Railway Age November 2021

N OV E M B E R 2 0 2 1

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

Monique Stewart FRA

LEADERS, RECOGNIZED Women in Rail 2021

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

RJ Corman Memphis Line

REGIONAL OF THE YEAR Lake State Railway railwayage.com

August 2017 // Railway Age 1

1,000,000,000

210091

rail anchors installed worldwide!

Shortlines transport freight millions of miles every day — especially when it matters most.

Mile after mile, Progress Rail goes the distance with you.

During these unprecedented times, Progress Rail is there to support our customers with solutions to meet all rail needs. As one of the largest global suppliers of rolling stock and infrastructure products and technologies, we can help you build a sustainable railroad for years to come. n n n n

EMD Locomotives, Engines & Genuine Parts Locomotive & Freight Car Services and Leasing Recycling Services Freight Car Parts

n n n n

Trackwork & Fasteners Signaling Rail Welding MOW Equipment & Leasing

Contact us to see how we can keep your business rolling. +1 800-476-8769 • progressrail.com @progressrail •

@Progress_Rail

AILWAY GE

February 2020 NOVEMBER 2021

31

FEATURES

R. J. Corman

8 31 35 38 40 47 49 51

Women In Rail 2021

DEPARTMENTS

Short Line of the Year

4 6 7 53 54 54 55

Leaders, Recognized

R. J. Corman Memphis Line

Regional of the Year Lake State Railway

Honorable Mentions

Grenada Railroad, Belpre Industrial

Tech Focus – M/W

Ballast Machines Make the Grade

Short Line Safety Institute 100 Safety Culture Assessments

Tech Focus – C&S

From Wayside to Office, Remotely

TTCI R&D

Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People

COMMENTARY 2 56

From the Editor Financial Edge

Professional Directory Classified

COVER PHOTO

Advertising Index

Women In Rail 2021 honoree Monique Stewart, Rolling Stock Equipment and Components Program Manager, Federal Railroad Administration.

Reconditioned Bearing Tests

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. 222, No. 11. 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© 2021 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).

railwayage.com

November 2021 // Railway Age 1

FROM THE EDITOR Fond Memories of Hunter and Stan

H

unter Harrison, who four years ago left for that PSR railroad originating at the Heavenly Gates, where St. Peter, holding a gleaming crystal Hamilton railroad timepiece on a 24-carat gold chain, was waiting for him with the Deus Ex Machina locomotive, is one of those figures whose name keeps popping up when you least expect it.

Yikes! That first paragraph is a singlesentence, 57-word invention of my wandering mind, where creative juices sometimes putrefy. By the way, I don’t speak Latin or Greek (though sometimes my musings may be Greek to you), but in case you were wondering, Deus ex Machina is a Latin calque derived from Greek that means “god from the machine.” Don’t ask me what a calque is. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Just look it up, if you like.

Back to Hunter, who to me was a lot like Stan Kenton (1911-1979), whose often “blaring, screeching, dissonant” style of big-band jazz (said legendary jazz author George T. Simon) usually evoked extremely positive or negative reactions.

My creative juices started flowing here while listening to classic Kenton recordings from his late-1940s “Progressive Jazz” period, like Capitol Punishment, Intermission Riff, Collaboration, Unison Riff, Machito, Cuban Carnival, Monotony and Introduction to a Latin Rhythm. Some people will connect Hunter’s railroad management style to the first tune, though spelled with an “a” instead of an “o” (Capitol was Kenton’s long-time record label).

So yes, I am a Kenton aficionado. I knew him as a high school and college student

during his final touring years in the late 1970s.

I also knew Hunter, though not nearly as well as did Susan K. Rathe, who worked for him at the Burlington Northern and Illinois Central in transportation and service design roles, devising computerized methods for things like schedule performance and car trip planning.

Fond Memories of Hunter Harrison, which appears on our website in the Opinion section, is Sue’s tribute to the man whose personality she says “will never again be replicated. Being a woman in a male-dominated industry, and working with Hunter on and off during the course of nearly 20 years, provided me with a unique perspective of his business acumen and his personality. You may heartily agree or disagree with my interpretations of this unique man, but I can guarantee, no one who ever met Hunter left the room without having formed a strong opinion. Throughout my career, both in the railroad industry and in cancer research, I have been blessed with amazing mentors. But the individual who steered my course in the most dramatic directions was definitely Hunter Harrison. He provided me with many technical challenges, and rewarded my efforts with offhanded praise and valuable business insights. He explained business strategies in a way that convinced me he had the ability to look at business problems in three dimensions, while the rest of us struggled to see them in two.”

Progressive Jazz and Precision Scheduled Railroading, as envisioned by jazz legend Stan Kenton and railroad legend Hunter Harrison, respectively. Perhaps they’re having spirited discussions on the merits of each.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: SUBSCRIPTIONS:1 (402) 800-895-4389 346-4740 EDITORIAL AND EXECUTIVE OFFICES Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp.

88 Pine Street, 23rd Fl. New York, NY 10005-1809 212-620-7200; Fax: 212-633-1863 Website: www.railwayage.com ARTHUR J. McGINNIS, Jr. President and Chairman JONATHAN CHALON Publisher jchalon@sbpub.com WILLIAM C. VANTUONO Editor-in-Chief wvantuono@sbpub.com MARYBETH LUCZAK Executive Editor mluczak@sbpub.com BILL WILSON Engineering Editor/Railway Track & Structures Editor-in-Chief wwilson@sbpub.com DAVID C. LESTER Managing Editor, Railway Track & Structures dlester@sbpub.com HEATHER ERVIN Ports and Intermodal Editor/Marine Log Editor-in-Chief hervin@sbpub.com Contributing Editors David Peter Alan, Roy Blanchard, Jim Blaze, Nick Blenkey, Sonia Bot, Peter Diekmeyer, Alfred E. Fazio, Don Itzkoff, Bruce Kelly, Ron Lindsey, Ryan McWilliams, David Nahass, Jason H. Seidl, David Thomas, John Thompson, Frank N. Wilner, Tony Zenga Art Director: Nicole D’Antona Graphic Designer: Hillary Coleman Corporate Production Director: Mary Conyers Production Director: Eduardo Castaner Marketing Director: Erica Hayes Conference Director: Michelle Zolkos Circulation Director: Maureen Cooney

WILLIAM C. VANTUONO Editor-in-Chief

Railway Age, descended from the American Rail-Road Journal (1832) and the Western Railroad Gazette (1856) and published under its present name since 1876, is indexed by the Business Periodicals Index and the Engineering Index Service. Name registered in U.S. Patent Office and Trade Mark Office in Canada. Now indexed in ABI/Inform.

Change of address should reach us six weeks in advance of next issue date. Send both old and new addresses with address label to Subscription Department, Railway Age, PO Box 239, Lincolnshire IL 60069-0239 USA, or call (US, Canada and International) +1 (402) 346-4740, Fax +1 (847) 291-4816, e-mail railwayage@omeda.com. Post Office will not forward copies unless you provide extra postage.

POSTMASTER: Send changes of address to: Railway Age, PO Box 239, Lincolnshire, IL 60069-0239, USA. Photocopy rights: Where necessary, permission is granted by the copyright owner for the libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to photocopy articles herein for the flat fee of $2.00 per copy of each article. Payment should be sent directly to CCC. Copying for other than personal or internal reference use without the express permission of Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp. is prohibited. Address requests for permission on bulk orders to the Circulation Director.

Railway Age welcomes the submission of unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. However, the publishers will not be responsible for safekeeping or return of such material.

Member of:

SBP 2 Railway Age // November 2021

AILWAY GE

SIMMONS-BOARDMAN PUBLISHING CORPORATION

INTERNATIONAL OFFICES 46 Killigrew Street, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 3PP, United Kingdom 011-44-1326-313945 International Editors Kevin Smith ks@railjournal.co.uk David Burroughs dburroughs@railjournal.co.uk David Briginshaw db@railjournal.co.uk Oliver Cuenca oc@railjournal.co.uk CUSTOMER CUSTOMERSERVICE: SERVICE:1 (402) 800-895-4389 346-4740 Reprints: PARS International Corp.

253 West 35th Street 7th Floor New York, NY 10001 212-221-9595; fax 212-221-9195 curt.ciesinski@parsintl.com railwayage.com

Industry Indicators SEPTEMBER 2021 ‘A MIX OF GOOD AND COULD-BE-BETTER’ “Rail traffic in September 2021 was a mix of good and could-be-better, reflecting continuing broad supply chain issues and an economy that doesn’t appear sure where it’s going,” the Association of American Railroads reported last month. “U.S. intermodal volume in September 2021 was down 6.7% from last year and down 0.1% from September 2019. The smooth functioning of intermodal terminals depends on consistent freight outflows to make room for new freight inflows. Unfortunately, that’s not happening right now because of supply chain capacity constraints, with predicable impacts on intermodal. U.S. intermodal in 2021 through September was the second most ever, fractionally behind the first nine months of 2018.”

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, SEPTEMBER 2021 (% change from SEPTEMBER 2020)

TOTAL EMPLOYEES: 114,218 % CHANGE FROM SEPTEMBER 2020: -3.31%

Transportation (train and engine) 46,927 (-0.23%)

Executives, Officials and Staff Assistants 7,248 (-2.65%)

TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

FIVE WEEKS ENDING OCT. 2, 2021

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

SEPT. ’21

SEPT. ’20

% 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

100,732 3,322 43,821 30,884 156,513 50,627 340,886 5,179 16,629 29,231 30,701 18,664 47,399 21,316 59,117 100,151 20,066 42,380 20,009 30,055

118,044 3,882 43,872 30,300 150,939 52,243 299,932 4,854 16,102 25,877 25,031 14,473 38,724 18,527 81,603 89,044 18,402 39,931 18,147 29,897

-14.7% -14.4% -0.1% 1.9% 3.7% -3.1% 13.7% 6.7% 3.3% 13.0% 22.7% 29.0% 22.4% 15.1% -27.6% 12.5% 9.0% 6.1% 10.3% 0.5%

1,167,682

1,119,824

4.3%

386,491

402,905

-4.1%

1,554,173

1,522,729

2.1%

TOTAL U.S. CARLOADS

CANADIAN RAILROADS TOTAL CANADIAN CARLOADS

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Professional and Administrative 9,831 (-4.71%)

Maintenance-of-Way and Structures 28,323 (-3.81%)

Maintenance of Equipment and Stores

Intermodal

FIVE WEEKS ENDING OCT. 2, 2021

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

SEPT. ’21

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

98,916 1,229,611

17,195 (-8.82%)

CANADIAN RAILROADS

Transportation (other than train & engine)

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

SEPT. ’20

% CHANGE

116,884

1,328,527

1,306,960 1,423,844

-15.4% -5.9% -6.7%

0 350,013 350,013

0 371,617 371,617

— -5.8% -5.8%

116,884

4,694 (-6.51%)

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Source: Surface Transportation Board

Trailers Containers

98,916 1,579,624

1,678,577

-15.4% -5.9%

TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

1,678,540

1,795,461

-6.5%

Source: Rail Time Indicators, Association of American Railroads

4 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

BEFORE YOU INVEST IN ANOTHER AIR BRAKE CONTROL VALVE,

TOTAL U.S./Canadian CARLOADS, SEPT. 2021 VS. SEPT. 2020

1,554,173 SEPTEMBER 2021

STOP & CONSIDER:

1,522,729 SEPTEMBER 2020

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 SEPT. ’21

ORIGINATED SEPT. ’20

% CHANGE

55,674 16,305 22,936 11,353 21,148 8,746 9,803 2,779 19,724 7,651 2,308 2,137 19,550 16,472 49,994 12,395 71,795

47,821 15,640 16,845 10,603 27,140 7,419 9,021 2,567 15,511 10,411 1,266 1,982 17,297 14,391 41,574 9,663 69,780

16.4% 4.3% 36.2% 7.1% -22.1% 17.9% 8.7% 8.3% 27.2% -26.5% 82.3% 7.8% 13.0% 14.5% 20.3% 28.3% 2.9%

Copyright © 2021 All rights reserved.

TOTAL U.S. Carloads and intermodal units, 2012-2021

(in millions, year-to-date through SEPTEMBER 2021, SIX-WEEK MOVING AVERAGE)

Always Improving:

The DB-60’s advanced composites boost performance, resist vibration, and reduce car weight.

New York Air Brake’s line of DB-60 control valves offers a range of category-leading innovations, like highly engineered vibration- and corrosionresistant interior composites. Highly reliable poppet valves that deliver long life free of friction and stiction. Power seal, rubber K-rings that ensure all-weather performance.

There is also a full range of access plates to simplify four-port testing.

To learn more about the proven and ongoing legacy of the DB-60 family of control valves,

visit www.NYAB.com or initiate a conversation with NYAB Sr. Product Line Manager Vince Moore at Vincent.Moore@nyab.com or 315.786.5271.

748 Starbuck Avenue, Watertown, New York 13601 315.786.5200 | www.nyab.com railwayage.com

November 2021 // Railway Age 5

Unions Seek Injunctions Against NS THE BROTHERHOOD OF LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEERS AND TRAINMEN (BLET) AND THE SMART TRANSPORTATION DIVISION (SMART–TD) last month filed Motions for Preliminary Injunctions against Norfolk Southern in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, “to stop the railroad from forcing locomotive engineers to work as conductors, and for disciplining those who don’t.”

The BLET said the union “seeks an immediate injunction forbidding NS from forcing engineers to work as conductors, including disciplining members for failing or refusing to comply with directives to work as conductors, and requiring that NS immediately reinstate BLET members who were disciplined as a result of the dispute, expunging all discipline records, and making each engineer whole.”

