RT&S October 2014

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Osage River

Bridge project PLUS Annual crosstie report GO Transit’s Georgetown South Project and also AREMA News p. 40

Contents October 2014

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Features

GO Transit

News

RAILWAY TRACK AND STRUCTURES

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Industry Today 4 Supplier News 8 People

Osage River Bridge and Rail Project A strong public-private partnership unclogs the last bottleneck on Union Pacific’s Jefferson City to St. Louis route.

Columns

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2014 Crosstie report With supply issues ebbing on the wood side, the next year is expected to be energetic.

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GO Transit’s Georgetown South Project A billion-dollar project aims to add capacity and enhance safety along GO Transit’s Kitchener line.

36 Departments 13 TTCI R&D 40 Arema News 46 Products 48 Calendar 47 Advertisers Index

An aerial view of the Osage River Bridge.

Photo courtesy of Missouri Department of Transportation.

Story on page 20.

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On Track Could TIGER push rail to greater prominence?

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FOLLOW US on Twitter LIKE US on Facebook

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49 Classified Advertising 50 Professional Directory

Missouri Department of Transportation

NRC Chairman’s Column Building budgets and conference planning

47 Sales Representatives

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Railway Track & Structures

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On Track

RAILWAY TRACK AND STRUCTURES

Vol. 110, No. 10 Print ISSN # 0033-9016, Digital ISSN # 2160-2514 EDITORIAL OFFICES 20 South Clark Street, Suite 1910 Chicago, Ill. 60603 Telephone (312) 683-0130 Fax (312) 683-0131 Website www.rtands.com Mischa Wanek-Libman/Editor, mischa@sbpub.com Jennifer Nunez/Assistant Editor, jnunez@sbpub.com CORPORATE OFFICES 55 Broad St 26th Fl. New York, N.Y. 10004 Telephone (212) 620-7200 Fax (212) 633-1165 Arthur J. McGinnis, Jr./ President and Chairman Jonathan Chalon/Publisher Mary Conyers/Production Director Wendy Williams/Creative Director Maureen Cooney/Circulation Director Michelle Zolkos/Conference Director

RT&S Railway Track & Structures (Print ISSN 0033-9016, Digital ISSN 2160-2514), (USPS 860-560), (Canada Post Cust. #7204654), (Bluechip Int’l, Po Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2, Agreement # 41094515) is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publ. Corp, 55 Broad St 26th Fl., New York, N.Y. 10004. Printed in the U.S.A. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY and Additional mailing offices. Pricing, Qualified individual in the railroad employees may request a free subscription. Non-qualified subscriptions printed or digital version: 1 year Railroad Employees (US/ Canada/Mexico) $16.00; all others $46.00; foreign $80.00; foreign, air mail $180.00. 2 years Railroad Employees US/Canada/Mexico $30.00; all others $85.00; foreign $140.00; foreign, air mail $340.00.

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Could TIGER push rail to greater prominence?

T

he recent announcement of awards for the sixth round of Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants has me wearing rose-colored glasses as far as the rail industry possibly taking a more prominent (and positive) place in the eyes of policy makers.

Rail projects had another impressive showing in the latest TIGER allocation.

In the six years that TIGER has been active, rail projects account for roughly 30 percent of all funds awarded.

How is that possible in our roadloving culture?

According to Tanya Snyder, editor of Streetsblog USA, “TIGER blew open the traditional processes for funding transportation. Rather than just submitting a list of projects on the wish list and getting formula funds in return, grantees had to pick their best projects with the greatest benefits…TIGER has helped transportation officials around the country see a new, more strategic way to plan and carry out projects – a method that is beginning to be expected at the federal level…freight is often a perfect candidate for discretionary federal grants. The focus on national and regional significance is one area where states fail, as they are only in tune with their own needs, not the needs of the whole country.”

TIGER gave the industry a chance to showcase that there is room and, more importantly, a need for various modes of transport. Given the way the initial grants were evaluated, rail projects couldn’t help but shine. For one, while the evaluation process didn’t completely level the field, it at least gave the government a way to compare various forms of transportation using benefit-cost analysis (BCA). Railroads have been using BCA since their inception to weigh capital plans and make sure the money spent on any given project saw a maximum return on investment.

