equation.

Environmental regulation will ultimately steer the outcome of used ties and how many go to where, and how quickly that has to happen.”

ARXADA (FORMERLY LONZA WOOD PROTECTION) In 2021, Lonza Wood Protection was purchased by a private equity firm and branded as Arxada. The company is seeing high demand for all types of wood products, from paper to lumber to ties to poles, Industrial Specialist Tim Carey told Railway Age. “That demand is causing supply issues much like we have seen in other industries. On a positive note, even though wood products are sought with greater urgency than in the past, the supply is solid, and they are still a good value for all applications, including ties. Long term, we look to see a continued growth in the supply and use of treated wood products.”

Current Arxada projects include “maximizing treating efficiency and the supply of product for treated wood suppliers,” Carey reported.

“We continue to monitor the performance of our Chemonite® ACZA and Chemonite® ACZA plus Borate ties as well as our creoborate ties treated with our borate additive.”

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ENCORE RAIL SYSTEMS INC. At Encore, customers continue to ask for quality, reliability and increased safety, according to Nick Delmonico, Director of Sales and Marketing. “Our ride-on equipment continues to be the safest tie plugging equipment on the market,” he told Railway Age. With continual upgrades, the company’s equipment maintains higher uptimes, resulting in greater reliability, he added.

Also important to customers: in-stock products. While the “supply chain has affected us all,” Delmonico said, “Encore has been able to leverage suppliers to ensure that our machine parts and EnduraPlug tie-plugging compound is in stock and ready to ship.”

This is critical as railroad maintenance is up, with more work to come as spring approaches, he noted.

A new customer for Encore is CSX, which recently leased an Encore Ride-On Tie Plugging Machine.

What’s new in terms of R&D? The company is currently working on technology advancements to “better service our customers and allow for easier maintenance of our machines,” Delmonico reported. “More to come on this as we progress.”

FTS TOOLS LLC In February 2022, Focused Technology Solutions Inc., a Marmon/Berkshire Hathaway company, agreed to a sales licensing deal with FTS Tools LLC. It has licensed the patents and trade marks of its battery-operated, railroad maintenance-of-way (m/w) tool line to FTS Tools LLC, a new company based in Lynchburg, Va., which will manufacture, distribute and sell the licensed products under the same brand. (Berkshire Hathaway does not own FTS Tools.) Hackettstown, N.J.-based Focused Technology Solutions will concentrate on product development.

FTS Tools LLC President Van Fry told Railway Age that it is “hard to keep our railwayage.com

Arxada

continue to perform well, he said, “even in an environment in Southwest Florida that is so harsh that well-treated creosote ties only last five to seven years. Our last inspections of the Chemonite® ACZA ties were at eight years and they were still performing well.”

Technology Focus — M/W battery-operated tools on the shelf, especially with the high oil and gas prices. We are seeing an even faster push to go from the road and onto the rails. And with the hi-rail traffic, work crews can get on and off the tracks quicker with battery-operated tools as opposed to hydraulics tools.” The long-term outlook is strong, he said, “especially since Class I’s are looking to mandate the move to battery-operated tools.”

Federal grants, he noted, will only enhance the progress of these tools.

The company has signed major contracts with two large transit agencies to outfit their crews and trucks with battery-operated tools, and Fry noted that several initiatives are in the pipeline. “We will be coming out with a few new developments,” including EclipEase and a “unique measuring device for rail,” he said.

GROSS & JANES COMPANY Strong crosstie and switch tie demand will continue well into the next two years, Gross & Janes Company President Bill Behan told Railway Age. It will be fueled by infrastructure needs and lower overall production of

crossties. “As an industry, we have not resumed pre-pandemic levels of production,” he said.

“This short-fall continues today and may become a ‘new normal.’”

The company is currently working to improve its back-office procurement and payment process. “This includes same-day payment via ACH to sawmill providers and real-time inventory accounting,” Behan said.

“To date, 96% of all crosstie purchases in seven U.S. States are paid via this new method.”

KOPPERS INC. While 2021 saw record pricing and demand for hardwood lumber products, such as residential flooring and pallets, making it challenging for treaters to procure green ties, Koppers is seeing improvement heading into 2022, according to Melissa Skoko, Director of Marketing, Railroad Products and Services.

“Lumber price, we believe, has peaked, and that should help us to be able to procure more ties,” she told Railway Age. Skoko reported that creosote supply is expected to be tight, however. “The primary

raw material that creosote is produced from is coal tar, a byproduct of the coking process in the steel industry,” she explained. “As the steel industry adds new capacity or replaces capacity, it is switching to a different technology— electric arc furnace—which does not use coke.

Therefore, coal tar is projected to be in a limited supply, which means the supply of coal tar, and therefore creosote, will become challenging.”

Koppers, however, produces creosote internally, so “we are really uniquely positioned to help maintain surety of supply,” she said.

Koppers is currently boosting capacity at its North Little Rock, Ark., tie treating facility, where it is transitioning to a new set of cylinders. The new equipment is expected to be operational by the end of the year.

NARSTCO Senior Director of Sales and Marketing Matt Violin told Railway Age that NARSTCO continues to see “steady growth and acceptance” of steel ties and turnouts in North America. “Many customers are realizing the benefits of building their track with steel ties

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NARSTCO continues to see “steady growth and acceptance” of steel ties and turnouts in North America.

based on reduced ballast volumes, product availability, faster track construction and the use of recycled U.S. steel,” he reported.

“Companies and project teams continue to push the importance of sustainability in their

decision-making process, and many have recognized NARSTCO steel ties and turnouts as a perfect fit to support this initiative.”

Additionally, the company is seeing growth in projects supporting the petrochemical

industry. “Port and intermodal growth will continue to be an area of focus for NARSTCO, especially with the emphasis on improving supply chains,” Violin said.

“The North American automotive and steel industries are also poised for rapid growth with demand at an all-time high. We are also seeing an uptick in track rehabilitation projects for Class Is, short lines and privateindustry track, where aging wood tie and turnout infrastructure is being replaced with long-lasting steel ties and turnouts. Lastly, transit projects continue to expand their operations and coverage with new maintenance facilities and layover yards, which are a perfect fit for steel ties in some areas.”