SMART–TD said the union “seeks an injunction ordering NS to return to the status quo that existed prior to the dispute, which would require that the railroad use only SMART–TD-represented train service employees to fill jobs in 6 Railway Age // November 2021

those crafts and classes.”

“If the Court grants the Motions and issues the requested Orders, any continued misconduct by the Carrier could trigger a strike,” the two unions, which collectively represent more than 180,000 railroad workers nationally, said in a joint statement.

“This situation is identical to the September 2013 dispute that led to a BLET strike on the Wheeling & Lake Erie,” said BLET National President Dennis R. Pierce and SMART–TD President Jeremy R. Ferguson. “The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which also has jurisdiction here, held that the 2013 dispute was, indeed, a major dispute. Multiple ground employees on NS have sustained injuries in switching operations in recent weeks. We have made it clear to NS that forcing engineers to work ground assignments that they are not currently qualified on or familiar with is an invitation for more incidents. While NS’s current business model may accept responsibility for that risk to its employees, our Unions do not. We will do everything in our power to prevent that risk to our collective memberships. We,

the General Chairmen, and the assigned Vice Presidents thank our NS memberships for their continued strong support in this struggle.”

Citing “active litigation,” Norfolk Southern declined comment.

“Rail labor has a demonstrably compelling argument,” comments Railway Age Capitol Hill Contributing Editor Frank N. Wilner, a former director of public relations for SMART-TD and its predecessor United Transportation Union, with several decades of experience in railroad management, labor relations activity, economic regulation and industry public policy formulation. “Highly skilled locomotive engineers are not concomitantly highly skilled yard conductors. Many locomotive engineers had minimal ground service training before being promoted, and for many there has been a lengthy period since they worked a ground service job, with few having familiarity with the yards to which they are being, or will be, assigned.

“There are few, if any, industries with as dangerous an operating environment as railroads. Railroad injuries are not simply slips, falls, sprains and bruises, but too typically career-ending and even lifeending events.

“If safety is a railroad’s highest priority, then it should follow that locomotive engineers be given a refresher training course in ground service safety, yard familiarity and situational awareness before being reassigned to ground service jobs.

Otherwise, there is troubling potential for tragedy, a slew of new costly court actions brought under provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), and further meddling into railroad operating practices by activist Surface Transportation Board (STB) Chairman Martin J. Oberman.

“In September, Oberman—to the consternation of carrier officials—told the North American Rail Shippers 2021 Annual Meeting that under the STB’s enabling statute, it has authority to ‘consider the best interests of the shippers, workforce, and most important the public, as well as railroad owners.’ Perhaps it is only because Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Amit Bose is awaiting Senate confirmation and chooses not to roil political waters that the FRA has not acted in its rail safety oversight role.” railwayage.com

William C. Vantuono

Industry Outlook

Market CP: Green ‘Gas ’n Go’ Gets Generous Grant Emissions Reduction Alberta on Nov. 1 awarded Canadian Pacific’s Hydrogen Locomotive Program a $15 million 50% matching grant to expand the initiative to three locomotives, install hydrogen production and fueling facilities at CP rail yards in Calgary and Edmonton, and create a “global center of excellence in hydrogen and freight rail systems” in Alberta. CP is receiving the grant from ERA’s Shovel Ready Challenge program.

It builds on the $15 million CP planned to invest in the development project, initiated in December of last year, in 2021.

WORLDWIDE

NORTH AMERICA

UKRANIAN RAILWAYS has extended the deadline for tenders for the largest rolling stock order since the country’s independence in 1991 with the decision on which company will build the 80 new suburban and regional trains now expected next year. UZ says it has invited Siemens, Stadler, Alstom, Pesa, Skoda, Kryukiv Carriage Plant and others to participate. The 80 trains are all due for delivery by 2026. More than 90% of the existing suburban electric train fleet is life-expired.

Consumer and corrugated packaging company WESTROCK has selected RIO GRANDE PACIFIC CORP. for industrial rail services. The companies formalized and implement services on Oct. 31, 2021. Rio Grande’s Technology division (Rio Grande Pacific Technology or RIOTECH) recently introduced “short line industrial visualization logistics … [for] improving shipper transparency technology.” RIoTECH Chief Information Officer Jason Brown said: “Rio Grande Pacific currently provides operations analytics to short line railroads and commuter railways. We’re excited to bring our RIoT [Railway Internet of Things] services to the industrial rail switching market. We are looking forward to teaming up with WestRock and other shippers to meet the demands of a growing rail switching and safety market.”

Canadian Pacific

RHOMBERG SERSA RAIL GROUP (RSRG) has entered into an agreement with BALFOUR BEATTY U.S. to acquire the Balfour Beatty Track Solutions division. The division will be rebranded as RHOMBERG SERSA NORTH AMERICA (RSNA). The acquisition means that RSNA will be the largest owner operator of ballast cleaning railwayage.com

services in North America. The purchase increases the geographic footprint of RSRG, a company that already operates on three continents and in seven other countries, including Canada. It also makes RSRG “one of the few European rail contractors to have a significant and permanent presence in the U.S.,” RSRG said. “With a fleet of eight ballast cleaners including the three newest and most highly productive Plasser RM80 undercutters in North America, and supported by more than 30 experienced and qualified technicians, RSNA will continue to provide the lowest cost per foot cut to clients with the best machine reliability,” according to the company. “The recent addition of 10 Plasser MFS Wagons and two specialized Power Wagons further expands the ability of RSNA to provide end-to-end solutions for ballast renewal projects,” the company noted. “Over the past 20 years, Balfour Beatty has invested in some of the very best ballast maintenance equipment and technologies, which has translated into Track Solutions becoming a leader in track bed and ballast maintenance as well as inspection technologies in the U.S.,” RSNA CEO Michael Match said.

November 2021 // Railway Age 7

Women In Rail 2021

WOMEN IN RAIL

Shutterstock/

Railway Age’s Women in Rail awards recognize leaders for driving their businesses forward while making a difference in the industry and in their communities. For the fifth annual program, judges Barbara Wilson and KellyAnne Gallagher (see bios, p. 10), with input from the Railway Age staff, selected 26 honorees from close to 100 North American applicants.

Representing the next generation of railroaders, these outstanding women are making their mark in the historically male-dominated freight, passenger, government and supplier sectors with vision as well as a commitment to service and collaboration. Five women also earned Honorable Mention. Our sincere congratulations to all.

8 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Shutterstock/ Rawpixel.com

2021

Women In Rail 2021 JUDGES

BARBARA WILSON

President and CEO, RailUSA, LLC At RailUSA, a short line holding company that acquires and operates North American freight railroads, Wilson provides strategic leadership and implements long-range goals, plans and policies. Prior to joining RailUSA in 2019, she was President of Wells Fargo Rail.

Wilson led business growth by acquiring three industry competitors to build the largest railcar leasing business in North America. She holds a bachelor’s from Boston College and an MBA from Babson College.

KELLYANNE GALLAGHER

CEO, Commuter Rail Coalition (CRC) Gallagher is a public transportation policy professional and a strategic advisor to industry leaders. With more than 20 years serving across industry sectors, in 2019 she founded CRC, where she is shaping policy and driving the agenda of the association, which serves as the singular voice of the commuter rail industry. Previously, Gallagher was a member of the New York MTA’s senior leadership team, which she joined after 16 years with the American Public Transportation Association.

“This year’s honorees are a group of extraordinary women who have contributed meaningfully as leaders in the railroad industry.”

— Barbara Wilson, President and CEO, RailUSA LLC

Congratulations to TTX Company’s Kristina Chambers and all of the Women in Rail winners!

10 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

STEPHANIE DENTON

KRISTINA CHAMBERS

JANIE BOWEN COLALILLO

TTX Company

RailPros

Director, Freight Claims and Damage Prevention, CSX

Chambers has been instrumental in driving a digital strategy that leverages data analytics to help improve decision-making, and she built a team to support it. She led the development of real-time reporting for all levels of management and field personnel. Chambers not only provides longer-term vision, but also has the technical ability to work alongside the team, and ensures that a training budget is available to keep skills sharp. Chambers is President of the Traffic Club of Chicago’s Board.

Colalillo has spent more than 20 years designing, developing and delivering communications campaigns, including safety and training for CSX, a documentary on R.J. Corman, and rail yard safety training for G&W. She also produced a Route Awareness Switching app for conductors, and roadway worker training for contractors that has been customized for more than a dozen railroads. Her team’s success is built on rail employee involvement to ensure buy-in and on-point messages.

A 20-year railroader, Denton championed an innovative damage prevention methodology that incorporates data analytics to find trends, and reduce and eliminate damage exposure. She was also a key contributor to an Automotive Industry Action Group project to develop recommendations for new auto inspection location codes. Denton has volunteered with American Heritage Girls and is an active member of CSX’s Women’s Network business resource group.

Chief Data Officer

VP, Media Services

Congrats, Barbara!

Congratulations to WMATA’s Barbara Richardson and all the amazing women being honored as the 2021 Women in Rail winners! We are so proud of you.

12 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

ALETA EVANS

Chief Officer, Control Center Operations Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA)

Evans has served SEPTA for her entire career, starting as a bus operator and rising through the ranks to direct all real-time operations. She has helped develop new schedules throughout the pandemic; worked with a team to ensure the smooth integration of PTC for Regional Rail; and has been integral in establishing an off-site, auxiliary control center. In addition to mentoring several employees, Evans is the Rules Committee Chair.

CINDY INGRAM

MARIBEL S. KELLY

Assistant Chief Engineer-Quad Cities/ Chicago Territory

Senior Director of Commuter Rail Modernization Programs, Massachu-

Canadian Pacific (CP)

setts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA)

Ingram’s leadership was not only instrumental after CP’s acquisition of the former DME, but also in creating an open dialogue with employees on safety, resulting in her territory moving from an FRA injury rate of 1.30 in 2019 to 0.62 in 2021, and from a 1.68 all-in train accident rate in 2019 down to 1.24 this year. She is part of CP’s Women’s Leadership Network Mentoring Program, and is helping to launch a unionized mentorship program for women.

Kelly holds a degree in civil engineering from Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, and has spent 14 years at MBTA, advancing from Construction Inspector to her current role.

She delivered the Old Colony Railroad Tie Replacement Project one year ahead of schedule; managed the team extending the Fitchburg Line to Wachusett Station; and oversaw the design of freight and passenger rail improvements at Worcester Union Station.

Rail isn’t part of our business, it IS our business

CONGRATULATIONS! Congratulations to RailPros’ Vice President of Media Production, Janie Colalillo, for her recognition as a Railway Age “2021 Women in Rail” award winner! She has led numerous safety and training projects, and has had a positive impact on thousands of railroaders.

NATIONWIDE - CONNECT WITH THE EXPERTS!

877-315-0513

www.RAILPROS.com

14 Railway Age // November 2021

Follow Us ►

Janie Colalillo VP of Media Production RailPros

railwayage.com

CONGRATULATIONS

SALLY LIBRERA on being recognized as one of Railway Age’s Women in Rail.

Thank you for your industry leadership and commitment to delivering excellence to our clients.

Sally Librera New York/New Jersey Transit/Rail Practice Leader Vice President

hntb.com The HNTB Companies Infrastructure Solutions

Women In Rail 2021

SIU KO

Vice President and Chief Mechanical Officer MTA New York City Transit (NYCT)

Ko has been working to improve subway car maintenance and reliability at NYCT for more than 30 years. She is the first woman to hold her current role, responsible for the 7,000-plus revenue car and 500-plus work car fleets. Ko’s leadership has resulted in a number of new technology fleets attaining 1 million miles between failures. She established contracts enabling car disinfection multiple times per day and led a high-tech cleaning pilot during the pandemic.

FARAH LAWLER AVP, Industrial Products Sales and Marketing

MARTHA LENZ Chief Engineer, Locomotive

BNSF

Progress Rail

Lawler has played a significant role in shaping commodity market strategies for BNSF: initiating the use of empty new build trailer capacity for third-party loads with a top trailer builder; developing a receiver strategy for the frac sand market; and helping develop scrap steel unit train origins on BNSF, including, at the end of 2020, the shift of scrap metal from barge to rail.

She spearheaded the startup of Young Professionals in Transportation, DFW chapter.

Lenz joined EMD (now Progress Rail) in 1981, and has worked as a Project Engineer in Engine Development and as Director of Quality, and has held leadership responsibility for both the engineering and manufacturing of diesel engines. She was instrumental in the introduction of Tier 2 and Tier 3 EMD units, and helped facilitate Progress Rail’s simultaneous launch of the SD70ACe-T4 freight and F125 Tier 4 passenger locomotives.

Congratulations Stephanie Denton Director, Freight Claims and Damage Prevention CSX congratulates Stephanie Denton on receiving the Railway Age Women in Rail award. Stephanie is a champion of innovation, problem solving and thoughtful leadership. Through determination and a team-focused approach, Stephanie has found new ways to protect freight and improve service for customers across our far-reaching network.