The industry has been pushing for fair, multi-modal transportation policy for years. The TIGER program, says

Snyder, allowed the U.S. Department of Transportation to tear down some of its “modal silos.”

Joshua Schank, president and chief executive officer of Eno Center for Transportation, wrote in a Sept. 24 center newsletter, “modal silos for funding tend to encourage modal silos for expenditure and planning. They prevent us from thinking comprehensively about programs of transportation investment and, instead, put undue emphasis on specific projects.

They often leave us making investment decisions based largely on where money comes from rather than overall return on investment.”

The TIGER program has proven to be popular with US Department of Transportation (USDOT) seeing a jump in applications for its sixth round. In 2014, USDOT would have needed $9 billion to fund all eligible applications it received.

We don’t know if there will be a seventh round of TIGER. The House and Senate versions of the appropriations bill are $440 million apart regarding the program and, given the glacial pace Congress moves, we may not know for a while what TIGER’s future will be.

“As uncertainty about the future of long-term federal funding continues, this round of TIGER will be a shot in the arm for these innovative, job-creating and quality of life-enhancing projects,” said USDOT Secretary Anthony Foxx regarding the latest round of awards.

I agree with the secretary’s assessment of the program, it has always acted as a shot in the arm. While it began as part of a stimulus to help pull the United States out of the recessionary doldrums, now it offers a bit of stability.

For policy makers to loose sight of this, would be disappointing.

Mischa Wanek-Libman, Editor Railway Track & Structures

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INDUSTRY TODAY Supplier News

The Maine and New Hampshire Departments of Transportation have reached a tentative price agreement of $158.5 million with Cianbro Corporation of Pittsfield, Maine, for the replacement of the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge in Kittery.

Harsco Rail signed an agreement providing the company with exclusive worldwide sales and marketing of MRail’s vertical track deflection measurement technology.

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The U.S. Department of TransporA rendering showing tation (USDOT) revealed the 72 a cross section of the recipients of the 2014 Transportareplacement for the tion Investment Generating EcoSarah Mildred Long Bridge between Maine nomic Recovery (TIGER) grant and New Hampshire. program. This year, the program had $584 million in available funding. Of the 72 awards, 17 rail-related projects will benefit from $131 million.

This is the sixth year for the increasingly sought after funds.

Officials said the number of applications increased by more than 35 percent in 2014 over 2013 and the amount of money requested was 15 times that available.

The largest of the rail-related grants, $25 million, was awarded to the Maine and New Hampshire Departments of Transportation for the replacement of the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge that connects Kittery, Maine, and Portsmouth, N.H. The two state DOTs estimate the total cost of replacing the bridge, which hosts both rail and vehicle traffic, to be approximately $170 million. The TIGER grant will be applied to the rail component of the bridge replacement.

In Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority will receive $20 million for the Ruggles Station Commuter Rail Platform Project. The station project will add train capacity, enhance accessibility, upgrade safety and security along paths of travel and address much needed repairs both inside and outside of the multi-modal station.

Streetcar projects also saw big awards with this round of TIGER grants. The city of Providence, R.I., will receive $13 million to build a new streetcar system and Detroit, Mich., was awarded $12.2 million for its project.

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Maine Department of Transportation

Amsted RPS was awarded a contract to supply more than 30,000 bonded directfixation fastener assemblies with its Buy America compliant e-clips for the 8.5-mile Crenshaw/LAX project in Los Angeles, Calif.

TIGER VI grants see more than $130 million awarded to rail projects

Shortline and regional railroads were not overlooked with the South Dakota Department of Transportation awarded $12.6 million toward the restoration of the MRC Railroad. Just under 42 miles of the state-owned railroad between Chamberlain and Presho will see improvements in the form of upgraded rail installation, repaired bridges and culverts and replacement of broken and damaged crossties.

Additionally, the Connecticut Department of Transportation will receive just more than $8 million for track improvements on the New England Central Railroad. This project will upgrade the route with the installation of more than 15,000 new crossties and 15,000 tons of ballast through all of the towns along the route from New London to Stafford Springs, Conn. The estimated cost of this work is roughly $10.3 million.