NARSTCO’s most recent development is an improved steel tie for concrete-encased track installations. “Many warehouses, terminals and car shops are designing concrete-encased track and incorporating this design into their standards,” Violin reported.

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Technology Focus — M/W and Cellutreat liquid borate is up for 2022, according to Ken Laughlin, Divisional Vice President, Wood Preservation, who says continued growth in the railroad market is expected. Even though sawmill production has not increased, he told Railway Age, “housing continues with dramatic growth.

Railroads will most likely be increasing m/w spending with the increase in funding from IIJA. Hopefully, the sawmills will be able to get the logs they need and keep pace with demand.

“The long-term outlook is excellent [for Nisus]. Our BTX treatment product is increasing every day, and we are seeing volumes increasing in the utility pole market.” Shortterm, the company is concerned with the price of diesel fuel and “how it will affect both the railroads and our treaters,” Laughlin said.

What are customers asking for? “BTX treatment for bridge ties is by far our most requested product,” Laughlin reported.

“The ability to dual-treat green bridge ties enables railroads to get the same protection they do for dual-treated crossties. Most Class I railroads are specifying QNAP copper

30 Railway Age // April 2022

naphthenate on all their bridge ties.”

Nisus continues to test an accelerated diffusion process “to enable the borate treatment of crossing timbers and switch ties, helping to extend the life of those products,” Laughlin said. Additionally, it has been researching, extracting and reusing preservatives from ties at end of life. “We have also conducted promising research on tie degradation and gasification, which produces energy by superheating ties without oxygen,” he said.

STELLA-JONES CORPORATION “At Stella-Jones, we are facing the same challenges as most industrial markets in the U.S. post COVID-19,” Vice President, Railway Tie Marketing George Caric told Railway Age. “We have labor shortages affecting our plant production [and] operating costs increases due to higher prices being paid for green crossties and all the components needed to produce crossties. The good news is that the demand for our products is very strong. This is due to the demand for rail transportation, which is fueling growth projects, as well as plenty of

grant money being made available to regional and short line customers to promote infrastructure improvements.

“We have seen a decline in crosstie production due to the same issues facing all industries in 2022: shortage of workers, higher fuel prices, and, in our industry, record storms and bad weather across our tie production regions.”

Areas of demand, Caric said, are “bridge ties, as the railroads have started to focus on the conditions of their bridges,” and “Boratetreated ties to extend the life of the tie.”

TIETEK GLOBAL LLC Demand remains strong for TieTek Global’s engineered polymer composite crossties, switch ties, bridge ties, crossing ties and custom profiles, according to President Linda Thomas, and the company continues to increase production capacity. TieTek’s crossties, she said, “demonstrate strong performance and extended service life in high-decay areas and severe environments such as tunnels, bridges, bridge approaches and grade crossings.”

Continued on p. 41.

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RAILINC FREIGHT CAR REVIEW 2022

HEAVYWEIGHTS DOMINATE

R

ailinc’s annual analysis of the North American revenueearning fleet reveals that the total fleet decreased in 2021 with all car types accounting for the loss. The average age of cars in the revenue-earning fleet was up, and new cars again trended large, with the majority having gross rail loads (GRL) of 286,000 pounds.

This report from Railinc represents the period ending Dec. 31, 2021. It provides an industry overview of the North American railcar fleet, detailing essential rail equipment statistics and overall rail equipment trends.

Railinc compiled all data in the report from its Umler® system, a powerful tool for tracking the physical characteristics, transportation management, and pool assignments of virtually every piece of rail equipment in North America. It has more than two million pieces of rail equipment data in its inventory and nearly one million real-time updates each month.

The revenue-earning fleet is a subset of the North American rail fleet that is largely composed of freight cars that can be used in interchange service and against which an 32 Railway Age // April 2022

interline waybill can be placed. In context, the revenue-earning fleet totaled 1.62 million units at the end of 2021, while the total count for railroad equipment of all types was 2.07 million units. That total is the result of the inclusion of locomotives, end-of-train (EOT) devices, and other miscellaneous non-revenue earning equipment in the total fleet count.

The revenue-earning fleet is made up of six subfleets: hoppers, covered hoppers, gondolas, flats, tank cars and boxcars. This revenueearning fleet of freight cars excludes locomotives, intermodal trailers and containers, maintenance-of-way equipment, and end-oftrain devices.

Because not all intermodal trailers and containers are registered in the Umler® system, Railinc does not report them as part of the revenue-earning fleet.

In general: • Total fleet size was down 1.4% from yearend 2020 to year-end 2021, compared with a 1.0% decrease the previous year.

• All car types in the revenue-earning fleet recorded losses. It was the 12th consecutive year of decline for hoppers, down

5.9%. Gondolas were also down, by 3.4%.

Boxcars—the least populous car type— were down by 1.8%.

• The average age of the revenue-earning fleet was up in 2021. The average age of the fleet increased to 19.8 years, suggesting new cars were joining the fleet at a slightly lower rate than older cars were exiting during the previous year.

• The trend of GRL 286 cars predominating among additions to the revenue-earning fleet continued in 2021. The number of GRL 286 cars added to the fleet declined by about 7% in 2021. However, these cars accounted for 96% of all new additions in 2021 and about 86% in the past decade.

2021 marked the first year no GRL 220 cars were added to the fleet. Larger cars enable operational efficiencies that reduce costs and ease logistics challenges.

The revenue-earning fleet realized a net decrease of 24,000 cars in 2021. At the end of 2021, the revenue-earning freight car fleet totaled 1.62 million units, down 1.4% from the previous year (see Figure 1, opposite).

Hoppers primarily drove losses in the railwayage.com

Bruce Kelly

BY DAVID HUMPHREY, PH.D., SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST, RAILINC CORP., FOR RAILWAY AGE

RAILINC FREIGHT CAR REVIEW 2022 revenue-earning fleet, decreasing by 5.9% from 2020. Gondolas, flats and boxcars also fell in 2021, all decreasing by at least 1% from 2020.

No car type recorded gains.

The average age of railcars in the revenueearning fleet in 2021 was 19.8 years, a 0.2-year increase from 2020 and a return to 2014 levels.