We highly value her contributions to the CSX team.

csx.com

16 Railway Age // November 2021

CSXT-000692_RailwayAge-StephanieDentonAd-178x126mm_rSG.indd 1

railwayage.com 10/25/21 9:39 AM

CONGRATULATIONS TO KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN’S

Jennifer Reiser on being honored as one of Railway Age’s Women in Rail

kcsouthern.com

Women In Rail 2021

SALLY LIBRERA

Vice President, New York and New Jersey Rail and Transit Practice Leader, HNTB Corporation Librera helps clients improve on-time performance, asset management and inspection processes. She was most recently SVP for Subways at NYCT, and has also served as VP and Chief Officer of MTA Staten Island Railway. Librera earned the 2019 Transportation Diversity Council Distinguished Leadership Award, and was a Trustee of the NYCT-Transport Workers Union Training & Upgrade and Childcare Funds from 2011-17.

Cindy Ingram

Assistant Chief Engineer

Cassandra Quach

General Counsel - Regulatory

The CP family congratulates Cindy Ingram on being named one of Railway Age’s Women in Rail and Cassandra Quach for receiving an honourable mention.

Connect to an exciting career at cpr.ca/careers 18 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

BNSF proudly congratulates

FARAH LAWLER

for being named a Railway Age Women in Rail 2021 Honoree.

BNSF.com/Careers

Women In Rail 2021

Manager Administration and Marketing Support, New York & Atlantic

AMY LOUK

Deputy Secretary of Multimodal Transportation

JENNIE LOUWERSE

SALANA MCELROY

Railway, Anacostia Rail Holdings Company

Pennsylvania Department of Transportation

Wabtec Corporation

Louk joined NYA in 2015 as a temp, educated herself on the industry, and was soon successfully handling FRA hours of service auditing/ compliance with Part 228 record-keeping and creating a process to manage compliance/monitoring of the Part 219 Drug and Alcohol program. She now manages day-today commercial relationships, maintains the pricing matrix, oversees grant programs and coordinates new-hire onboarding.

Louwerse oversees freight and passenger rail policy and $2 billion-plus in state and federal funding. She provided guidance to the Transportation Revenue Options Commission established by Gov. Tom Wolfe; worked with Amtrak, SEPTA and NS to increase passenger service, and has been a driving force behind the Keystone Corridor Improvement Program; and led three rail plan updates. She is a WTS, Central Pennsylvania Chapter Advisory Board member.

McElroy was recently promoted to lead Network Optimization’s 500 global employees.

Previously as a Wabtec Digital VP, she filled 50-plus positions for customer-facing projects and created a new management team layer.

Notably, she promoted 10% of the organization in recognition of talent, and of those, 40% were of diverse backgrounds. She also helped launch a STEM camp for third- through fifthgrade minority students in Chicago.

20 Railway Age // November 2021

Group Vice President, Network Optimization

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

NICOLE MCKINSTRY

LAURA MCNICHOL

AVP Sales Operations

SVP of Government and Industry Relations, Watco

The Greenbrier Companies

McKinstry has streamlined bid and proposal management at Greenbrier. She developed two umbrellas—pre- and post-signed contracts and designated teams to work on each— resulting in a more cohesive process. She also helped develop Greenbrier’s award-winning Virtual Sample Railcar™ program. McKinstry coordinates company teams for races benefiting health-related nonprofits, and serves as a mentor for each of her employees.

(Women in Rail Honorable Mention 2018)

McNichol has earned a reputation as “federal grant guru.” She has been instrumental in securing $66 million in total infrastructure improvement loans over her career, most recently a $27 million CRISI grant for South Kansas & Oklahoma at Watco. McNichol is on the AAR and ASLRRA Boards; is Vice Chair of ASLRRA’s Legislative Policy Committee; and helped form Watco’s Sustainability Committee.

CHRISTY MIMBS

Director Commercial Support Genesee & Wyoming (G&W)

Mimbs started her railroad career as a Document Control Clerk, and pursued a college degree at age 30 to move up the ranks. She now leads and maintains strong relationships with G&W Railroad Services’ Commercial Support team members, leading to low turnover. Mimbs has also supported the industry, working with Railinc to improve the flow of billing information between railroads, and with Wabtec to develop a Rail Contract Management module.

Leading the charge Thank you, Ruby, for delivering sustainable infrastructure legacies for generations to come.

Your rail and transit projects enhance mobility, improve access and uplift communities.

Your leadership inspires your colleagues, and your integrity merits the respect of the many clients you serve.

Ruby Siegel

Vice President, Senior Project Manager 2021 Railway Age Women in Rail, Honorable Mention

22 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021 “The women who are nominated for this award are not only shifting the workplace dynamic, but also holding the door open for a more diverse and inclusive industry.”

— KellyAnne Gallagher, CEO, CRC

The Greenbrier Companies

Congratulations to Wabtec’s Salana McElroy and all of the outstanding recipients of the 2021 Women in Rail award.

Salana McElroy Group Vice President, Network Optimization

railwayage.com

November 2021 // Railway Age 23

Women In Rail 2021

“The Railway Age Women in Rail 2021 honorees are remarkable leaders, and it is important to celebrate their contributions to the railroad industry.”

— Barbara Wilson, RailUSA LLC

24 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

TERESA MUTI

Director, Power and Way, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) (Women in Rail Honorable Mention 2017)

A certified track inspector and electrical substation maintainer, Muti began her career as a laborer and moved up to her current role, where she has increased preventative maintenance from 30% to 95%; manages installation of more than 2,000 ties annually; and created incentive programs to increase employee accountability. She also earned a GCRTA award for saving more than $1.5 million by keeping in-house a concrete tie installation project.

railwayage.com

PAULA C. PIENTON

JENNIFER REISER

Chief Engineer Bridges and Structures

AVP Automotive and Intermodal Operations

CN

Kansas City Southern (KCS)

Over her 38-year career, Pienton has designed and delivered safe, efficient transportation projects. She is on Crain’s 2020 List of Notable Women in Construction and Design, which cited her preliminary engineering work on CTA’s $2.1 billion Red Purple Modernization project while at TY Lin International. She is President of the UIC’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Alumni Association, supporting curriculum development and student mentoring.

A recent change by the Mexican government prompted KCS to move in-house services that it had been contracting for Automotive and Intermodal business, resulting in challenges around developing a new organizational structure. Reiser led the effort that added nearly 100 new employees to her team, while maintaining consistent improvements across her division.

She chairs the AAR Intermodal Committee Board and Chicago Car Interchange Bureau.

November 2021 // Railway Age 25

Women In Rail 2021

EVP, External Relations, Washington Met-

BARBARA RICHARDSON

Deputy General Counsel

MARY RICHARDSON

CATHERINE RINALDI

ropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA)

Norfolk Southern (NS)

MTA Metro-North Railroad

Richardson serves as WMATA management’s Board liaison, and oversees external, government and public relations; internal communications marketing; and customer service initiatives. She has held leadership roles at Amtrak, where she directed a 1,200-member corporate and field marketing, sales and communications staff, and initiated the brand design and marketing strategy for Acela Express.

She is on the Destination DC and WTS boards.

At NS, Richardson manages litigation teams handling more than 100 matters, and serves on the Inclusion Leadership Council. She has drafted model tort reform legislation, and helped develop a corporate counsel mentoring program for the Virginia State Bar Board of Governors. Prior to moving to Atlanta this year, she provided pro bono attorney services and volunteered with the Department of Corrections’ Drive to Work program.

Rinaldi is the first woman to hold the job of Metro-North President. She is leading the railroad through the pandemic and headed PTC implementation. Rinaldi oversaw such customer-facing initiatives as the delivery of real-time service information at Grand Central and outlying stations, a multi-milliondollar White Plains Station upgrade, and the TRACKS safety program. As EVP, she spearheaded Metro-North’s 2016-20 Strategic Plan.

President

Metra wishes to extend a warm congratulations to

JACQUELINE WATKINS for her Women in Rail award!

Your dedication and hard work has helped make Metra a leader in commuter rail and served as an inspiration for countless other employees.

www.metra.com

26 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

“It is a privilege to read the stories of women who use their power to support and develop others, and an honor to celebrate their impact.”

— KellyAnne Gallagher, CRC

Congratulations to

Amy Louk

Recognized by Railway Age as one of the outstanding Women in Rail for 2021

Amy Louk, Manager, Marketing Support New York & Atlantic Railroad

Anacostia.com

Connecting Industry—Delivering Value

November 2021 // Railway Age 27

railwayage.com

Anacostia Rail Holdings

Women In Rail 2021 “The railroad industry has changed for the better over the past several decades due to the significant contributions of women in many different roles.”

— Barbara Wilson,

Alstom

RailUSA LLC

28 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

Women In Rail 2021

MONIQUE STEWART

NORMA TORRES

Rolling Stock Equipment and Components, Program Manager

JACQUELINE WATKINS

President and COO, Brownsville &

Project Manager Positive Train Control (PTC)-Safety, Metra

Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)

Rio Grande International Railway, OmniTRAX

(Women in Rail Honorable Mention 2017)

Stewart began her career at CSX as a Mechanical Engineer, and was the first African American woman hired by FRA in an engineering role. She has identified, secured funding for and overseen more than 80 projects to improve rail safety, and has published 60-plus technical papers. She directs FRA’s Workforce Development Program and spearheads ongoing research. She is on the White House Initiative for HBCUs Committee and DOT’s Workforce Equity Committee.

Torres and BRG earned OmniTRAX’s Railroad of the Year Award in 2021 for producing 25% year-over-year carload growth that resulted in a nearly 20% increase in revenue, and for having no FRA-reportable derailments since 2002.

She identified market needs, and to support growth, deployed capital projects and doubled the workforce. She also headed an effort to donate a former BRG caboose and turn it into a children’s library in Brownsville, Tex.

Watkins got her start at Chicago’s commuter railroad as an Extra List Clerk. She advanced to GPS Administrator, Corporate Trainmaster, Electric District Trainmaster, Safety Officer, and now, Project Manager PTC-Safety. She has extensive knowledge of FRA, FTA, IDOT, DOT and OSHA compliance, policies, regulations and requirements related to PTC. She also advocates for women through the National Association of Railway Business Women.

RAIL NEWS DELIVERED TO YOU AT HIGH SPEED

RAIL From Railway Age, RT&S and IRJ GROUP NEWS

railwayage.com

ROUND-UP of NEWS STORIES FROM:

RAILWAY AGE, RT&S and IRJ

November 2021 // Railway Age 29

Women In Rail 2021 “While other journals document the impact of women in workplace leadership, for the past five years, Railway Age has been celebrating the impact women have in rail.”

— KellyAnne Gallagher, CRC BETH WHITED EVP and Chief Human Resource Officer, Union Pacific (UP) A 34-year railroader and UP women’s ERG founding member, Whited knows the best ideas come from those closest to the work. As CMO, she took action on her team’s engagement survey results, increasing employee ownership and customer response. Once in HR, she instituted quarterly employee pulse surveys and required supervisors to act on the results. She also increased UP’s minority population to 40%. Over the years, she formed UP’s first Customer Advisory Board, and launched an industry-wide female operating taskforce.

HONORABLE MENTIONS • Janet Gilbert, American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA) Member of General Counsel Committee and Safety and Training Committee, Fletcher & Sippel LLC • Veronica Griffin, Lead Rail Yard Master, Miami Dade County (Florida) Department of Transportation and Public Works (DTPW) • Cassandra Quach, General Counsel, Regulatory and Chief Privacy Officer, Canadian Pacific • Ruby Siegel, Vice President, Senior Project Manager, AECOM • Kristin Smith, Senior Vice President, Communications, Association of American Railroads (AAR) 30 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

RJ CORMAN R

M EM PH IS LIN E

R. J. Corman

ailway Age’s 2021 Short Line of the Year is the R. J. Corman Memphis Line (RJCM), the second short line acquired by the company’s late founder, Rick Corman. Here’s the railroad’s story, as told by Executive Vice President Commercial Affairs Justin Broyles.

YOU CAN’T TEACH AN OLD DOG NEW TRICKS? Acquired in 1987, RJCM has witnessed many successes over the past 30 years due to our dedicated team of railroaders, the dynamic communities we serve, and our relentless drive to partner with our customers on safety, efficiency, innovation and capital investments.

By all accounts, 2020 was an extremely challenging year in many ways. The worldwide pandemic significantly impacted the economy and global supply chains and challenged the daily lives of so many of our families, colleagues, and the communities we serve. Nevertheless, the R. J. Corman team and our Memphis short line were able to railwayage.com

overcome these obstacles and thrive.

RJCM produced a record-setting year for carload volume with several key customers. It created new efficiencies in service with technology advancements, invested more than $5.5 million in infrastructure and joined forces with Class I partners in innovative ways to dramatic effect. Our success represents a team of men and women exceptionally committed to top-of-the-line service and loyalty to our customers that provides integrated solutions with impactful results.

There is an adage that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. The thinking is that long-established ways become a mindset that cannot be changed. At first glance, this adage may seem well-placed in the railroad industry—one birthed in the age of Lincoln —but the short line industry knows better and RJCM knows best: A short line railroad has the unique capacity for homegrown innovation and success, an approach that leverages its long-standing commitments to the clients and communities it serves combined with an entrepreneurial spirit to drive economic growth.

So, what happens when an industry established nearly 200 years ago and more specifically, a rail line acquired more than 30 years ago, is challenged by a new reality? Or as it was coined last year, a “new normal”?

As 2020 unwittingly ushered in a global pandemic that severely impacted supply chains and the economy, it was a remarkably difficult year to sustain business and more difficult still to adapt and thrive. If responsiveness and adaptability to this “new normal” were crucial for success, the overarching question for an operation running for more than three decades is: Can a mature railroad once again grow and adapt to meet the challenges of today’s supply chain?

THE MEMPHIS LINE RJCM was purchased from CSX in August 1987. It was the second railroad line acquired by our company’s late founder, Rick Corman.