Garden City, Kan., was the recipient of a $12.4 million award for the Southwest Chief Improvement Project, which will restore several miles of the La Junta subdivision of the Kansas Division of BNSF, over which Amtrak’s Southwest Chief currently travels with continuously welded rail, new turnouts and panelized grade crossings.

Since 2009, the TIGER program has provided nearly $4.1 billion to 342 projects in all 50 states. USDOT says demand for the program has been overwhelming and, during the previous five rounds, the department received more than 6,000 applications requesting more than $124 billion for transportation projects across the country. As of this printing, funds for a possible 2015 round of TIGER grants have not been solidified with the two houses of Congress $440 million apart in their respective appropriation amounts.

A complete list of awards is available at the USDOT’s website.

Canada’s Roberts Bank projects complete The opening of the Mufford Crescent overpass in early September marked the official completion of all nine Roberts Bank Rail Corridor (RBRC) infrastructure improvement projects in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada.

The road and rail improvement projects were funded through a collaboration of 12 public and private sector partners including the government of Canada, the province of British Columbia, Port Metro Vancouver, TransLink, the city of Surrey, the city of Langley, the township of Langley, the corporation of Delta, Canadian Pacific, Canadian National, the British Columbia Railway Company and BNSF. The 43-mile, US$280-million Roberts Bank Rail Corridor program connects Deltaport Terminal at Roberts Bank in Delta, British Columbia, with North America’s entire rail network and was designed to improve the safety and efficiency of the road and rail network, while enhancing the quality of life for residents of communities through which rail traffic travels

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to and from the Deltaport terminal.

“The Roberts Bank Rail Corridor program significantly strengthens Canada’s gateway to the Asia-Pacific region. This unprecedented government and industry partnership has built a rail corridor that enhances our transportation and trade links to important markets while improving safety for local communities,” said Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt.

“By eliminating local at-grade rail crossings, the Roberts Bank Rail Corridor projects reduce local congestion and help keep people and goods moving across the region. Transportation investments like these underpin a strong thriving economy and are key to meeting the needs of our growing region,” said Marcella Szel, TransLink Board chair.

Other recently-completed RBRC projects have come in on time and on budget including the 232nd Street Overpass project, the Panorama Ridge Whistle-Cessation Projects and the 152nd Street Overpass project in Surrey, as well as the 192nd Street Overpass project in Langley.

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INDUSTRY TODAY Supplier News Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc., has acquired a majority stake in Railway Vehicle Engineering Ltd. (RVEL) in Derby, United Kingdom.

In Minnesota, the Metropolitan Council has awarded Cary, N.C.based Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. an engineering contract to advance the 13-mile Bottineau Light Rail Transit line (Blue Line extension).

R. J. Corman Railroad Company has completed the acquisition of Texas Southeastern Railroad, a subsidiary of Georgia-Pacific LLC.

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STB reauthorization act; PRRIA advance in congressional committees Two pieces of rail-related legislation have progressed on opposite sides of the hill.

The U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure (T&I) Committee approved the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2014 (PRRIA, H.R. 5449). And the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation passed the Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization (STB) Act of 2014 (S. 2777).

PRRIA reduces Amtrak’s funding by 40 percent, requires that Amtrak eliminate losses from food and beverage service and mandates Amtrak carry out a business case analysis for all major procurements. Additionally, the legislation allows for profits made on the Northeast Corridor to be reinvested in the line.

Meanwhile, the Senate Commerce Committee also passed the STB reauthorization bill via voice vote.

The bill would expand the STB Board from three to five members; allow the board to initiate some investigations; establish a database of complaints, as well as quarterly

October 2014

reports on those complaints; allow limited board meetings without public meeting notice, but with later public disclosure and eliminate the holdover limitation.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) expressed its concern that should the legislation pass, it would hinder U.S. railroads’ ability to reinvest capital into capacity and expansion projects.

“The rail industry believes this legislation will harm the ability of the nation’s railroads to invest in the network and improve service for our shippers,” said Ed Hamberger, AAR president and chief executive officer.

“These new restrictive regulations would be imposed on the nation’s railroads at a time when investments in capacity, new equipment and new hires are needed.”

Reports do not see a strong likelihood of the STB reauthorization bill or PRRIA advancing to either of the congressional floors before the end of the year, citing a recess for midterm elections and a full docket of issues to deal with once Congress resumes.