The average age has fluctuated between 19.5 and 19.6 years since 2015 (see Figure 2, below).

The slight increase in the age of the fleet in 2021 suggests that new cars are being added at a slower rate than old cars are exiting.

Fewer than 30,000 new cars have joined the revenue-earning fleet in each of the past two years (see Figure 3, p. 34). 2021 saw the thirdlowest total of new cars added since 2000.

Railcars with a GRL of 286,000 pounds have made up most of the new additions to the revenue-earning fleet in the past 25 years. Over that time, GRL 286 cars have accounted for 82% of all new additions to the fleet. This trend continued in 2021, as 96% of the new equipment was GRL 286 cars (see Figure 4, p. 34). The number of GRL 263 cars added in 2021 decreased by about 1,160 cars from 2020.

GRL 286 cars dominate among recent additions to the fleet because they enable operational efficiencies that reduce costs and ease logistics challenges. The fleet continues to add GRL 263 and GRL 268 cars, but at a much lower rate than GRL 286 cars. 2021 marked the first year no GRL 220 cars were added to the fleet.

The last year non-GRL 286 cars led among new additions to the fleet was 1992.

SUBFLEET TRENDS More than 700 equipment type codes (ETCs) appear in the Umler® equipment registry. Of those, 10 ETCs accounted for 53% of the revenueearning fleet in 2021. For the seventh time since Railinc began producing this report in 2011, nine of the top 10 car types were either tank cars or covered hoppers—the two largest car types in the revenue-earning fleet. The 2021 rankings saw a slight change compared with the previous year, with T389s rising one spot to seventh place, which moved T108s to eighth place.

As the demographics of the car types change, so does the average car size and the total combined capacity of all the units in a car type. For example, with the growth in the tank car population, the total tank car fleet capacity has increased by 55.7% since 2009.

Most new tanks are large, which has pushed the average car size up by 7.9%. The total fleet capacity for covered hoppers has increased, railwayage.com

FIGURE 1: NORTH AMERICAN FREIGHT CAR FLEET, BY GROUP. COUNTS AT YEAR-END, SHOWN IN THOUSANDS

FIGURE 2: NORTH AMERICAN FREIGHT CAR FLEET, AVERAGE AT YEAR END. COUNTS AT YEAR-END, SHOWN IN THOUSANDS

as well, by 21.1%. However, the average car size has decreased slightly because most new covered hoppers are small.

In the past decade, the boxcar population has decreased, which has driven down the total boxcar fleet capacity. Large boxcars have joined the fleet, which led to an increase in average car size, but not at a fast enough rate to offset the population loss.

From 2011 to 2016, this report presented data on individual car types grouped by

their capacity and GRL, which is the sum of the weight of the car and the lading within the car, and represents the maximum allowed loaded weight of the car. As of 2017, the report now presents select car types by the kinds of commodities they carry. This provides a more nuanced view of these car types. For example, while covered hoppers carry grain, sand, plastic pellets and other commodities, the types of covered hoppers that transport each commodity are very April 2022 // Railway Age 33

RAILINC FREIGHT CAR REVIEW 2022

FIGURE 3: NORTH AMERICAN FREIGHT CAR FLEET, NUMBER OF CARS BY AGE

FIGURE 4: NORTH AMERICAN FREIGHT CAR FLEET, NUMBER OF CARS BY AGE AND GRL

different in their characteristics.

Railinc continues to present boxcars grouped by GRL because they transport a variety of goods.

Plastics: Covered hoppers are commonly used to ship plastic pellets. This subfleet added about 9,000 cars in the past two years, about 20% of what was added in the previous 10 years combined. C214 cars comprise nearly the entire commodity subfleet, make up 9% of the entire revenue-earning fleet, and are the second-largest equipment type. New railcars have trended large. Of the cars added to the plastics subfleet in the past 20 years, about 94% have a capacity of 6,000 cubic feet or more.

Grain/Fertilizer: Railroads move grain and 34 Railway Age // April 2022

fertilizer in large covered hoppers. The grain and fertilizer subfleet added about 12,000 new cars in the past two years and make up about 17% of the revenue-earning fleet. Two types of covered hoppers—C114 and C113—account for about 96% of this subfleet and are in the top five of the most populous equipment types in the revenue-earning fleet. Larger covered hoppers with capacities of at least 5,000 cubic feet have made up nearly 88% of the additions to the commodity subfleet in the past 20 years.

Sand & Cement: Railroads move sand and cement using small covered hoppers. Over the past 10 years, the revenue-earning fleet has added almost 64,000 covered hoppers with an equipment type code of C112. About 96%

of the subfleet is comprised of C112s, which was the third-largest equipment type in 2021.

Because of the density of sand and cement, the cars that carry these commodities tend to be smaller. Of the cars in the subfleet, almost all have a capacity of just over 3,000 cubic feet.

Only about 4% of the sand and cement cars have capacities less than 3,000 cubic feet, and practically no cars of this size have been added to the subfleet in almost 25 years.

Coal: This commodity is shipped primarily in gondolas and open hoppers. These cars still made up a sizable portion of the revenue-earning fleet in 2020 and 2021—11%, or 176,000 railcars. About 83% of those cars were added between 1990 and 2013. In the past six years, 67 of these cars have joined the fleet; in the past four years, none were added.

Aggregate: Commodities such as limestone and crushed stone are shipped in gondolas and open hoppers. The number of these car types added in 2021 and 2020 was down nearly 58% over the previous two-year period. More than half the cars in the aggregate commodity subfleet have been added in the past 16 years, though they make up only 2% of the total revenue-earning fleet.

Boxcar commodities: Boxcars are used to ship a wide variety of products from consumer goods to automotive parts. Boxcars are the least populous car type and are generally older than other car types. Boxcars with a GRL of less than 286,000 pounds make up about 40% of this car type. Most were built more than 40 years ago.