It became a symbol because it launched the conception of what is today the R. J. Corman Railroad Group, premier service provider for the railroad industry and operator of November 2021 // Railway Age 31

now 17 short lines. Spanning more than 100 miles, RJCM operates in Kentucky and Tennessee, serving urban centers and industrial facilities.

With 47 customers, RJCM has built a reputation of long-lasting relationships with its clients, some of them spanning more than 30 years of partnership.

Throughout the years, RJCM has solidified and strengthened a bond with its customers.

2020 presented us with an unprecedented reality that rocked the markets and created a perfect scenario to test those relationships by executing our plan and exploring new creative strategies for growth.

THE PLAYBOOK RJCM entered 2020 with an ambitious plan full of new initiatives. A plan to drive economic activity in new ways and push forward on strategic partnerships with customers, commitments to the community and our Class I partners, capital investments in infrastructure, and technology advancements that allow for greater ease of doing business.

The “new normal” that arrived unannounced in March 2020 added new challenges such as balancing the safety of employees and the evolving supply chain needs of customers during the pandemic, but it also gave way to new solutions.

Significant capital investment in capacity projects as well as critical infrastructure were needed to grow our existing business and to support commerce in the communities in which we operate.

32 Railway Age // November 2021

Cumberland River Bridge Automation Project: In 2020, RJCM undertook an extensive project in the rehabilitation, automation and remote integration of the Cumberland River Bridge. These enhancements improved the operational reliability of the swing span and reduced the amount of time needed to swing the span open for water navigation of larger boats or closed for rail transportation.

Highlights of the project: • Replacement of access ladders and integration of fall protection provisions.

• Addition of an electric drive motor on the pivot pier.

• Replacement of the rail lift crank and key.

• Replacement of bridge ties.

• Upgrading navigation lights.

• Installation of new hydraulic power to drive wedges, lift rails and latches.

• Installation of limit switches to indicate position of wedges and the swing span alignment position.

• Installation of a control panel on the approaches and swing span.

• Installation of remote-control mechanisms in the railroad locomotive fleet.

• Installation of train signals on both approaches.

This significant investment was made possible by the combined funding efforts of R. J. Corman, the Montgomery County Rail Authority, and a Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) Program grant. It provides substantial benefit to both R. J. Corman operations and the

community. R. J. Corman Railroad contributed $1.9 million toward a total project spend of $3.4 million for 2020.

Expansion of the South Union Distribution Center: R. J. Corman coordinated with a key customer, Logan Aluminum, to expand its warehousing capabilities at the R. J. Corman South Union Distribution Center in Woodburn, Ky. The distribution center primarily handles large coils of aluminum and serves as a vital part of Logan Aluminum’s supply chain.

The expansion project increased warehousing capabilities by approximately 30% or 52,000 square feet. In addition to improved storage capacity, the project also added three new truck bays to better support short hauls to local customers, and three new railcar spots inside the warehouse to better support outbound rail shipments.

In 2020, railcar shipments into the distribution center increased by an impressive 1,661 carloads or 41% vs. 2019 due in large part to the expansion’s increased capacity.

Interchange Capacity Project at Memphis Junction: In an effort to improve network fluidity at the CSX/RJCM interchange in Memphis Junction, Ky., R. J. Corman completed significant upgrades. At a total investment of $860,000, these upgrades included 2,800 feet of new track construction and four new switches that were necessary to create additional capacity and sustain the high quality and reliable service our customers have come to rely on.

The improvements were also mutually beneficial to CSX, as the new infrastructure increased the ability of both railroads to handle increased freight traffic.

Logan Aluminum: As the single-largest can sheet facility in North America, Logan Aluminum supplies more than 45% of the North American can market. They produce an astonishing 2 billion pounds of aluminum annually. The company is currently owned as a joint venture between Novelis and Tri-Arrows Aluminum and has been a strategic shipping partner on RJCM since 1987.

As previously detailed, R. J. Corman operates a distribution center in South Union, Ky., and is a vital part of Logan Aluminum’s supply chain. The center stores and ships aluminum coils that can weigh up to 45,000 pounds each. It maintains a 30-ton overhead crane and 35-ton rated forklifts for its material handling needs. railwayage.com

R. J. Corman

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

SHORT LINE OF THE YEAR

34 Railway Age // November 2021

modal competition, as a large portion of the U.S. zinc market lies within one-day delivery distance from the Clarksville smelter over the road (OTR), and the smelter has its own river port that allows efficient supply of raw materials. However, after several discussions with Nyrstar, R. J. Corman devised a plan to gauge Nyrstar’s OTR conversion potential on two key products—sulfuric acid and zinc ingots. R. J. Corman performed a rate study on all potential end user locations to determine which lanes were most economical. This analysis clearly indicated that rail could not only compete with truck on multiple lanes, but offer a more advantageous supply chain solution due to R. J. Corman’s ability to offer additional services, such as storage.

The Memphis Line was able to offer extensive storage capabilities that allowed Nyrstar to have more security over its pipeline of shipments. This shift to rail translated into approximately 1,484 OTR conversions on sulfuric acid and zinc ingot shipments. As a result, Nyrstar had an impressive carload growth of 125% year-over-year in 2020.

Hankook Tire is a South Korean tire company dedicated to manufacturing hightech tires for passenger cars, SUVs, trucks and buses. They built their first manufacturing facility in the U.S. on RJCM in Clarksville, Tenn. R. J. Corman Railroad Company performed construction services on its rail spur in March 2015.

Due to COVID-19, the Clarksville plant

R. J. Corman

R. J. Corman’s team recognized a need to expand the distribution center to better support Logan Aluminum’s growing needs for storage and material handling. The team developed a plan to increase square footage at the distribution center by 30% and increased its headcount by two people to assist in supporting the growth that the expansion generated. Plans for an expansion were under way by 2019, and the expansion was completed in first-quarter 2020.

By anticipating the needs of our customer, RJCM made it easy for Logan Aluminum to increase throughput at the distribution center with inbound rail shipments and material handling and storage at the facility. R. J. Corman’s vertical integration and broad scope of services in the supply chain space enabled a 41% growth in volume, or an additional 1,661 carloads in inbound rail shipments to the distribution center in 2020 vs. 2019.

Nyrstar’s Clarksville smelter was designed to recover zinc from the high-zinc-content, low-impurity Tennessee Valley zinc concentrates produced by the Tennessee mines.

Zinc is a natural, durable and sustainable resource that has a huge impact on daily life.

It has diverse applications including construction, transport, communications, electronics and consumer products. This makes zinc an essential and highly sought-after resource.

The Clarksville smelter is currently the only primary zinc producer in the U.S. Historically, rail shipments have had stiff

was forced to shut down on multiple occasions. This decision to suspend operations greatly impacted Hankook’s ability to process railcars in a timely manner, and demurrage started to become a serious concern for this customer. R. J. Corman was quick to engage with Hankook and provided a temporary demurrage relief agreement that reduced the financial impact of demurrage, while we partnered with Hankook to finalize a new “Storage in Transit” agreement. This solution would allow Hankook Tire to forwardposition a critical supply of inbound carbon black, a key raw material for the plant’s tire manufacturing operation. Additionally, this solution helped safeguard the plant against any additional unplanned shutdowns that could have resulted from inbound suppliers deciding to suspend operations later in the year, since Hankook had a secure stockpile of carbon black stored on the RJCM just miles from its facility.

Hankook increased carloads by 48% in 2020 due to the successful forward positioning of raw materials for the plant utilizing RJCM’s Storage in Transit solution.

2020 was a good year for innovation and ease of doing business projects on RJCM. Taking advantage of new digital tools, the Memphis Line implemented Wabtec’s RailConnect software into its operations. This innovative tool allows customers to have on-demand and real-time visibility of railcars on RJCM, and creates the opportunity to use this data to improve efficiencies and productivity in its railcar pipeline.

Along with access to live information, this tool enables our customers to submit requests for switching, create digital bills of lading, release orders, and access a variety of other work instructions.

This new application has created considerable productivity improvements by reducing manual processing and preventing potential data-entry errors.

railwayage.com

REGIONAL OF THE YEAR

LAKE STATE R AILWAY

Lake State Railway/Kevin Burkholder

R

ailway Age’s 2021 Regional Railroad of the Year is the Lake State Railway (LSRC), which won the Railway Age 2018 Short Line of the year award. During the presentation of that award, CEO John Rickoff ended his remarks by saying, “Now we need to come back and win it again as a regional railroad.” Here’s how LSRC achieved this goal, as told by Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Mike Stickel.

FROM SUCCESSFUL SHORT LINE TO RESILIENT REGIONAL This was an ambitious goal at the time, since LSRC was a long way from being railwayage.com

considered a regional railroad. However, LSRC quickly positioned itself to be eligible by becoming a 373-mile Class II with the acquisition of CSX’s Saginaw Subdivision to Plymouth, Mich., in 2019. The acquisition from CSX did not come with many online carloads, but it was a strategic transaction that improved service and economics for both CSX and LSRC. LSRC finished 2019 having executed a f lawless startup on the new rail line and had a pipeline charged with many business development opportunities.

And then COVID-19 hit. 2020 was a very challenging year for the railroad industry as well as many others. Due to COVID-19, the second quarter was

shocking, as numerous manufacturing facilities shut down due to COVID-19 restrictions. Lake State Railway was not any different: Our two largest-volume customers were completely shut down for six weeks between March and May. Despite these shutdowns, along with other industries pulling back due to the “unknown,” LSRC was able to grow the business in third- and fourth-quarter 2020 while setting up 2021 to be a very positive year.

LSRC was able to grow the business by leveraging a tried-and-true small-road marketing tool: transloading. While LSRC has had success locating new industries along our railroad over the years, our November 2021 // Railway Age 35

team focused on transloading, as it is the quickest avenue for acquiring new business. As the year progressed, we successfully brought on many new transload customers. As of this writing, we have been able to onboard nine new customers at six transload locations along our railroad. These new customers are projected to add approximately 17,500 carloads on an annualized basis, going forward.

What’s even better is that virtually all of this traffic was a modal shift from trucking. Winning business back from the highways, bolstering our carload 36 Railway Age // November 2021

counts, adding carloads to interchange with our Class I partners all while the public enjoys the environmental and public safety benefits of truck vs. rail— that’s what regionals and short lines do best! Along the way, our Class I partners have been great to work with by helping to mutually develop economics that work for our customers during startup and from a long-term perspective.

LSRC successfully worked with the Michigan Economic Development Corp. and MDOT to obtain grant money for five of the project locations. In some cases,

significant jobs were added in depressed areas—Flint, Mich., for example. In all cases, the customers have benefited from improved economics.

Highlights: • Alpena, Mich.: Two new transload locations. Inbound traffic for a large cement producer. Outbound agricultural business. This business will take up to 1,000 trucks off the road each year, provide better economics for the growers, and supply an Express unit train facility resulting in more carloads for our Class I partner. railwayage.com

Lake State Railway

REGIONAL OF THE YEAR

Lake State Railway/Tom Scott

REGIONAL OF THE YEAR • Bay City, Mich.: A small-scale transload facility was expanded at a new location, with two tracks and the ability to feed propane to a large part of northern Michigan.

• Flint, Mich.: The former auto loading facility in Flint, last used in the late 1990s, was rehabilitated into a state-of-theart auto loading facility. Work included rehabbing a long-out-of-service former mainline for two miles and constructing a 44-car spot facility at the former Buick loading site. This facility will eliminate the need to move finished vehicles on a longer highway haul, resulting in fewer trucks on the road and improved economics for the OEM. LSRC added 15 jobs as a result of this transload, along with several additional jobs via subcontractors to load and unload the vehicles.

This once-blighted area of Flint received several million dollars of investment as well, helping to build back an area of town that had been vacated for decades.

Also, we did a truck conversion of a steel coiled wire customer. The customer was trucking from East Coast ports and now receives multiple loads a week via rail.

• Gaylord, Mich.: A second track was added to our transload facility, which now handles finished lumber products and propane.

• Greenbush, Mich.: A new 35-car spot facility was built to accommodate a highvolume waste receiver and finished forest products.

• Saginaw, Mich.: LSRC’s Saginaw transload doubled in capacity, with a total of four tracks and approximately 125 car spots. LSRC expects this facility to reach close to 2,000 carloads this year.

LSRC has built new or rehabilitated out-of-service industry tracks totaling more than six miles for these transload projects since 2019. These transloads will be a significant source of carload traffic for LSRC while having the ability to accommodate additional growth in the future. The LSRC team will continue to identify new opportunities for each of the transload sites while meeting the competitive and demanding needs of industry located within a peninsula state such as Michigan.

LSRC finished 2020 very strong, and 2021 is projected to be an all-time record railwayage.com

for the company. In the three years since LSRC won the Railway Age Short Line of the Year award, we have been able to more than double our carload traffic. The nearly 30,000 carloads shipped in 2018 have grown to a projected 65,000 carloads for 2021. Additionally, LSRC has been awarded two CRISI grants over the past four years that will result in a $33 million investment in the northern portion of the railroad. LSRC marketing initiatives have

been recognized by winning the ASLRRA Marketing/Business Development award three out of the past four years. Our growth looks to be sustainable for years to come. In a time period where growth in our industry is stagnant, we have been able to execute a plan and exceed our own high expectations.