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INDUSTRY TODAY Two years later, Sandy recovery still an earnest effort for eastern transits

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New Jersey Transit

Nearly two years after Superstorm Sandy walloped the East Coast, transportation systems affected by the tempest continue to repair their systems and strengthen them against future storms.

In mid-September, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) awarded a combined $1.5 billion in Sandy resiliency grants to New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) to repair and fortify the state’s transit systems.

NJ Transit will receive $1.3 billion for its wayside signals, power and communications resiliency project, the Delco Lead Safe Haven Storage and Re-Inspection Facility, the N.J. TransitGrid, the N.J. Transit Raritan River Drawbridge Replacement Project and Hoboken Long Slip flood protection.

PANYNJ will receive $212 million in grants to fund the concrete sea wall east of Port Authority Trans-Hudson Harrison Car Maintenance Facility, Harrison Car Maintenance Facility automatic flood barrier, Penn-Moynihan Station Complex Train-shed Hardening Project, the extension of rail yards, World Trade Center Site & Transit Facilities Flood Mitigation & Resiliency Improvements Program and Exchange Place, Newport Station & Grove Street Station head house protection.

Across the state line in New York, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) received $1.6 billion from the FTA. The funds will be used to mitigate rail yard flooding, protect street-level openings, Rockaway Line storm protections, river-to-river rail resiliency for Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak, emergency communications enhancements, Long Island City yard resiliency and protection of tunnel portals and internal tunnel sealing.

In addition to the FTA grant, MTA New York City Transit (NYCT) marked the restoration of normal R subway service between Brooklyn and Manhattan with the successful completion of the Montague Tubes subway tunnel repair, as well as the restoration of G Line service between Court Square and Nassau Avenue following a five-week shut down of the Greenpoint Tubes for Fix&Fortify repairs. Fix&Fortify works to return components to pre-Sandy condition, while providing for improved resiliency and reliability.

Damage caused by Superstorm Sandy.

For the Greenpoint Tubes work, crews from every major division of NYCT’s Department of Subways worked on installing communication lines, laying new track and third rail, repositioning signals, rebuilding tunnel infrastructure and performing rehabilitation work on adjacent stations.

Outside of the New York metropolitan area, Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) also received $86 million from FTA for storm resiliency projects.

The agency will use the funds toward the Railroad Signal Power Reinforcement Project that will replace non-insulated power cables along its railways; the Railroad Embankment and Slope Stabilization Project, which will stabilize several commuter railroad embankments in the region; the Ancillary Control Center Project; the Manayunk/Norristown Line Shoreline Stabilization Project and the Subway Pump Room Emergency Power Project.

FTA also awarded the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) approximately $35 million to raise a retaining wall and install watertight barriers at MBTA’s Green Line Fenway Portal to reduce flooding and repair and improve a deteriorated seawall.

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PEOPLE Kansas City Southern promoted L.E. Jameson to assistant vice president safety and standardization.

The National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association, Inc., appointed Christian Jostlein, safety manager at Holland LP, as the new chairman of the NRC Safety Committee, replacing outgoing Chair Tammy Mathews, corporate safety, health and environmental director at RailWorks Corporation.

The New Jersey Transit Board of Directors appointed Neil Yellin as the agency’s new deputy executive director and Robert Lavell as vice president and general manager of NJ Transit Rail Operations.

New York City Transit veteran Frank Jezycki has been named vice president and chief officer for Staten Island Railway.

Nordco Inc. hired Jeff Roschyk as president of rail.

Plasser American named Dr. Günther Oberlechner president, succeeding Josef Neuhofer, who is now chairman of the board; promoted Georg Seyrlehner to vice president operations and production and appointed Shelton Tackett to plant manager.

Andy Wagstrom, PE, LSIT, a civil engineer with extensive design and project management experience, has joined TKDA’s Rail Division.