CONCLUSION The North American revenue-earning railcar fleet shrunk in 2021. The total size of the fleet decreased for the second time in a decade— down 1.4% at year-end 2021 compared with year-end 2020. All subfleets contracted, with hoppers declining the most (5.9%), followed by gondolas (3.4%) and boxcars (1.8%). The average age of cars in the revenue-earning fleet increased to 19.8 years, suggesting new cars are joining the fleet at a slightly lower rate than older cars are exiting. GRL 286 cars continue to predominate among new additions to the revenue-earning fleet. This size car accounted for about 96% of all new additions to the fleet in 2021. Larger cars enable operational efficiencies that reduce costs and ease logistics challenges.

Railinc is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads. For more information, and to download this report and related materials, visit www.railinc.com. railwayage.com

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PASSENGER RAIL FOCUS: SAN DIEGO TROLLEY A San Diego MTS Siemens S700 with a University of California San Diego wrap at UTC Trolley Station.

STILL GROWING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS U.S. LRT’s first modern success story continues to expand after more than 40 years. ight rail transit (LRT) has been transit’s great success story in North America over the past few decades.

After most heritage streetcar systems were wiped out, there were only a few survivors, in cities like San Francisco, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Boston and Toronto. Transit planners and managers in San Diego decided to try something different. They called it the San Diego Trolley to give it a historic-sounding name. It was closer to a “trolley” than the odd-looking buses 36 Railway Age // April 2022

that bear that moniker today, but at the time, it was a new concept in rail transit.

It was LRT, and it started a trend that has continued in numerous U.S. and Canadian cities.

The San Diego Trolley, which operates a 100% Siemens LRV (light rail vehicle) f leet, consists of 65 miles of track on three lines, designated Blue, Orange and Green. Each line navigates downtown San Diego. There are 62 stations, and each line runs a full service day, generally from about 5 a.m. until midnight.

The portion of the Green Line to Santee,

at the northeastern end, runs a slightly shorter service day.

The initial operating segment opened July 26, 1981, making San Diego’s the second-oldest of the “second-generation” LRT systems in North America.

Only Edmonton, Alberta’s LRT, which began operating in 1979, is older. The “f irst-generation” systems were the few su r v ivors f rom t he “G olden Age of t he Streetcar.”

The San Diego Trolley started with the local Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO), the Comprehensive railwayage.com

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Planning Organization (CPO), now known as the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). Planners were looking for a new transit mode in the 1970s, and the Metropolitan Transit Development Board (MTDB) selected LRT in 1977.

Hurricane Kathleen, which struck in September 1976, set the course for the Blue Line, the initial segment. The hurricane destroyed parts of the San Diego & Arizona Eastern Railroad (SD&AE), a freight railroad owned by the Southern Pacific (SP). The SD&AE South Line ran from downtown San Diego to San Ysidro, on the Mexican border. The SP wanted to sell, as long as the buyer was willing to keep 38 Railway Age // April 2022

freight operations going, and the MTDB was willing to buy, but wanted SP to make the repairs. San Diego County wanted to initiate passenger service while keeping freight going, and the deal closed in 1979.

Today, Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary San Diego & Imperial Valley Railroad holds exclusive trackage rights to operate freight service over three lines owned by the SD&AE, itself a subsidiary of MTDB successor San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS). MTS subsidiary San Diego Trolley, Inc. operates and maintains the LRT. The shared-use operation was among the first examples of temporal separation, with freight running between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m., LRT off-hours.

The Trolley’s first phase ran on 15.9 miles of electrified railroad: 14.2 miles of the SD&AE main line, and 1.7 miles of new street-running track in downtown San Diego. It was originally configured for single-track operation with passing tracks, and service would run every 20 minutes. The original cost of $86 million included purchasing the SD&AE, 14 LRVs, and electrification and construction costs. Funding came from state and local revenues, gasoline taxes, and California Transportation Development Act state taxes. Ridership was so strong that the MTDB bought 10 more vehicles and double-tracked the line, a project completed in 1983.

The first expansion, which opened in 1986, ran from downtown to Euclid Avenue on the SD&AE La Mesa Branch.

That was the start of today’s Orange Line, which was extended further to El Cajon in 1989 and beyond the original SD&AE right-of-way to Santee in 1995. The system expanded rapidly between 1990 and 2005. The East Line’s Bayside Connection to the Convention Center and Gaslamp Quarter (a historic neighborhood near downtown on what is now the Green Line) opened in 1995. The South Line (the original segment and today’s Blue Line) moved northward from the original terminal at Civic Center to Little Italy in 1992, and to Old Town in 1996. The following year, service was extended eastward in Mission Valley, on what would later become the Green Line.

The rest of the Mission Valley East extension opened on July 10, 2005. At that time, the line to Santee was split off from the Blue Line and became the Green Line.

There have been three proposals for further expansion: a streetcar line to Balboa Park (site of the 1915 Pacific Exposition and now home to museums in the original buildings); an airport extension; and the proposed Purple Line, which would start at San Ysidro (the Blue Line station at the Mexican border) and proceed north by northwest from there.

None of these proposed lines are under construction at this time, but there was activity elsewhere. Between 2009 and 2015, the Trolley Renewal Project railwayage.com

PASSENGER RAIL FOCUS: SAN DIEGO TROLLEY comprised a series of small projects that upgraded the system. The initiative included replacing worn-out infrastructure, a new signal system, larger shelters, rebuilding stations, and a switch to vehicles with low-f loor boarding on the entire system. Another benefit from the initiative is that the downtown station at 12th and Imperial is now a transfer point used by all three lines.

One proposed expansion did occur, and it opened for service on Nov. 21, 2021. It is the Mid-Coast extension of the Blue Line, running north from Old Town to the University Towne Center, a mall and housing complex. The new line is 11 miles long and includes nine new stations. It proceeds northward from Old Town, makes a right turn in La Jolla to serve the University of California at San Diego (UCSD), and another right turn for the last two stations, giving it a hooklike shape on a map.

According to MTS spokesperson Mark Olson, there were about 60,000 riders

on the first day of operation, when rides were free, and daily ridership on the Blue Line has stayed at that level. Olsen also said that previous ridership had been about 48,000 riders per day; an increase of 12,000, or 25%.