November 2021 // Railway Age 37

HONORABLE MENTIONS

R

ailway Age has not one but two Honorable Mentions for our 2021 Short Line and Regional Railroads of the Year awards: the Grenada Railroad (GRYR), nominated by President and CEO Barbara Wilson (one of our Women in Rail judges, p. 8); and the Belpre Industrial Parkersburg Railroad (BIPR), nominated by several customers. Here are their stories, as submitted to Railway Age. GRENADA RAILROAD In November 2011, the Grenada Railway was headed toward total abandonment.

This Class III, once part of the longest railroad in the world, was going to be forgotten. It would take a tremendous effort from members of the community to change the railway’s fate. Known as Grenada Railroad (GRYR) today, the track has been revitalized with public and private investment and is once again a cornerstone of the Mississippi economy.

Turning the clock back to 1851, then-prairie lawyer Abraham Lincoln is in Springfield, Ill., lobbying for the construction of the Illinois Central Railroad (IC). A land grant had been approved in the late 1840s

38 Railway Age // November 2021

by the federal government to establish a rail line that connected Mississippi to Chicago; but this decision was not unanimous, and Lincoln would have to defend the railroad against legal and political opposition. IC was ultimately completed in 1856. At the time, IC was the longest railroad in the world. It would go on to spur the growth of the midwestern economy and allow for rapid travel to and from emerging cities in the U.S. IC was sold to CN in 1998. In 2009, CN sold a 200-mile segment of the track connecting Southaven to Canton, Miss., to A&K Materials, creating the short line Grenada Railway. Fast-forward to 2011: Upon hearing news of an abandonment plan, a coalition of community members, economic developers and local legislators spearheaded by Grenada economic developer Pablo Diaz, former railroad employee Larry Hart and local attorney Walter Brown formed the North Central Mississippi Regional Railroad Authority (NCMRRA).

In 2015, the NCMRRA obtained state funding to purchase the Grenada Railway.

The NCMRRA chose Iowa Pacific Holdings (IPH) as operating partner, but IPH did not have the capital needed to adequately invest

in track and bridge repairs.

In mid-2018, RailUSA acquired Grenada Railway from IPH and began operating the line as Grenada Railroad. RailUSA started to unlock value in the line by deploying management and capital. The business goals were clear: Improve the service frequency and reliability by upgrading all 200 miles of track to Class II and 286,000-pound GRL capacity. The first project was reopening an abandoned 81 miles and the CN interchange in Canton. RailUSA committed the matching funds for an FRA FASTLANE grant awarded to GRYR for this project.

Work began in late 2018, and the Canton interchange at the south end was reopened in December 2019, allowing traffic to flow across the entire line.

Agridyne began shipping by rail again, and long-time customer Hankins’ Lumber built a second sawmill on the southern end to expand business in 2021. GRYR was awarded a $6.2 million FRA CRISI grant in 2020 to repair 90 miles of track and 36 bridges on the northern portion of the line from Grenada to Southhaven.

RailUSA committed the matching funds for the project. That work is expected to be completed in mid-2022, and for the railwayage.com

Grenada Railroad

GRENADA RAILROAD, BELPRE INDUSTRIAL PARKERSBURG RAILROAD

HONORABLE MENTIONS

BIPR

first time since becoming a short line, the entire railroad will be able to handle 286 GRL traffic. Due to these upgrades, Biewer Lumber is investing $130 million in the construction of a new sawmill in Winona, creating 150 new jobs in rural Mississippi and adding more than 1,000 additional carloads of freight per year to GRYR. Since RailUSA acquired the line in August 2018, freight traffic has doubled, investment has been made by numerous shippers including Hankins and Biewer, and the economy of north central Mississippi has benefitted from new jobs and economic stimulus due to the rebirth of GRYR. The short line now interchanges more than 11,000 carloads per year and is actively working to bring more customers online.

BELPRE INDUSTRIAL PARKERSBURG RAILROAD Several customers submitted nominations for this 48-mile Class III, whose motto is “Proudly serving the Ohio River Metals, Plastics and Petrochemicals Corridor.”

BIPR interchanges with CSX in Parkersburg, W.Va. Here is a sampling of nominations: Jesse C. Roush, Southeastern Ohio Port Authority Executive Director: “BIPR assumed operation of CSX lines in Washington County, Ohio, and Wood County, W.Va., early last year. Since then, they have grown traffic 50%-plus across their main customers, made significant and muchneeded line upgrades and expansions, and did so without a single reportable injury.

“Even before the agreement with CSX was complete, BIPR Chairman and CEO Casey Cathcart was actively consulting with local development groups to explore growth opportunities in the region. Because of Casey’s proactive approach to development, our organization was able to partner with BIPR to acquire the largest brownfield site in our county, a 165-acre portion of the former American Electric Power Muskingum River Plant in Beverly, Ohio. Without the BIPR’s partnership, we never could have completed the acquisition, arguably the most important real estate transaction we’ve undertaken in our history as the lead development agency for the county.

“I’ve spoken with most of the leadership at our major industrial manufacturing groups—all rail users—and everyone is quick to praise BIPR for exceptional railwayage.com

customer service. In the case of one business, they were able to add 200 full-time employees because of the increase in rail traffic the BIPR is providing. BIRP has saved them money and offered operational advantages due to changes in the quality of service being provided. It would be hard to imagine a greater turnaround situation than the one the BIPR has brought to the former CSX lines in our county. BIPR’s presence in Washington County has been the biggest positive development since many of our anchor industrial facilities were built in the late ’60s.”

Todd M. Atkinson, DuPont: “BIPR has brought life back to the rust belt of eastern Ohio and western West Virginia on former CSX (B&O) lines. From day one, the railroad has been customer oriented, providing excellent customer service tailored to individual needs, with excellent reliability.

The BIPR has also been safe in serving its customers. The railroad has worked injury free from day one.

“In its first year, BIPR increased traffic 50% for its main customers. The railroad has done many upgrades to its physical plant. This will ensure better customer service and safety for the future. BIPR has also been working with local economic development groups to boost business and the local economy.”

Casey Cathcart says that “since commencing operations, BIPR has had zero reportable injuries, and during its first 12 months, increased total revenue movements 84% vs. the prior three-year average. BIPR has converted several barge and truck movements to rail for existing customers (coal, residual fuel, asphalt); initiated new product movements for existing customers (ferroalloys, carbon, plastics); added three new storage-in-transit (SIT) customers supporting regional industry; and invested more than $2 million into equipment, rail refurbishment and upgrades, and new sidings.

“BIPR upgraded 21 miles from Excepted Track to FRA Class 2, built a 3,500-foot siding, installed more than 3,000 ties, and built a 3,600-foot fence around its main yard to protect the public. The railroad partnered with the Southeastern Ohio Port Authority on a joint venture acquisition of a 165-acre, rail-ready brownfield parcel for redevelopment. The former coal power plant will now house a new methanol production facility and possibly a clean fuels production facility; additional acreage is available for warehousing and other industrial development. A local customer was able to rehire nearly 200 furloughed employees and increase production due to BIPR’s reliable and consistent service.”

November 2021 // Railway Age 39

TECH FOCUS – M/W

ROCKY ROAD High-production machines perform one of the most critical of m/w functions: keeping ballast in a state of good repair.

he three most important words to a railroad chief engineer are (pardon the alliteration) drainage, drainage and drainage. The world has been experiencing biblical-sized havoc wrought by climate-change-induced flooding—scorch the landscape first, then drop a “monsoon bomb” on it—resulting in roadbed washouts. For our purposes, we’re primarily talking about basic ballast maintenance for “normal” weather conditions, though all of the equipment described here is needed for disaster recovery—rebuilding. The companies profiled here having been parting the Red Sea for railroads for generations, continually finding better ways to do it.

BALLAST TOOLS EQUIPMENT “Natural disasters are becoming a more common occurrence for our Class I, short line, commuter rail and light rail customers,” says Matt Weyand, Sales Engineer at BTE (Ballast Tools Equipment). “Our fleet of BTE Hi-Rail Excavators and Ballast Repair Attachments are there to answer the call when Mother Nature wreaks havoc on their lines.

With our Multi-Function Buckets, Undercutters and Culvert Cleaners, we can clear debris from the tracks, undercut the fouled ballast from the track and clean out plugged culverts.

All these services can be done before and after a natural disaster has occurred.”

40 Railway Age // November 2021

Recently, BTE was able to help a customer that had experienced a landslide near Grand Junction, Colo. Bringing in multiple excavator platforms with the Culvert Cleaner system, undercutters, tampers and various buckets, BTE was able to get the tracks cleared and the drainage field corrected quickly and safely.

“Utilizing our large excavator platform to clear debris quickly, allowed us to double-time clearing the culverts with the smaller excavator platform,” Weyand notes. “Once that was done, we were able to undercut problem areas while traveling on the track, as the team brought new ballast in. Taking a modular approach to ballast and drainage challenges, through the utilization of our platforms that allow for many attachments on one machine, keeps our customers ahead of the curve. Being able to use one machine to high-rail to problems areas, with its support equipment, creates efficiencies and increases the flexibility in solutions available for a given problem.”

HERZOG Herzog says it “continues to provide the highest levels of accuracy and efficiency when it comes to ballast unloading across North America’s railroads. Herzog’s specialized ballast distribution equipment—the Automated Conveyor Train (ACT) and GPS ballast trains—have transformed this once labor-intensive activity into a safe, economical solution.

“With Herzog’s m/w equipment, railroads

face fewer constraints when they encounter labor shortages for track maintenance work. Crews can take full advantage of the scheduled work windows, as both the GPS ballast trains and the ACT require only one Herzog operator. No employees are required to traverse the unstable walking surface of ballasted track and they can avoid the harmful effects of silica dust inhalation.

“This past September, Herzog’s ACT supported relief efforts after Hurricane Ida near New Orleans left critical miles of Class I track washed out and impassable. The ACT proved vital to getting the necessary aggregates to our customer quickly for trackbed reconstruction to begin and return to standard operations faster than anticipated. The ACT is very versatile in that it can transport and unload multiple types of materials in one consist and distribute in curves up to 13 degrees. The ACT can also instantly pause dumping and move to the next location with no additional setup time.

“Always focused on making continuous improvements to its technology, Herzog’s Research & Development teams work to increase load capacity, improve flow rates, and achieve the most precise distribution footprint along the track possible. Using enhanced LiDAR laser scanning coupled with military-grade GPS/inertial systems during its pre-dump surveys, Herzog can spread specific quantities of ballast wherever needed along the line.” railwayage.com

Herzog

T

BY WILLIAM C. VANTUONO, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Solar Powered Electric AggreGate Stands Alone ®

For safer, more efficient and flexible ballast operations ®

With 25,000+ ballast gates sold worldwide, Miner AggreGate sets the standard, delivering proven reliability and innovative flexibility. Our new Stand-Alone Solar Powered Electric AggreGate—complete with its own car-mounted work lights for night ballasting—enables independent operation of individual cars anywhere within the ballast train. This boosts MOW agility and efficiency by eliminating the need for grouping manual and automatic cars. An optional remote wireless control system allows for specific car and gate selection for up to 1000 cars. Standard electric, air-powered and manual models are also available.

The Leader in Innovation and Technology. Simple.

Reliable. Proven.

LEFT: Accessible gate controllers and battery banks ensure smooth operations and efficient maintenance.

MIDDLE: Car-mounted solar panels keep the battery banks charged and ready for stand-alone ballast operations.

RIGHT: Miner’s stand-alone LED lighting system enables safer night operations.

minerent.com

TECH FOCUS – M/W

KNOX KERSHAW INC. Knox Kershaw Inc.’s KBR 860 Ballast Regulator is a “powerful track dressing machine,” says President George Pugh. “It comes standard with a one-pass-type plow, reversible side wings and a broom attachment. The machine features a sturdy, comfortable cab with unique window placement for optimum visibility.

The overall length and height is specifically designed to be shorter in order to facilitate transport to and from the work site.

“The cab tilt feature and clean roof design promote safety and ease of maintenance by providing easy access to major machine components without having to go under or climb on top of the cab. Featured options of the 860 include a hydraulically driven AC with pressurizer, joystick controls on an ergonomic operator’s seat with easy access to all controls, tinted windows, additional rider seating, and a six-speed powershift transmission.

“The KBR 925 Ballast Regulator, which was redesigned for 2019, is a robust machine designed for ballast work on all types of track.

Superb visibility, especially the wing areas, makes it the ideal machine for final profiling. The 925’s plow and wing work together to transfer ballast from shoulder to shoulder in one pass while leaving one shoulder profiled.

The insulated broom box has excellent service life, and the standard reversing valve allows ballast to be swept away from switches and road crossings.

“New features for the KBR 925 include a Danfoss Plus One control system, frontmounted Visionaire hydraulically driven AC with high capacity pressurization, and increased fuel and hydraulic fluid capacities.

“The Plus One controller includes a 12-inch color touch screen monitor to display machine functions and diagnostics. When fully developed, the controller will aid operators in processes such as joystick functions, transmission shifting, wing deploy/store and brooming speed control, as well as self-diagnosis of 42 Railway Age // November 2021

performance issues. Clogged filters, inoperable coils or wiring, fluid pressure warnings, engine diagnostics and on-screen troubleshooting guides will enable operators and mechanics to diagnose problems and quickly resolve them.

“The new design increased fuel tank capacity by placing dual tanks on either side of the cab and moving the hydraulic tank to the front of the machine for added weight and balance.

Side access steps are configured for easy and safe access to the cab and all maintenance points are easily accessible from the ground.

“All of these new features improve productivity by increasing capacity and decreasing machine down time. KKI is focused on product line expansion and continues to improve upon existing models of its machines to make them safer, more efficient and easier to operate. We could not do this without the guidance and support of our customers.