Union Pacific named Kenneth Hunt vice president of transportation, succeeding Randy Blackburn, who will retire in 2015; Shane Keller vice president of network operations and Harriman Dispatching Center, succeeding Hunt; Richard Castagna becomes regional vice president of transportation for the Western Region, succeeding Keller; Rodney Doerr becomes assistant vice president of safety, succeeding Castagna; Roger Lambeth becomes general superintendent of transportation services for the Los Angeles Service Unit, succeeding Doerr; Jamal Chappell becomes superintendent of transportation services for the Livonia Service Unit, succeeding Lambeth; Phillip Danner was named assistant vice president of engineeringtrack programs and Grant Janke was named assistant vice president of network and capital planning.

UNITRAC Railroad Materials, Inc., hired Scott Arnold as vice president of operations.

Watco Transportation Services named Larry McCloud general manager, Joe Via director of operations and Andy Laurent regional vice president marketing and sales for the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad; Chris Norman general manager of the Grand Elk Railroad; Ryan Williams vice president marketing, Gulf Region; Jeffrey Pacheco general manager for the San Antonio Central Railroad; Tim Enayati marketing manager for the Gulf Region; Bob Billings vice president marketing and sales for the Great Lakes Region; Travis Herod senior vice president, Watco safety, training and compliance; Jason Cathey vice president transportation safety, training and compliance; Jeff Deakins director of switching, Western Region and Don Carona general manager for the South Kansas & Oklahoma Railroad.

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NRC CHAIRMAN’S COLUMN

Building budgets and conference planning

The National Railroad Construction & Maintenance Association, Inc. 500 New Jersey Ave., N. W. Suite 400 Washington D. C. 20009 Tel: 202-715-2920 Fax: 202-318-0867 www.nrcma.org info@nrcma.org

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It’s that time of year again friends and c o l l e a g u e s. A s t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n a n d maintenance season winds to a close, we are all trying to project where we will finish for the year. For many of us, a lot of work remains to be completed. Hopefully the weather remains favorable and everything falls into place to meet our project schedules. As construction industry veterans know, it takes a lot of hard work and maybe a little bit of luck to get there.

Along with trying to accurately predict finishes against this year’s budget, we are in the process of building our 2015 budgets.

This is an annual exercise, but some years are easier to forecast than other s. The second-half of the year’s work load is usually heavy in our industry, but who could have imag ined the volume remaining for the fourth quarter this year?

For next year, we’ll build our budgets based on historical data from previous years and include some percentage of revenue for projects we know are already in the pipeline. We’ll plan for some growth to our business, plan on rebuilding or purchasing some new equipment, possibly increasing our staff, all while making every attempt to submit a balanced budget that works and is manageable for the year ahead.

It’s a mixture of art and science, it’s essential to what we do as contractors and just like actually getting all of the construction work done on schedule, it takes a lot of hard work and maybe a little bit of luck to get it right.

The coming year’s budget could even be a little tougher to forecast than most, based on the uncertainty surrounding some pending railrelated legislation: • F u n d i n g f o r t h e m a j o r s u r f a c e transportation reauthorization bill for highway and transit investments is on shortterm fix through May of 2015 and what will come next is undecided.

• The FY2015 transportation appropriations bill also remains to be finalized and will be the subject of action in the lame duck session of Congress in December. The House has passed a version of this bill and a Senate sub-committee has passed a larger version. The NRC will be advocating for the higher funding levels for the various rail infrastructure programs, such as Federal Transit Authority New Starts,

Amtrak capital grants and Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grants.

• Three pieces of rail legislation were introduced in Cong ress in only two weeks in August. They were passenger r a i l r e a u t h o r i z at i o n ( P R R I A ) , S T B reauthorization and a rail safety bill. While we don’t expect to see fur ther action on any of these bills in 2014, they do introduce a note of uncertainty and require constant vigilance.

On a positive note out of D.C., on September 12, the U.S. Depar tment of Transportation announced the award of $552 million in TIGER VI discretionary grants to 41 construction projects and $32 million to 31 planning projects in 46 states and D.C. Among the awardees were 17 rail-related projects receiving more than $131 million, including multiple shortline, streetcar, light-rail transit and commuter rail projects.

On the freight rail side, we expect that the freight railroads will continue to invest massive sums to maintain and expand their systems and infrastructure and we look forward to hearing details regarding their 2015 capital spending programs at our conference in January.

The NRC 2015 Conference and NRC/ Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association Exhibition will be held Wednesday, January 7, through Saturday, January 10, at the Diplomat Resort & Spa in Hollywood, Fla. Registration is open – you can book now.