The original operation started with Siemens-Duewag U2 two-section, single-articulated high-f loor-boarding LRVs, similar to those the firm had built for Frankfurt, Germany and were also in use in Edmonton. The 71-vehicle f leet was retired by 2015. Of that class, only pilot car 1001 remains on the property for use as a historic car. 1993-vintage SD-100 high-f loor cars, of which 52 were purchased, had a similar design; the last of these are scheduled for retirement this year.

More-recent orders from Siemens, the 65 S70 US series from 2009 and the 70 S700 US series from 2016 (45 cars) and 2019 (25 cars), are double-articulated, with a short “C” section in the middle, and—most significant—low-f loor boarding. While

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the cars were made at the Siemens factory in Florin, Calif. (near Sacramento), the “US” does not stand for the country of manufacture, but for “Ultra Short”: Their 80-foot length over coupler faces is more than nine feet shorter than the S70 model, the first low-f loor cars on the system, of which MTS ordered 11 in 2004. The S70s are restricted to Green Line service due to their length.

San Diego’s historic streetcar service ended in 1949, but there was a small operation before the coronavirus struck that paid tribute to it: the Silver Line, a downtown loop served by two vintage PCC cars, Nos. 529 and 530, which ran on San Francisco’s Muni system “back in the day” and were repainted in the historic San Diego paint scheme. While they retain their original exterior appearance (except for pantographs that replaced the trolley poles), the interiors have been reconfigured for a wheelchair-accessible spot at the front of the car, and riders board at the center door. Otherwise, the interior

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PASSENGER RAIL FOCUS: SAN DIEGO TROLLEY Car 529, a restored 1946 Presidents Conference Committee (PCC) streetcar on the Silver Line at the Convention Center Station.

sports a historic look. Although the Silver Line is suspended, it is slated to resume on Memorial Day weekend.

San Diego is a historic and scenic city, a walkable city with plenty of sunny weather. It has rail access from Los Angeles on the historic Santa Fe Surf Line: on Amtrak’s Pacific Surf liner trains and on local Coaster trains from Oceanside; a few of which connect with Metrolink trains from L.A. or San Bernardino. All trains still use the historic Santa Fe Depot, built in 1930 and providing connections to the LRT. Scenic and historic destinations like the city’s downtown, the Gaslamp Quarter, Balboa Park and Old Town are on the system, too, and it is now possible to ride north of Old Town on the Blue Line. Old Town is also a transfer point for Coaster service and some Amtrak trains, too. But most significant, the first system in the U.S. acknowledged as “light rail” provides full-time service, has done so for more than 40 years, and now goes to more places than ever.

STAY IN GEAR WITH RAIL GROUP NEWS

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40 RA_RailGroupNews_Half_InGear_2022.indd Railway Age // April 2022 1

railwayage.com 1/10/22 12:50 PM

Technology Focus — M/W Continued from p. 30.

Long term, TieTek composite tie usage will grow “substantially year-over-year as our customer base realizes the true value of purchasing and installing a sustainable composite tie with exponential tie life compared with alternative products with higher life-cycle costs,” she told Railway Age. “TieTek ties can be interspersed with treated wood ties using standard production equipment or installed in new construction to reduce and eventually eliminate on-going tie replacement costs. TieTek ties, which are manufactured using 80% high-grade recycled materials, are recyclable if mechanically damaged or at the end of their useful life. This helps companies address corporate sustainability goals.”

VOESTALPINE RAILWAY SYSTEMS NORTRAK “The Class I railroads added significant infrastructure prior to 2017, resulting in considerable latent capacity compared with current traffic levels,” John Stout, Vice President of Rail Fixation Systems, told Railway Age. “While Nortrak doesn’t expect many new expansion projects, the company is seeing an increase in orders for its concrete Keyway Tie from railroads looking to inject the benefits of concrete into wood tie territory. In the longer term, especially in the transit segment, Nortrak expects a modest recovery in crosstie demand driven by the infrastructure bill, beginning later in 2023.”

Customers regularly request cost-effective products with shorter lead times and consistent on-time deliveries, Stout reported, noting that more recently, shareholders and the public have been insisting that they ensure sustainability as well. “Nortrak has addressed the first request by establishing a vertically integrated supply chain including various machining centers and trackwork plants, but also including its own domestic manganese and ductile iron foundry in Decatur, Ill., with plastics molding for rail pads and insulators, along with a dedicated concrete products factory in Cheyenne, Wyo.,” Stout said. “In the past year, Nortrak has addressed the second request by certifying all its operating facilities to [environmental management standard] ISO 14001:2015.”

The company is currently providing turnouts, crossovers, double crossovers, crossings railwayage.com

and slip switches on concrete ties and direct fixation for the Los Angeles (Calif.) Division 20 project. Additionally, in San Francisco Nortrak is involved in Phase 2 of the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) Hayward Maintenance Complex project, which requires concrete ties, fastening components, turnouts, rail and switch machines, and site preparation and project management.

VOSSLOH TIE TECHNOLOGIES (VTT)/ ROCLA CONCRETE TIE INC. VTT/Rocla Concrete Tie has been producing and supplying ties from its new Canadian plant, which offers heavy-haul, transit and industrial concrete ties and has the capacity to produce more than 250,000 concrete ties per year.

“The Canadian transit and industrial rail market continues to grow as customers are choosing a more cost-efficient, sustainable and longer-lasting product that withstands the demanding Canadian environment year round over traditional ties,” the company told Railway Age. “We have seen a significant reduction in track-outage time when concrete ties have been installed in areas that are prone to flooding and wildfires. Additionally, with the market fluctuations in steel and timber, concrete ties have been the least volatile of all crosstie types in regards to price changes, remaining the lowest upfront and installed cost for new track construction.”

VTT/Rocla Concrete Tie has been producing concrete ties fixed with Under Tie Pads (UTPs). “The demand continues to grow each year as testing data taken over the past several years has shown that concrete ties paired with UTPs drastically expands the life-cycle cost of the ties, ballast and track super structure,” the company said.