Through them, we learn how to make our products better with each model.”

LORAM “The most recent research presented at the 2021 AREMA conference highlighted the importance of ballast maintenance,” says Loram.

“The presentation demonstrated the effectiveness of shoulder ballast cleaning by quantifying the improvement in drainage realized as well as the improvement in center fouling over time.

Analysis was also presented showing the lower total cost of ownership when utilizing a scheduled shoulder ballast cleaning program.

“Loram’s customers, both domestically and internationally, are turning to gathered data and analysis to make informed decisions about where to spend their ballast maintenance budgets. In the current era where there is an increased scrutiny of mudspots and limited maintenance windows, a premium is being placed on ensuring that the right work is being done in the locations that need it most.

Customers are moving beyond the adage of ‘I know where my mud is’ and looking for

technology partners that can give them the depth of understanding necessary to ensure that their maintenance dollars will be spent to solve root causes of issues, not just symptoms.

“Good planning is the key to effective ballast maintenance. Loram Technology’s inspection equipment can utilize GPR, LiDAR, linescan, x-ray tie inspection and video to assess the entire track structure. When this data is aligned with railroad-supplied geometry history (to provide overall trending), a holistic analysis of the track can be completed and used to inform planning. Loram has created ballast life cycle models to help determine what remediation services will provide the greatest economical return on the investment. Then a work plan is developed to precisely execute a multi-year maintenance plan to fit a customer’s budget and remediate/maintain as much track as possible in the most cost-effective manner.

“GPR, LiDAR and geometry data are often used together to target where different types of ballast maintenance should be executed. Areas with high shoulder fouling and moderate crib fouling are candidates for shoulder ballast cleaning alone, while high center fouling paired with persistent geometry issues may be a target for subgrade stabilization before undercutting.

High fouling and moisture retention around bridge abutments, road crossings or switches can be targeted for vacuum excavation.

“GPR data can be used to identify areas that require undercutting or shoulder ballast cleaning. The total fouling data can then be paired with LiDAR data to plan the ballast cleaning task by identifying the current ballast volume and calculating how much the volume will be reduced by removing the fouling material.

This data can be used to determine how much ballast will need to be delivered to restore the track to the target ballast profile.”

MINER Miner works very closely with customers “to help understand all their ballasting railwayage.com

Plasser American

Plasser RM80

We inspect.

We analyze.

We execute.

Clockwise from top right– Structural inspection with Ground Penetrating Radar, HP Shoulder Ballast Cleaner, and Badger Ditcher

Ditching and drainage by Loram.

Loram delivers comprehensive solutions for ballast optimization and drainage maintenance.

Inspection with Loram’s Ground Penetrating Radar and LiDAR technologies ensure targeted ditch and drainage maintenance that will maintain the stability of your ballast and subgrade. Ditch and shoulder ballast cleaning deliver the benefits of increased cycle time between surfacing and lining programs, while preventing premature tie deterioration and loss of stability in track infrastructure.

From inspection and geotechnical services that precisely identify drainage and ballast conditions, to our industry-leading array of maintenance equipment and remediation solutions, Loram is equipped to maximize and protect your infrastructure investment. Learn more at Loram.com

Rail Grinding | Ballast Maintenance | Friction Management | Material Handling | Track Inspection Services ©2021 Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc.

TECH TECH FOCUS FOCUS –– M/W M/W

Miner AggreGate

existing cars in the fleet.

“The solar-powered, electric battery operated, stand-alone AggreGate is designed to enable independent operation of the car from anywhere within the ballast train, thus eliminating the need for grouping manual and automatic cars and can ultimately be operated without connection to another car for power. Solar power and battery provide stand-alone operation. An optional remote control with push button override is also available, designed to allow for individual car and gate selection. The state-of-the-art electronics promises improved reliability, longevity and performance.

“As the largest and most experienced

PLASSER AMERICAN “Ballast is a critical component of the track structure; it needs to be clean and in the proper location and quantity to perform its job,” says Vice President Sales and Marketing Ron Olds.

Miner

needs and provide safe, reliable and durable maintenance-of-way AggreGate ballasting systems,” the company says. “There has been a growing interest in night ballasting and using our solar-charged lighting system to light around the work areas.

“In meeting our customers’ needs, Miner developed a stand-alone lighting system to aid in night ballasting. This system uses solar panels to store energy during the day light hours, for powering LED work lights at night.

This system allows for a safer work environment during night operations.

The stand-alone lighting system is available with standard electric, air-powered and manual AggreGates, and as a retrofit option for

manufacturer of discharge systems in the world, Miner is known for reliable operation; rugged, long-lasting design; reduced maintenance; and dependability.

“With many unique design features, the AggreGate can effectively ballast inside, outside or both sides of the rail simultaneously. These features include large guillotine door openings designed to stop ballast flow with minimum effort, easy to operate toggle-type linkage systems and tapered doors for easy ballast shutoff at switches, crossovers and bridges. In addition, the remote control AggreGate allows the user to deposit ballast while remaining a safe distance from the activity.

“AggreGate ballast discharge outlets are available in either manual, air-operated, electric or remote control models to meet virtually any ballast unloading need. Engineered as a fabricated and completely assembled unit, AggreGates are extremely easy to apply to new or existing hopper cars.”

44 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

TECH FOCUS – M/W

Additionally, there are high-capacity double screening units such as the RM2003 and the RM802 High Speed Undercutter-Cleaner.

Plasser American offers contract services for ballast undercutting and shoulder cleaning.

“Plasser’s PBR2005 Ballast Profiling machine has the ability to plow, profile and broom in one pass. The unique design of the shoulder plows allow the machine to reach out and pull in ballast, which was previously beyond the reach of conventional ballast

Loram

“Plasser American supplies various highproduction machines to maintain ballast.

“Clean ballast is extremely important to maintain track geometry. Scheduled ballast undercutting and shoulder cleaning to create proper drainage and removing fouled material from the track is the first step to longlasting track. Plasser offers several machines for cleaning ballast. The workhorse of this fleet of machines is the RM80, which can undercut and clean plain track, as well as switches.

regulators. The machine is also available with an optional double broom. The PBR2005DB is ideally suited to work behind two-tie tampers where it can easily keep up with the tamper in a ‘one pass’ operation.

“Unfortunately, the ballast along the railway isn’t always where it is needed. The Plasser Ballast Distribution System has the ability to solve this problem. The Plasser BDS system has the ability to profile ballast, pick up excess ballast, and unload ballast where it is needed including switches and road crossings in a one pass operation. Additionally, the BDS100/200 Ballast Distribution System continues to be the ideal machine to accompany our high speed 09-3X tampers, working on its own or with multiple tampers.

“Plasser’s MFS Hopper Conveyor series of cars are a well proven design providing hundreds of cars over many years. Additional cars can be coupled together to increase capacity. The floor of each car is a conveyor belt for storing and moving material. A waste/transfer conveyor is installed on the end of each car.

These cars are ideal to be used with undercutter and shoulder cleaners for loading waste material or carrying new ballast and to add storage capacity to the BDS100/200 system.”

46 Railway Age // November 2021

railwayage.com

SMALL-ROAD SAFETY

SLSI:

SLSI

I

n October, the 100th Safety Culture Assessment (SCA), deemed the most robust model for assessing safety culture in the U.S. railroad industry1, was completed on a short line railroad by the subject matter experts at the Short Line Safety Institute (SLSI). SCAs are voluntary, non-punitive, confidential and performed at no cost to the hosting railroad.

Tom Murta, SLSI Executive Director, described the SCA as “the most important process in which your railroad can participate to understand the strengths and areas of opportunity in your safety culture.” As part of the Assessment, the SLSI team will provide the railroad with templates, and other materials to assist in closing any gaps or addressing areas of opportunity with the goal of continuously improving safety on the railroad.

Established in 2015 with a grant from the Federal Railroad Administration’s Office of Research, Development and Technology, the SLSI is focused on the people side of the safety equation, or safety culture, defined as the shared values, actions and behaviors that demonstrate a commitment to safety over competing goals and demands. railwayage.com

10 0 SAFET Y CU LTU RE ASS ESS M ENTS

Safety culture has been identified as a top priority for the short line and regional railroad industry. Class II and III railroads are small businesses, and often lack the resources to make significant investments in developing training beyond what is required by regulations, or to develop a tool to measure safety culture on their railroad. The SLSI was formed to fill this need for smaller railroads.

The goal of the SLSI and its programs is for the short line and regional railroad industry to perform at an increasingly high level of safety because of a focus not only on compliance, but also on safety culture.

“The response to the SCA has been tremendous among short line and regional railroads, and the experience has been eye-opening for some of the participants,” stated Sam Cotton, SLSI Director of Safety Culture Programs. “Although a railroad can be compliant regarding all regulations, a strong safety culture can bolster the potential that employees will act in a manner that prioritizes safety above any competing demand. This includes being able to feel comfortable in identifying and mitigating risk at any time.”

Cotton and the team collectively have more than 500 years of safety experience on short line railroads. Assessors evaluate the practice of Ten Core Elements of a Strong Safety Culture (as defined by the U.S. Department of Transportation Safety Council) in a number of ways including surveys, in-person observations, reviews of safety documents and interviews with employees at all levels of the organization.

The result identifies areas of both strength and opportunities at the railroad and offers resources to address opportunity areas.

Annual post-assessment systematic reviews of the aggregate SCAs have identified several commonalities. For instance, across short lines, Safety Values (the perception across all levels of the railroad that safety is prioritized, and safety is valued above all competing demands), Employee Empowerment (employees feel that they are empowered to work safely), and Approaching Management with Safety Concerns (employees believe they are able to bring safety concerns to management without fear of retribution) were identified as strengths in the 2020 review. 2 Many short line railroads share the same November 2021 // Railway Age 47

SMALL-ROAD SAFETY

48 Railway Age // November 2021

is additional training on the regulatory requirements for the safe movement of Hazardous Materials (Hazmat), and preparation for responding to a Hazmat incident.

With a grant from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) in 2017, the SLSI began offering a comprehensive class on Hazmat Safety. Training can be offered directly to employees, or can be presented in a trainthe-trainer format to supplement the training already being offered on a railroad.

The class typically incorporates the Safety Train, made available for use through the SLSI’s partnership with the Firefighters Education and Training Foundation. The Safety Train is equipped with a training classroom, a variety of tank cars, and a flat car containing a wide assortment of tank car valves and fittings for handson training. To date, the SLSI has trained more than 1,400 individuals from 279 organizations.

“The training we’ve been able to provide to the short line industry has proven to be effective and highly valued by participants,” said John Walsh, SLSI Director of Hazardous Materials Programs. “For example, 97% of respondents to feedback surveys have rated the program positively, and pre- and post-tests show that the program can effectively transfer crucial safety information from instructor to participant.”3 Walsh also noted that during 2020, when travel and access to railroad properties was limited, Hazmat training was made available

1

SHORT LINE SAFETY INSTITUTE: THE

MOST ROBUST MODEL FOR ASSESSING SAFETY CULTURE IN THE U.S. RAILROAD INDUSTRY, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, RR 19-16, June 2019.

2

SHORT LINE SAFETY INSTITUTE: STATUS OF

SAFETY CULTURE IN THE INDUSTRY, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, RR 21-06, April 2021.

3

SHORT LINE SAFETY INSTITUTE: POSITIVE

PERCEPTIONS OF THE HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRAINING PROGRAM, Julia Leone, Ph.D., and EFFECTIVENESS OF SHORT LINE SAFETY INSTITUTE’S HAZARDOUS MATERIALS TRAINING PROGRAM, Julia Leone, Ph.D.

SLSI

opportunity areas, and as those are identified, the SLSI team develops resources and tools to assist them in closing the gaps.

The popular Leadership Development Training class was created in response to an opportunity area related to Core Element #7—There is Open and Effective Communication Across the Railroad. This class is a three-day interactive event that has become one of the most sought-after resources offered by the SLSI. During COVID-19, training did not slow down, as the class was presented remotely via video platform. Among respondents to the feedback survey who participated in either the in-person or virtual Leadership Development Training, 92% would recommend this class to other colleagues in their organization. Additionally, 99% of respondents said the class was a worthwhile investment in their career development, based on analyses from the SLSI. Other tools developed include downloadable posters, video training and Safety Tips for use in safety briefings.

A new offering is the Time2 SCA, which measures and evaluates change in safety culture in the intervening years since the first SCA was conducted. “Ten railroads have already taken advantage of the Time2 SCA, and we have been very impressed with the significant and noted changes in areas that were previously identified as opportunities, and the number of action steps closed,” shared Cotton.

Another common area of opportunity

in new formats, including a Fast Class video series, and Hazmat Minute videos that have been viewed almost 10,000 times.

Additional Hazmat resources have been developed to meet the needs of short line railroads, including Hazmat Safety Tips designed for review during safety briefings, and the Transportation Emergency Response Plan (TERP), a locationspecific training, planning and response tool for emergencies.

“The Short Line Safety Institute has grown its offerings to address documented small-railroad needs to meet our purpose of continuing to improve safety culture across the industry,” said Murta. “The efforts of the railroads we’ve worked with to date have been tremendous. We look forward to serving our industry, assisting railroads in meeting the challenges and changes required to operate safely as a critical part of our nation’s supply chain.”

railwayage.com

Tech Focus – C&S

FROM WAYSIDE

TO OFFICE Suppliers are helping passenger and freight railroads drive efficiency—and a proactive maintenance approach—with remote health monitoring of wayside equipment.