It’s a fabulous venue that has everything you would expect in a first class resort – and South Florida isn’t a bad place to be in early January.

Along with a great venue, we have a great agenda. Our list of guest speakers from the rail industry includes a lot of familiar faces, as well as some new ones. The speakers will includes engineering executives from the Class 1s, shortline holding companies, and some of biggest and most active rail transit agencies in the country.

For additional information regarding the conference, please visit www.nrcma.org.

Have a safe day.

by Bill Dorris, NRC Chairman

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TTCI R&D Ballast degradation monitoring in a high tonnage heavy-axleload environment TTCI and Union Pacific present findings of a study aimed at determining ballast degradation rates of various bllast types under a HAL environment.

T

ransportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), and Union Pacific investigated ballast degradation on four different mainline ballast

Figure 1: Tangent ballast box layout. Test Box 1 (supplier 1): Orthoclase feldspar, quartz, hornblende phenocrysts three to six milimeter diameter.

Test Box 2 (supplier 2): Basalt, dark to light gray, homogeneous, with outside light brown to tan, softer weathering rind on some clasts.

Test Box 3 (supplier 3): Quartzite, medium red/brown, fine grained homogeneous quartz matrix, welded grains. Test Box 4 (supplier 4): Rhyolite, white to light tan, with 1-2 mm quartz phenocrysts, with planar weakness in some specimens. Control Boxes 5-8 (supplier 2): Same ballast as Test Box 2, except as-delivered from quarry (unsieved).

by Colin Basye, principal investigator and Dingqing Li, senior scientist, TTCI, and Caleb Douglas, manager special projects and Eric Gehringer, director track maintenance, Union Pacific

types over a period of three years in a high tonnage, heavy-axle-load (HAL) coal route near Ogallala, Neb. One measure in deciding when to perfor m ballast undercutting operations is to determine the level of ballast degradation that develops over time under train traffic. Factors, such as ballast toughness, hardness, surface texture and potential planar weakn ess within the ba l l as t , as well as infiltration of fine particle contamination from passing trains, can play a role in ballast life in a HAL operating environment. The purpose of this study was to quantify ballast degradation rates for ballast with different characteristics.

Test site construction

This revenue service line carries more than 200 mgt per year at speeds ranging from 50 to 60 miles per hour.

Ballast box testing was conducted at two different locations: One test section was located on tangent track and the second in a two-degree curve. The track structure consists of 141-pound rail and concrete ties. The natural subgrade at the test sites consists of native windblown fine sand in most areas, which offers good track support on the high mgt HAL line.

Four different types of ballast were chosen for this test and installed in www.rtands.com

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TTCI R&D Figure 2, top: Ballast sampling at the western mega site.

Figure 3: Initial GPR and sieve analysis results comparison, as reported by Zetica.

two sets of eight test ballast boxes (see Figure 1), based on their broad use in the field, lithology and desired range of engineering characteristics for the test group. The control ballast (Boxes 5–8) consisted of the same ballast that was used in Box 2, except that the control ballast incorporated ballast as it was delivered from the quarry to

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the railways and it did not undergo an additional sieving step prior to installation. This was intended to afford an opportunity to compare fouling generation, starting with clean versus standard quarry-delivered ballast, in addition to assessing Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) capabilities on ballast with known characteristics.

Test Boxes 1 to 4 were subject to an additional sieving process before ballast was installed in the boxes to remove all the 3/8-inch and smaller material. The four ballast test boxes and four control boxes were longitudinally adjacent to each other in the two sections and the bottoms of the boxes were either open to water through-flow using heavy felt fabric (tangent sections) or 1/4-inch-thick perforated steel (curve sections) laid down on top of the subgrade before the boxes were placed (Figure 1).

Cr ib sampling was perfor med ever y six months (approximately 100-120 mgt) to deter mine ballast gradation (fine material generation) and ballast fouling characteristics. Top-of-rail (TOR) elevation surveys were also conducted at this time to monitor track settlement.

Sampling methodology was complicated by the fact

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TTCI R&D the presence of teeth on the bucket, the bucket sampling depth was not allowed to extend to the liner at the base, as this could tear the liner. This was expected to cause some variability in the gradation results. Only the final sampling event was able to sample both the shallow and deep ballast samples, as the test boxes and liners were removed from the track.