WILVACO Wilvaco provides crosstie repair materials to all Class I railroads, which have continued to follow their annual m/w programs, according to Vice President-Performance Products Division Rob Loomis. “While we haven’t seen any real change due to global or political conditions, I do know there is a significant impact from inflation to gas prices on everybody,” he told Railway Age. COVID’s impact remains, but it won’t be as significant this year since materials availability has improved, Loomis noted. Inflated raw material costs also remain: “After 27 years of being in

this business, I suspect we have reached a new plateau of costs. I don’t see them going down, and if they do, we will pass the reduced costs on to our customers.” In the long term, IIJA “will definitely be positive for the Class I’s,” Loomis said. “We’re a little downstream, but hopefully we’ll benefit for the work that we provide them.”

Wilvaco is working most often now on waterproofing bridge decks and performing structural repairs to bridges, including bearing pad repairs. Last year, it introduced Spike Fast IJ-30, an insulated joint repair material that cures in place to isolate the signal and ensure it does not shunt between rails. “It saves railroads time,” Loomis said. “They can quickly and easily make the repair and schedule it for a permanent repair in the future.”

OMAHA TRACK For Omaha Track, tie disposal has been static, and the company has been pursuing new opportunities for disposal, according to President Jeff Peterson. The company is looking into a new process in which ties are ground for an end-user fuel source—different from cogeneration power-plant fuel, the consumers of which are diminishing—he told Railway Age. Additionally, the company is advocating the use of second-hand ties in landscaping.

“The ties are of value,” Peterson explained, “because A) you’re taking this repurposed wood product, which is mostly carbon, that homeowners and contractors can use to offset [the cost] of other building materials, such as concrete blocks that have a pretty substantial carbon footprint. And B) reuse sequesters that [crosstie] carbon for another 50 years, in some instances.”

As long as the creosote-treated ties are used responsibly, he said, they can serve a new purpose—in walls, for instance. (Peterson said the company does not recommend installing second-hand ties in raised gardens or sandboxes or using them near livestock, however.)

“We see this as a more environmentally responsible way to manage some of these second-hand ties,” Peterson said. “Some railroads demand that you destroy the ties, and others have been become more lenient on repurposed use. But we are actively marketing and petitioning the railroads to see these second-hand repurposing opportunities as an environmental benefit.”

April 2022 // Railway Age 41

Figure 3: Train approaching a grade crossing that is constructed with a “fail-safe“ activation circuit.

TIMEOUT FOR TECH

WHEEL AND RAIL

FATIGUE PREVENTION STRATEGIES Three approaches are available.

elcome to “Timeout for Tech with Gary T. Fry, Ph.D., P.E.” Each month, we examine a technology topic that professionals in the railway industry have asked

42 Railway Age // April 2022

to learn more about. This month, we discuss strategies to prevent fatigue failures of steel railway wheels and rails.

We begin by defining “failure” of an engineered system. In a very general sense, an engineered system fails whenever the demand placed on the system

exceeds its capacity. Alternatively, we could define failure as occurring whenever the capacity of a system falls below the demand placed on it. Figures 1 (p. 43) and 2 (p. 44) are different illustrations of these ideas.

The system considered in Figure 1 railwayage.com

Gary Fry

W

By Gary T. Fry, Ph.D., P.E., Vice President, Fry Technical Services, Inc.

TIMEOUT FOR TECH experiences a relatively constant range of capacity, indicated by the blue-shaded region. Meanwhile, the range of demand placed on the system, indicated by the yellow-shaded region, shows substantial variability over time. Points in time when the system risks failing are indicated by red shading. Those are times when peak demands exceed minimum capacities. Figure 1 might represent behavior of a traffic network over a few days, with rush hours causing the system to “fail” in the form of traffic jams.

Conversely, consider Figure 2, which illustrates a system experiencing a relatively constant range of demand against a capacity range that varies substantially over time. Figure 2 might be representative of several years’ operation of a system that experiences deterioration, such as fatigue cracks in railway wheels and rails, along with periodic repairs and/or replacements. The system risks failing whenever the minimum capacities fall below the peak demands.

It is very important to note that both figures contain risks of failure, even though, at all times, the average capacities remain well above the average demands.

The takeaway is this: The only reliable means to keep risks of failure within acceptable limits are to control simultaneously the lower reaches of capacity and the upper reaches of demand, and those a re qu ite of te n i nde p e nde nt f rom one another.

Focusing on preventing fatigue failures of railway wheels and rails, what strategies do we have available to us? Though not equally applicable, there are potentially three: fail-safe design concepts, safe-life protocols, and damage-tolerant protocols. Let’s start with, and dismiss, the first: fail-safe designs.

Fail-safe design concepts are used in the railway industry, with one notable example being the activation of signals and appliances at grade crossings.

Figure 3 (p. 42) is a photograph of a train approaching a grade crossing in a busy residential and shopping district.

This crossing incorporates bells, lights and crossing arms that activate with the approach of a train. In the event of an external power system failure, a backup internal power system comes online to railwayage.com

support continued safe operation of the crossing. If that backup system fails, or if there is some other circuit failure, the crossing arms drop and remain down.

Even in the event of multiple failures of certain external and internal systems, the crossing remains “safe.”

The reason a fail-safe approach is not applicable to the problem of fatigue

The fail-safe approach is not applicable to the problems of wheel and rail fatigue failures. failures of wheels and rails, is a lack of alternatives available to instantaneously replace the function of a wheel or rail that is suddenly and severely structurally impaired. It is certainly possible that a wheel can break in a way that allows it to continue to roll under load, but there is no way to guarantee by design that most fatigue failures of wheels have

that result. It is also possible for a rail to break in a way that allows it to continue to support the passage of loaded wheels.

Again, there is no way to guarantee by design that most fatigue failures of rails have that as an outcome. Fatigue failures of railway wheels and rails cannot be reliably controlled to satisfy the normal expectations for fail-safe systems.

The two remaining strategies are more amenable to this application. Let’s start with safe-life protocols. Under the heaviest axle loads, fatigue cracks take time to develop in railway wheels and rails— usually more than 10 years, even in the most demanding cases and substantially longer in less demanding cases. In general, safe-life protocols aim at removing fatigue-prone components after a predefined level of exposure to their load environment; that is, safely before they are predicted to have any significant fatigue damage present. In this way, the components never really have a chance to fail in fatigue. Successful implementation of safe-life protocols requires substantial testing and computational modeling of the fatigue behavior of the affected components. Inspection, sampling, and other forms of in-service performance verification are also required to ensure that components, in fact, remain free of fatigue damage during their service.