R

BY MARYBETH LUCZAK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

Alstom

emote health monitoring of wayside equipment is improving the way freight and passenger railroads operate and maintain infrastructure. Alstom, Hitachi Rail, Railway Equipment Company (RECO) and Siemens Mobility share how.

ALSTOM Rather than maintaining equipment on a scheduled basis, or correctively when a fault is identified and reported, railroads can use Alstom’s Wayside Intelligence product line “to continually monitor key assets and adopt a more proactive approach to maintenance,” says Emilio Barcelos, Senior Product Manager, Wayside Intelligence. “Using predictive maintenance techniques, the system can alert the maintainer ahead of time and even predict the time before failure. This allows a more proficient use of the railway’s maintenance staff and keeps the velocity of the railway optimized.”

“Collecting Internet of Things data at the wayside, then sending it to a centralized backoffice allows railways to run their own analytics and business intelligence applications to pinpoint the root cause of an issue,” he adds. railwayage.com

Alstom’s Data Acquisition Unit (DAU) wayside recorder and reporter can monitor switch machines, track circuits and crossing equipment. It streams data up to an “edge compute device or to a back-office system at a central site.” The company’s Wayside System Data Management Module (WSDMM) interfaces with other wayside equipment. It is used to monitor track circuit, crossing data and system logs from wayside controllers, and to capture and route streaming data from the DAU and other event recorders.

For switch machines, the DAU is used with the WSDMM or back-office application to monitor voltage, current and temperature.

HITACHI RAIL Hitachi Rail offers IECC® for remote switch machine monitoring and control. With it, “potential field problems are caught well before a failure occurs,” Hitachi says. “This networking interface will allow end-users the ability to instantly access the real-time device status, location information and a cumulative log of the last 100,000 switch machine movements.”

The STS MicroLok® II Wayside Control System for mass transit and freight applications

performs key wayside functions, both in the field and remotely, such as train detection and track circuit integrity. MicroLok can “selfdiagnose” and send alerts, as needed, back to a central location or control center.

“Our goal is to make it as service free, as hands free as possible,” says Allan Immel, Hitachi Rail’s Head of Turnkey Systems Business Development for North America.

RAILWAY EQUIPMENT COMPANY Railroads can remotely monitor the health of Railway Equipment Company (RECO) switch heaters, batteries, LED lights, gate arms, gate lamps and switch machines, according to VP of Sales Matt Bolte. “Also with our event recorder, we have the ability to monitor everything at a crossing,” he tells Railway Age. The advantage? “The ability to notify the railroad when an issue arises, and what that issue is, to reduce repair time,” he says. Also, “as railroads collect more data year after year, they can start tracking data for predictive maintenance.”

SIEMENS MOBILITY Through its “Railigent ecosystem,” Siemens offers options for remotely monitoring the November 2021 // Railway Age 49

Tech Focus – C&S health of the Siemens Track Information Monitor and Wayside Inspector Automated Grade Crossing Testing System, for instance.

Other systems that can be monitored remotely are the GCP 3000+, 4000 and 5000 and the MS 4000 crossing systems. “Through these systems, we are actively monitoring the track circuit, which includes shunting sensitivity, ballast conditions, speed of train and trending data from crossing to crossing,” explains Tobi Bauer, SVP Rail Infrastructure North America. “We can also replay train movements and optimize settings for off-crossing equipment and precision maintaining.”

The monitored data is sent from the field to a Railigent data center, Bauer says. “The Railigent software then visualizes and analyzes the data and generates a report for our customer.”

Remote monitoring provides more than repair notices, Bauer says. “It also alerts to problems that would not have been found with traditional means and allows for precision scheduling. This includes deferring maintainer calls until working hours which, in turn, saves on cost, and ensures the

50 Railway Age // November 2021

maintainer has the proper tools.”

WHAT’S NEXT? Railroads continue to look toward data analytics. “An authority may see that a certain track circuit is always failing, so now they can take the data and analyze it to see why it is failing,” explains Hitachi Rail’s Immel. “They can also look at common failures and start to do trending.” And this leads to condition-based monitoring, he says, where the condition of the equipment or component drives the maintenance and inspection as opposed to a regular interval or standard.

The market is also ripe for use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) “to get even more accuracy and automated decisions,” Alstom’s Barcelos says. “AI tools will allow most decisions to be made seamlessly at the edge rather than heavily relying on a person at the back-office.

Proving the safety and explainability of the AI solutions in all use cases is a challenge. Once that is achieved, efficiencies will be gained, and maintenance costs and timing will be predicted with accuracy and traceability.”

Innovation in video and predictive analytics is on the way, as well, detecting obstructions, vandalism and broken equipment, and providing advanced notifications of potential issues, Bauer says.

Suppliers also expect the approach to wayside equipment inspections will change due to the use of remote health monitoring. “With today’s technology you are able to perform many of the inspection tests during every train movement,” says RECO’s Bolte.

“And now we are able to capture this data on a daily basis, instead of waiting to perform a monthly, 90-day or yearly test.”

Bauer adds that inspections will someday be “automated using AI-enabled event recorders, and the frequency of field inspections will decrease using video analytics and AI.” Sums up Barcelos: “As data standards emerge, more devices will be able to report a state of health, and railways will be able to take advantage of this evidence to build robust knowledge around their systems-of-systems’ health, status, maintenance needs and regulatory compliance.”

railwayage.com

TTCI R&D

LABORATORY TESTING OF

RECONDITIONED BEARINGS

R TTCI

BY DUSTIN CLASBY, SENIOR ENGINEER, TRANSPORTATION TECHNOLOGY CENTER, INC.

oller bearing reconditioning is a common practice in the railroad industry, with 90% of the bearings in revenue service having been through the reconditioning process. Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) is collecting test data on the performance and service life of bearings following reconditioning repairs. The testing for this research

railwayage.com

project consisted of two phases.

Phase 1, now complete, focused on bearing performance. The second, currently under way, concentrates on service life.

In Phase 1, the performance of repaired bearings was assessed by examining the operational characteristics of the bearings both before and after the repairs. In Phase 2, service life research will explore how long repairs could be expected to last

and any repair features that may extend service life.

The method employed in the first phase was a comparison of bearing performance before and after reconditioning repairs.

The test was conducted using approximately 10,000-mile runs on a bearing rig at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). These relatively short test runs allowed the bearings to reach a steady state November 2021 // Railway Age 51

TTCI R&D

Phase 2 will test reconditioning repair longevity to determine how long a spall repair could last in revenue service. in both the operating temperature and the vibration of the bearing.

There are many different bearing reconditioning repairs available for several types of defects. TTCI began its testing by focusing on bearings with raceway fatigue spalling—the most common type of defect per AAR roller bearing reports records.

The reconditioning process for spalls begins with a visual inspection of the raceway. If any defect is identified, and it is capable of being repaired according to AAR rules, the defect is ground with a handheld rotary tool to remove the stress points. The material removal leaves a cavity in the raceway. Figure 1 (p. 51) shows an example of spalls before and after repairs. The performance test investigated whether the raceway cavities created during the spall repair process could cause bearing performance issues demonstrated by vibration or increased temperatures.

Spalled cups from 12 bearings were selected for testing. Each bearing cup was tested on the UTRGV test rig, repaired per AAR standards, and then re-tested on the rig. The performance of all 12 bearings before repair was deemed to be within normal operating thresholds. Because spalls that can be repaired are relatively small, it is not surprising that these spalled bearing cups exhibited normal temperature and vibration performance before reconditioning repairs.

The temperature and vibration measurements for the bearings were also within normal operating thresholds after the reconditioning repair. However, a spall developed on one of the cup raceways after running 8,700 miles post repair. The spall initiated near the stress-relief holes created during the repair process.

The next research phase will explore the expected life cycle of reconditioned spall repairs and investigate the potential causes of re-developed spalls.

Overall, the results suggest that spall repairs made during the reconditioning process did not have a major effect on the shortterm performance of the test bearings. Of the 12 bearing cups tested, all produced temperature and vibration signatures within the normal operational experience of the testing facility both before and after the reconditioning repairs. Five test bearings experienced more steady temperatures or lower operating temperatures after the reconditioning repairs. Ten of the bearings experienced a decrease in vibration levels after the reconditioning repairs.

Phase 2 of TTCI’s research will test the longevity of the reconditioning repairs to determine how long a spall repair could be expected to last in revenue service.

52 Railway Age // November 2021

0

¯

railwayage.com

People RICH REGAN

Oil-Chem Industries/zMAX® HIGH PROFILE: Rich Regan, who has served more than 40

years in the railroad industry in positions ranging from vice president transportation to senior vice president, mechanical, has joined Oil-Chem Industries/zMAX® (a subsidiary of Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports, Inc.), overseeing commercial development of the microlubricant for locomotive and marine diesel applications.

“We’re thrilled to have Rich join our zMAX® team,” said Dan Chittock, Vice President of Business Operations. “The fact that someone with his reputation and industry experience not only believes in our product but wants to help tell others about it is incredible.

We are very excited to have him on board and look forward to a bright future together.”

Regan recently retired as Senior Vice President, Mechanical at Genesee & Wyoming, Inc., where he had responsibility for the company’s Global Mechanical Maintenance, Planning and Strategy for 1,200 locomotives and 25,000 freight cars on 120 railroads.

Regan joined GWI in 2008 as Vice President, Transportation for the Southern Region.

Previously, he spent 34 years at Conrail and CSX in several positions. At CSX, he was Vice President Mechanical, Chief Mechanical Officer Locomotives, Chief Mechanical Officer Cars, Chief Regional Mechanical Officer, and General Manager Car Operations.

Prior to CSX, Regan was Conrail’s Managing Director Material Assets. zMAX®, used in race car and aircraft piston engines since 1946 (it is the only FAA-certified product of its type), is produced by Bedford Park, Ill.-based Oil-Chem Research Corp., which in 1996 was purchased by Bruton Smith’s Speedway Motorsports, Inc. Speedway Motorsports has broadened zMax’s consumer marketplace, which includes auto parts and big-box stores like Walmart. zMAX®, developed with the assistance of Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi, was initially sold for professional motor sports and aviation use only. In 2017, OmniTRAX became the first railroad company to adopt zMAX® as part of its regular locomotive maintenance program, after a successful trial program.

As described by Technical and Manufacturing Director Ed Rachanski Jr., zMAX® is produced with a proprietary reformation formula. “We start with highly refined petroleum oil whose molecular structure is further refined to create a microlubricant,” he says. “zMAX® uses the engine’s lube oil as a carrying agent to reach the metal. Based on Auger Electron Spectroscopy, it penetrates into metal 82 times deeper than other lubricants. It keeps metal surfaces cooler and better lubricated to help fuels and oils do the job they were designed for. It cleans, lubricates and protects metal from the inside out, and disperses varnish, carbon and other harmful performance-robbing deposits. zMax® is not an oil additive or chemical. It’s a pure petroleum product compatible with all motor oils, conventional and synthetic. Its molecules have been reformulated smaller than regular engine oil molecules. This allows its unique ‘micro-molecules’ to soak into the metal. Ordinary engine oil additives use materials like Teflon®, PTFE, zinc phosphates, Graphite and MoS2 in an effort to increase protection and lubricity. Based on SAE J357, a lubricant additive agent is ‘a material designed to enhance the performance properties of the base stock or to improve the base stock properties that do not naturally exist.’ zMAX® does neither, as it is not designed to improve or enhance any qualities of the engine oil. Introducing zMAX® into the engine oil is the means to transport it directly to the engine’s metallurgy.”

railwayage.com

R

.J. Corman Railroad Co. has elevated Shannon Drown to Assistant Vice President of Commercial Development, Railroads. Drown served previously as Director, Commercial Development, managing the commercial endeavors of the R.J. Corman Memphis Line—Railway Age’s 2021 Short Line Railroad of the Year (p. 31)—as well as the R.J. Corman Central Kentucky Lines and the R.J. Corman Bardstown Line. In her new role, Drown now leads the Commercial Development team plus sales efforts and key account management for the R.J. Corman Railroad Co. Prior to joining the company, she held leadership positions at Union Pacific and CSX. “I’m excited to promote Shannon into this new position,” said Justin Broyles, Executive Vice President, Commercial Affairs.

“Her leadership skills, account management experience, and extensive knowledge of the railroad industry and supply chains are a perfect match for this role.”

OmniTRAX President Sergio Sabatini is taking on the additional role of Chief Operating Officer, and John Bradley has assumed an expanded role as a Senior Vice President. Current COO Gord Anutooshkin has decided to leave the company at year’s end, said OmniTRAX, an affiliate of The Broe Group. Sabatini has been a member of the OmniTRAX leadership team since 2013. He was promoted to President in January 2021, following service as COO. At the same time, the company elevated Anutooshkin to COO. Bradley now has direct oversight of all rail operations, engineering, and locomotive and car repair. He joined OmniTRAX in 2017.

The League of Railway Women (LRW) has added BNSF Logistics’ Vickie Vaughn and Trinity Industries’ Shundrekia Stewart to its Board of Directors; they will serve as Deputy Chairs of Education and Membership, respectively. Vaughn joins the Education Committee. She is Marketing Coordinator at BNSF Logistics, a Bronze LRW Corporate Partner, and the company’s first female FAA-licensed drone pilot flying missions for the engineering and project rail team. Stewart, Director, Customer Delivery Operations for Trinity, is taking over the Membership Committee’s deputy role from Megan Forbes, formerly of Trinity Industries, who has left the rail industry to pursue other opportunities.

November 2021 // Railway Age 53

EQUIPMENT SALE/LEASING

RECRUITMENT

Leading the Future of Rail Industry Executive Search

WE START IT ALL

Retained • Contingent Interim Leadership Placement Global award winning team and Globally certified in Diversity and Inclusion in the workplace

3324RR STARTS ENGINES UP TO 3500HP

(773) 899-1650 • Merritt@MeritusExecutiveSearch.com www.MeritusExecutiveSearch.com

3370RR STARTS ENGINES UP TO 6000HP

MARKETPLACE SALES

214RR HEAVY USAGE STARTING

FRANK ROSE P: 917-856-1808 frose@sbpub.com

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

E

R

IC

A

www.STARTPAC.com

ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED

M

A

D

E

IN

A

M

OR CALL TOLL FREE 844.901.9987

RAILWAY AGE A4.indd 1

54 Railway Age // November 2021

07/07/2017 09:15

railwayage.com

Ad Index COMPANY AECOM

PHONE #

FAX #

972-788-1000

URL/EMAIL ADDRESS

PAGE #

BusinessInquiry.Americas@aecom.com

22

AMSTED RAIL GROUP

312-922-4516

312-922-4597

kskibinski@amstedrail.com

28

ANACOSTIA-NY & ATLANTIC

718-497-3023

718-497-3364

www.anacostia.com/railroads

27

BNSF

817-867-6250

817-352-7924

media@bnsf.com

19

CANADIAN PACIFIC

415-640-6129

Jeremy_Berry@cpr.ca

18

CN

888-888-5909

CSX CORPORATION

904-359-3200

DIESEL ELECTRICAL EQUIPMENT INC

11 csx.com

16

219-922-1848

219-922-1849

quality@dieselelectricalequipment.com

29

G&W RAILROAD SERVICES INC

203-202-8900

203-656-1092

corpcomm@gwrr.com

24

GREENBRIER COMPANIES THE

800-343-7188

503-684-7553

gbrx.info@gbrx.com

13

HERZOG

816-385-8233

jhansen@herzog.com

45

HNTB CORPORATION

212-594-9717

rhakim@hntb.com

15

KANSAS CITY SOUTHERN

816-983-1372

dcarlson@kcsouthern.com

17

KNOX KERSHAW INC

334-387-5669

334-387-4554

knox@knoxkershaw.com

44

LORAM

763-478-2627

763-478-2221

alexis.b.nubbe@loram.com

43

METRA MARKETING

312-322-4078

csantori@metrarr.com

26

MINER ENTERPRISES

630-232-3000

630-232-3055

sales@minerent.com

41

315-786-5431

315-786-5676

Janice.Pfeil@nyab.com

5

NEW YORK AIR BRAKE NORFOLK SOUTHERN

25

OMNITRAX

303-398-4539

PROGRESS RAIL A CATERPILLER CO

256-505-6402

RAILPROS, INC.

682-223-6897

RAILWAY EQUIPMENT CO

763-972-2200

RAILWAY EDUCATIONAL BUREAU

402-346-4300

jslagle@omnitrax.com 256-505-6051

26

info@progressrail.com C2,21 www.railpros.com

14

763-972-2900

sales@rwy.com

50

402-346-1783

bbrundige@sb-reb.com

C3

SEPTA

215-580-7800

septa.org

30

TRAINYARD TECH LLC

724-443-8881

cra2@zooninternet.net

46

TTX COMPANY

312-853-3223

ttx.com

10

UNION CAR TANK COMPANY

312-347-5705

nilsson@utlx.com

C4

UNION PACIFIC

402-544-3560

cbeyah@up.com

9

WABTEC CORPORATION

412-825-1000

www.WabtecCorp.com

23

WATCO COMPANIES

620-231-2230

tvanbecelaere@watco.com

20

WMATA ZMAX

12

703.793.3417 704-455-3270

cajohnson@zmax.com

33

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.

railwayage.com

November 2021 // Railway Age 55

Financial Edge NIMBYs, YIMBYs and the Political Moonscape

I

n 2015, following a 2014 Amtrak derailment, The Economist published an article on the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel calling for replacement while noting that any planned replacement would take a while: “Construction on any replacement is unlikely to begin this decade.”

Well, it’s the next decade, and commencing the tunnel replacement project is being held up awaiting approval of the infrastructure bill. In a game of political football, the House continues to haggle over and leverage the bill’s passing.

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was initially passed by the Senate in August (it was introduced in June 2021).

A recent Wall Street Journal article highlights the replacement plan including a build time frame of 10-12 years and a price tag that boggles the mind: $2 billion per mile ($4 billion total). It notes that the original tunnel was built between 1871 and 1873 “by workers hacking underground with pickaxes and shovels, aided by dynamite.” (Truly priceless.)

The debate around the bill’s passage shows where infrastructure and rail in particular fits into the political and economic landscape. Certainly, the 140-year-old tunnel (a victim almost certainly of deferred maintenance) is in need of replacement. The 30 mph speed collar and the cost of keeping the tunnel operational suggests that replacement would serve the common good on one of the busiest portions of Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor.

Opposition to the tunnel is regionalized and haphazard, attacking a capital improvement strategy necessitated by the maintenance deferral. In the media and in the political arena, it comes out as the opposite of NIMBYism. It asks a simple question: Why take 4% of the value of the Infrastructure Plan and allocate it to one tunnel serving one specific region in one specific corridor? Carry that a bit forward and think about this mindset on a national scale. If a project is not a YIMBY (yes in my back yard), it is regionalized politics favoring the few.

Amtrak (and the Baltimore and 56 Railway Age // November 2021

Potomac tunnel carries Amtrak as well as MARC regional service) strikes a strong chord in regional politics. On the one side, generally, citizens would like a national passenger system available full time. It’s an Americanism: If it can exist in Europe, why can’t it exist in the U.S. (there are two million square-mile reasons, duh)? On the other side, outside Amtrak’s limited high-traffic areas, you might feel that a national passenger rail system is a gratuitous thing where federal dollars are being deployed meaninglessly.

The regional political winds of NIMBYism and YIMBYism extend beyond the passenger into freight. The big difference is that the freight railroads are primarily responsible for all track maintenance expenses including bridge upkeep. They bear the results of failing to maintain their track. Grumbling about our nation’s crumbling infrastructure rarely includes grumbling about freight rail or track condition (notwithstanding that most derailments are caused by track failures).

The national freight network in North America is a modern marvel of extraordinary proportions, unlike any other network around the world. But tossed between the NIMBYs and YIMBYs of regionalized politics, it is relentlessly criticized as underwhelming.

Freight rail bears the risks and rewards of owning its infrastructure. Hence why the infrastructure bill contains little for freight rail improvements. The trucking industry offers only a fraction of the contribution to infrastructure (roads, highways and bridges are maintained by federal, state and local governments) other than fuel taxes, toll payments, licensing fees and accident-related roadbed repairs (oops). In 2018, there were 500,000 accidents involving trucks, compared to 11,900 derailments with a four-to-one total fatality ratio.

Passenger rail is a public service funded by taxpayer dollars with offsets provided by passenger fares. It’s easy to spend $4 billion for two miles when you have limited accountability. Railroad shareholders would f lip over if capex ran amok that way. Federal audits rarely lead to

Freight rail bears the risk and rewards of owning its infrastructure. hence why the infrastructure bill contains little for it. results beyond finger wagging.

Freight rail originates from a regulated model. As the Everly Brothers said, “Breaking up is hard to do.” Freight rail needs oversight (federal) for matters like safety, but not regulation. For rail, the word “reregulation” is often whispered— loudly. Conversely, one never sniffs the sense that Congress or its FAA minions want to expand oversight over commercial aviation. Caught between NIMBY, YIMBY and the political moonscape, rail needs some respect. If it can’t have respect, then let Congress pony up the checkbook and pay for 100% of capital improvements. They can start by eating the $113 million being paid by CSX for the Howard Street tunnel expansion.

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

DAVID NAHASS President Railroad Financial Corp. railwayage.com

We’re current, are you? FRA Regulations Mechanical Department Regulations

Now Include Part 22 s 4

A combined reprint of the Federal Regulations that apply specifically to the Mechanical Department. Spiral bound.

Part Title 210 Railroad Noise Emission Compliance Regulations Updated 4-15-19.

215 Freight Car Safety Standards Updated 5-3-21.

216 Emergency Order Procedures: Railroad Track, Locomotive and Equipment Updated 5-3-21.

217 Railroad Operating Rules Updated 5-3-21.

218 Railroad Operating Practices - Blue Flag Rule Updated 5-3-21.

221 Rear End Marking Device-passenger, commuter/freight trains Updated 5-3-21.

223 Safety Glazing Standards Updated 5-3-21.

224 Reflectorization of Rail Freight Rolling Stock Updated 5-3-21.

225 Railroad Accidents/Incidents Updated 5-3-21.

229 Locomotive Safety Standards Updated 5-3-21.

231 Safety Appliance Standards Updated 5-3-21.

232 Brake System Safety Standards Updated 5-3-21.

There are no new proposals or final rules to report for this issue. Be sure to check back next month to see if there are any changes to FRA regulations.

Part 231: Railroad Safety Appliance Standards 49 CFR 231. General requirements for safety appliances including: handbrakes, brake step, running boards, sill steps, ladders, end ladder clearance, roof handholds, side handholds, horizontal end handholds, vertical end handholds, and uncoupling levers. 106 pages. Softcover. Updated 5-3-21

BKSAS

Part 215: Freight Car Safety Standards

Order 25 or more and pay only $29.50 each

Current FRA Regulations Item Code

FRA Part #

209 211 BKTSSAF 213 BKTSSG 213 BKWRK 214 BKFSS 215 BKROR 217 218 BKRRC 220 BKHORN 222 BKHS 228 BKLSS 229 BKSLI 230 BKSAS 231 BKBRIDGE 237 BKLER 240 BKSEP

Update effective

5-3-21 3-1-21 5-3-21 10-7-20 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21 5-3-21

BKCONDC 242 5-3-21

BKBSS

Each

RR Safety Enforcement Procedures & Rules of Practice Track Safety Standards (Subpart A-F) Track Safety Standards (Subpart G) RR Workplace Safety RR Freight Car Safety Standards RR Operating Rules and Practices RR Communications Use of Locomotive Horns Hours of Service Locomotive Safety Standards Steam Locomotive Inspection RR Safety Appliance Standards Bridge Safety Standards Qualification and Certification of Locomotive Engineers Conductor Certification

232 12-11-20 Brake System Safety Standards

30.50

27.45

10.95 10.00 10.50 8.50 10.50

9.86 9.00 9.45 7.65 9.45

6.75 14.75 12.50 12.50 25.95 10.50 7.95 14.25

6.10 13.25 11.25 11.25 23.35 9.45 7.15 12.85

12.50

11.25

Part 229: Locomotive Safety Standards

Each

25 or more

16.50

14.85

The Locomotive Safety Standards cover the laws governing inspections and tests, brake system, draft system, suspension, electrical, cabs and cab equipment plus more! Softcover. Spiral bound. Updated 5-3-21

Combined FRA Regulations Update effective

Each

25 or more

BKCAD

40 219

4-23-19 Drug and Alcohol Regulations in 5-3-21 the Workplace

38.95

35.00

BKSTC

233 234 235 236 238 239

5-3-21 Signal and Train Control Systems 5-3-21 5-3-21 8-26-21 5-3-21 Passenger Safety Standards 5-3-21

21.50

19.35

25.50

22.95

Compliance Manuals BKINFRA18 BKTM

Track and Rail and Infrastructure Integrity Compliance Manual - Volume II, Track Safety Standards - Part 213 Technical Manual for Signal and Train Control Rules. - Includes Part 233, 234, 235, 236

49 CFR 215. Prescribes the minimum safety standards for freight cars allowed by the FRA. Includes safety standards for freight car components, car bodies, draft system, restricted equipment and stenciling. Softcover, spiral.

Updated 5-3-21

50 or more

FRA Part #

BKPSS

$10.50

Railroad Safety Appliance Order 50 or more and pay only $9.45 each

$32.95

Mech. Dept. Regs.

BKMFR

FRA News:

38.00 49.95

34.00 44.95

Updates from the Federal Register may be supplied in supplement form.

BKFSS

$8.50

Freight Car Safety Standards Order 50 or more and pay only $7.65 each

Railroad Operating Rules & Practices 49 CFR 217 to 218. Part 217: Purpose, Application, Definitions, Penalty, Operating Rules, Program of Operation Tests and Inspections; Program of Instruction on Operating Rules, Information Collection. Part 218: General Blue Signal Collection of Workers Protection of Trains and Locomotives, Prohibition against tampering with safety services, Protection of occupied camp cars. Softcover.

Spiral bound. Updated 5-3-21

BKROR

$10.50

Railroad Operating Rules & Practices Order 50 or more and pay only $9.45 each

BKLSS

Locomotive Safety Standards

$12.50

Order 50 or more and pay only $11.25 each

800-228-9670 www.transalert.com

The Railway Educational Bureau 1809 Capitol Ave., Omaha NE, 68102 I (800) 228-9670 I (402) 346-4300 www.RailwayEducationalBureau.com Add Shipping & Handling if your merchandise subtotal is: U.S.A. CAN U.S.A. CAN Orders over UP TO $10.00 $4.75 $9.20 25.01 - 50.00 12.00 20.05 $75, call for shipping 10.01 - 25.00 8.80 15.35 50.01 - 75.00 13.50 25.05 *Prices subject to change. Revision dates subject to change in accordance with laws published by the FRA. 10/21