FIGURE 1: Failure relationships between variable demand and constant capacity.

April 2022 // Railway Age 43

TIMEOUT FOR TECH

FIGURE 2: Failure relationships between constant demand and variable capacity, which might reflect system deterioration and repairs over time.

The final strategy is termed “damage tolerant.” As the name implies, this approach allows components to remain in service long enough to develop fatigue cracks. As the fatigue damage progresses, the capacity of the component decreases.

Now refer again to Figure 2. The main operating principles of a damage-tolerant approach are to inspect the components regularly, assess their remaining capacity, and repair or replace them before their capacity falls below the demand that they must support. To this end, the specific objective is to control failure risk by ensuring that the lower reaches of capacity remain safely above the upper reaches of demand.

Specifically, for this approach to be implemented, the fatigue cracks must be detectable before they become a critical size that causes component failure.

For railway wheels and rails, this “crack detectability” requirement introduces a need to specify the minimum fracture toughness of the steel used to manufacture the wheels and rails. At a given load intensity, the higher the fracture toughness of a steel, the larger the crack can be before it causes a failure. The larger the crack, the easier it is to detect.

When applying damage-tolerant approaches to steel components, it is 44 Railway Age // April 2022

a common misconception that fracture toughness increases the fatigue life of the component or prevents fatigue damage altogether. In fact, the effect of higher fracture toughness on the development of fatigue damage per se is not the main issue of concern. Rather, it is that higher fracture toughness allows for larger fatigue cracks to exist in the component before failure, making them easier to detect.

In summary, there are two basic and broadly acceptable strategies to prevent wheel and rail fatigue failures: safe-life protocols and damage-tolerant protocols. For wheels and rails, the current strategy used in North American freight rail transportation is most closely related to a damage-tolerant strategy. Further main line safety gains, in the form of fewer wheel and rail fatigue failures, can be realized through increased definition of the damage-tolerant protocols coupled with increased industry-wide consistency. This is especially an opportunity for reducing fatigue failures of railway wheels.

and fracture behavior of structural metals and weldments. His research results have been incorporated into international codes of practice used in the design of structural components and systems, including structural welds, railway and highway bridges, and high-rise commercial buildings in seismic risk zones. He has extensive experience performing in situ testing of railway bridges under live loading of trains, including high-speed passenger trains and heavy-axle-load freight trains. His research, publications and consulting have advanced the state of the art in structural health monitoring and structural impairment detection.

Dr. Gary Fry is Vice President of Fry Technical Services, Inc. (https://www.frytechservices.com). He has 30 years of experience in research and consulting on the fatigue railwayage.com

People RICHARD DAVEY

MTA NEW YORK CITY TRANSIT HIGH PROFILE: The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority appointed former Massachusetts Secretary of Transportation Richard Davey as President of MTA New York City Transit (NYCT), effective May 2. Davey succeeds Craig Cipriano, who has served as interim President since August 2021 and will assume the role of NYCT Chief Operating Officer. At NYCT, Davey will oversee a 54,000-person workforce, as well as operations for New York City subways, buses, paratransit services and the Staten Island Railway. He is currently serving as Partner and Director of Boston Consulting Group.

Davey’s transit career began in 2003 at Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad Company (MBCR). In 2008, he was promoted to General Manager, and in 2010 took on the General Manager role at Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). He has also held the positions of Vice President, Public/Private Partnerships and Senior Advisor to the CEO at Transdev (2016-17); CEO of Boston 2024 (2015), which led the campaign for Boston to host the 2024 Summer Olympics; and Secretary and CEO of MassDOT (2011-14), where he was responsible for the operation of the state’s highways, bridges and tunnels, and freight and passenger rail programs, as well as 15 regional transit agencies and 36 airports.

“To take over an operation as large as New York City Transit, the goal was to find someone with a diversified transit background and strong leadership skills,” MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber said during the March 23 announcement. “Rich is someone New Yorkers should feel confident in as the agency moves forward with major accessibility improvements and other capacity and reliability-oriented upgrades like signal modernization, as well as megaprojects such as Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway and, in years to come, Governor Hochul’s Interborough Express.”

“I share the same principles as Chair Lieber—delivering on-time and efficient service, welcoming customers to a safe environment, and constantly looking at ways to improve the system,” said Davey, who noted that “living in New York during 9/11 was a seminal moment in my life. My experience being a New Yorker that day at that time is why I am coming back, because public service and public transportation are so important to me.” railwayage.com

J

ennifer Mitchell has moved on from her position as Director of the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) to join the Federal Railroad Administration as Deputy Administrator.

Jennifer DeBruhl has been serving as DRPT Acting Director starting March 18.

Mitchell, one of Railway Age’s 2018 Women in Rail honorees, will serve with Amit Bose, who on Jan. 12 was confirmed as the 15th Federal Railroad Administrator. With more than 25 years of transportation industry experience, Mitchell was first appointed as DRPT Director in 2014 and reappointed in 2018. She has led several high-priority transportation initiatives for the commonwealth, including the recent $3.7 billion deal with CSX to construct the Long Bridge and expand passenger rail in Virginia; legislation that provided dedicated funding and governance reforms for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transportation Authority (WMATA); new sources of transit funding from High Occupancy Tolling projects in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads; creation of the Metro Safety Commission; developing more rigorous and transparent allocation processes for statewide transit funding; extending passenger rail to Roanoke; and opening the “Pulse” Bus Rapid Transit system in Richmond.

HDR has tapped Chip Knowlton as Infrastructure Consulting Business Transformation Director. Knowlton will advise HDR’s public and private clients on infrastructure development and maintenance, working closely with the firm’s employees in asset management, organizational strategic planning, policy development, business process review and improvement, organizational change management, and digital/technology strategy. Knowlton’s 30-year background in advisory services includes work in infrastructure enterprise asset management, business transformations, industrial account portfolio management, software and services sales, and process improvement in the commercial and public sectors. Previously, he founded a management consulting firm, among whose clients was MTA New York City Transit.

April 2022 // Railway Age 45

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46 Railway Age // April 2022

railwayage.com

Ad Index COMPANY

PHONE #

PAGE #

URL/EMAIL ADDRESS

COMET INDUSTRIES

816-245-9415

tjfrancis@cometind.com

22

CSX CORPORATION

904-359-3200

csx.com

17

561-743-7373

SBolte@danella.com

28

ENCORE

303-956-3776

gs@encorers.com

21

GREENBRIER COMPANIES THE

800-343-7188

gbrx.info@gbrx.com

9

HERZOG

816-901-4038

amcclain@hrsi.com

29

KINKISHARYO INTERNATIONAL LLC

732-230-4501

businesssdevelopment@kinkisharyo.com

19

KOPPERS

412-227-2739

grosstj@koppers.com

31

LIGHTRAIL

212.620.7224

jchalon@sbpub.com

7

NEW YORK AIR BRAKE

315-786-5431

Janice.Pfeil@nyab.com

5

POWERRAIL INC

570-883-7005

Sales@ePowerRail.com

15

PROGRESS RAIL A CATERPILLER CO

256-505-6402

info@progressrail.com

C4

PS TECHNOLOGY INC

800-766-1630

info@pstechnology.com

3

RAILWAY EDUCATIONAL BUREAU

402-346-4300

bbrundige@sb-reb.com

40,C3

RELAM

770-335-9273

jroberts@relaminc.com

23

SIEMENS TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS

916-525-2829

lauren.kraft@siemens.com

37

800-272-8437

kdulski@stela-jones.com

25

STRATO INC

732-317-5406

korozco@stratoinc.com

26

TIETEK GLOBAL

281-444-3494

sales@tietekglobal.com

24

TRAINYARD TECH LLC

724-443-8881

cra2@zooninternet.net

30

TRINITY RAIL

800-631-4420

trinityrail.com

35

VOESTALPINE NORTRAK

307-778-8700

gord.weatherly@voestalpine.com

C2

WATCO

620-231-2230

tvanbecelaere@watco.com

12

WVCO

541-484-9621

wvcorailroadsolutions@wilvaco.com

27

DANELLA RENTAL SYSTEMS, INC

STELLA-JONES CORP

The Advertisers Index is an editorial feature maintained for the convenience of readers. It is not part of the advertiser contract and Railway Age assumes no responsibility for the correctness.

AILWAY GE

railwayage.com

April 2022 // Railway Age 47

Perspective: ASLRRA

A Virtual Success—and a Live Opportunity

E

ven as a virtual event, Railroad Day on the Hill continues to be the premier railroad industry lobbying event showcasing the importance, vitality and resilience of American freight rail. Over the course of two full days on March 9 and 10, some 360 rail industry representatives participated in more than 220 Congressional meetings.

Every segment of the freight rail industry was represented, and every participant was able to speak to the importance of railroading in their corner of the country. I thank all the participants, and in particular want to give a well-deserved shoutout to SMART and TCU, which sent more than two dozen representatives. These are the men and women who keep the trains running, and they provided a valuable perspective in each of our meetings.

Each year’s Railroad Day on the Hill focuses on three issues. This year, those issues included full funding and streamlined implementation of the recently passed infrastructure bill (with a focus on the CRISI program and the new grade separation program), preserving balanced economic regulation, and opposition to increasing truck size and weight. The response we received from the Congressional offices was particularly encouraging on two counts. First, in discussing infrastructure programs, there appears to be widespread recognition of the environmental benefits of freight rail. The industry has been preaching that message for many years, and it appears that the message is increasingly understood and appreciated by Congressional decision-makers.

Second, there was a significant “preaching to the choir” response to our truck size and weight position. This was especially heartening as the rail industry is seemingly required to fight this battle in some fashion 48 Railway Age // April 2022

in every session of Congress.

I am pleased to say that the short line industry is going to move from virtual reality to physical reality as we host ASLRRA’s in-person Annual Conference and Exhibition May 1-3 in St. Louis, Mo.—The Gateway City! This year’s event will feature a bustling exhibit hall with more than 175 industry suppliers ready to help address your business challenges, outstanding rail industry-specific education delivered by dozens of expert speakers, and presentations by industry luminaries and those in government who make the policy decisions that directly impact our businesses.

Topics will cover engineering and maintenance-of-way issues, the best in marketing ideas and tools, legal and financial issues, safety, technology, and more. If you need to know it for your job, it’s likely going to be discussed at this conference.

Back in 2022 by popular demand will be the Green Zone in the exhibit hall. A concept introduced at last year’s annual meeting, the Green Zone will feature some 35 companies that provide products and/or services that specifically benefit the environment.

Of particular interest and importance to many will be various sessions explaining the new funding opportunities provided in the recently enacted Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act. This legislation dramatically increases infrastructure funding and provides numerous opportunities for short line railroads to apply directly or in partnership with state or local governmental entities for that funding.

Given this historic level of funding and the difficulty Congress had in reaching a bipartisan agreement, it is not an exaggeration to say this may be a once-in-a-generation opportunity for short line railroads.

Our various breakout sessions on this topic will feature detailed explanations of how each program will work, the timelines for applying, and strategic advice from experts who have written and processed successful applications over many years. It will be the kind of practical how-to information that you will not get from reading the government’s regulatory publications, and it will give you a considerable head start as you

stare down the short 60-to-90-day window for completing applications.

A key scientific breakthrough that would eventually help protect millions from COVID-19 began with a chance meeting at a photocopier in 1997 between Professor Katalin Kariko, who studied messenger RNA technology, and Dr. Drew Weissman, who was trying to harness mRNA to create an entirely new kind of vaccine.

That chance hallway conversation began the collaboration that laid the foundation for the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The ability to meet and converse with your colleagues is the least structured part of our meeting, but can be the most fruitful. You may not be saving the world by attending this meeting, but, hey, you never know! And you will have the opportunity to share ideas and develop relationships that will help create new opportunities and groundbreaking partnerships to solve the problems facing you in the world in which you operate.

You can register for ASLRRA’s Annual Conference at www.aslrra.org/events/ annual-2022/. We’ll see you there!

CHUCK BAKER President ASLRRA

railwayage.com

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232 Brake System Safety Standards Updated 3-21-22.

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