GPR testing was performed on each ballast box location at the beginning of the test to provide correlation of gradation and GPR results (Figure 3). The results indicate a fair correlation between the two methods; however, test result interpretation may have been influenced somewhat by the metal of the test boxes.

Test results Figure 4: Initial ballast gradations.

that active line maintenance required adjustment of rail and tamping that altered test sampling location markings. The ballast sampling was performed with a narrow bucket on a backhoe (Figure 2) and because of

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The initial ballast gradations, shown in Figure 4, indicate that most of the ballast box samples were within the AREMA 4a limits except for the control boxes (5–8), which had slightly higher fines percentages than the AREMA specifications and Ballast Type I and Type II, which were slightly coarser than the AREMA 4a specification. Note that AREMA 4a specification limits are recommended for ballast installation, but not intended to be used as a metric for ballast maintenance limits.

At the conclusion of the test, sieve analyses were

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TTCI R&D

Figure 5, top: Final averaged sieve results for deep and shallow ballast.

Figure 6: Permanent deformation trends at 320 and at 480 mgt.

performed at both TTCI and University of Illinois at U r b a n - C h a m p a i g n ( U I U C ) o n b a l l a s t t h at h a d accumulated 732 mgt by November 2013. The tangent and curve sieve results were averaged and show that only the shallow sample from Box 1 ballast was within AREMA 4a limits at the end of the test (Figure 5). All samples from the deep zones were outside of AREMA 4a specification limits at the test conclusion. The curve section did not exhibit higher average fine material percentages than the tangent section, but in several cases degradation levels were lower. This was most likely caused by sampling methodology and variance and by averaging the high and low rail crib sieve results on the curve. The deep samples, which were taken from the bottom four inches of material, had not been sampled between box installation and removal. Results showed significantly higher levels of fines present in the deep zone for most cribs. The exception was in the control ballast samples, which showed essentially identical (high) fines percentages in both initial and final sampling results.

Fine par ticle obser vations for the upper section indicated that most of the fine material was generated as a result of ballast fracturing and wear. Lower section ballast samples are currently being analyzed for ballast or other mineral fractions.

Strength and deformation testing was performed on samples at UIUC, using repeated load triaxial testing (Figure 6) and final results are expected in late 2014.

Type V in the figure refers to control ballast box sample test results. Results to date indicate that Type I (ballast Box 1) offers the highest resistance to per manent deformation over time. Type II (ballast Box 2) shows less resistance to permanent deformation, which is only

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one performance metric to be considered for an overall performance evaluation.

TOR elevation surveys conducted in November 2013 (Figure 7) are not reflective of the total settlement due to entire 732 mgt accumulated during the test, because of periodic track maintenance performed. However, the differences in elevation may be reflective of settlement and are apparent in some ballast boxes. Test Box 4 showed lower elevation than in the other boxes in both curve and tangent sections, possibly indicating a higher susceptibility of Type 4 ballast to settlement.

Conclusions

Ballast Type IV and the control ballast exhibited the highest overall degradation rates, but all test boxes showed increased fines accumulation in the lowest sections as compared to the upper sections. The upper ballast section of Type I ballast was the only ballast at the test conclusion that was still within the AREMA 4a new ballast gradation limits, but more fines were evident in the lowest section.

Infiltration of mineral particle contamination from passing

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TTCI R&D Figure 7a (top) and 7b : Top of rail survey results.

boxes upward except in the control section, where significant fine material was present at the beginning of the test. Because this test was performed on a high mgt revenue ser vice line undergoing per iodic alignment and maintenance, test results may have been influenced by these activities.

Future work

Final test results from UIUC are expected later this year, including permanent deformation and numerical particle shape analysis results.

UIUC plans to pursue numerical particle shape analysis as a means of eventually being able to diagnose ballast breakdown quickly and in real time for revenue service applications. trains, as well as ballast breakdown was obser ved after three years of testing (more than 732 mgt) in the

18 Railway Track & Structures

lowest ballast sections of all test boxes and ballast fines accumulation has progressed from the bottom of the

October 2014

Acknowledgements

Erol Tutumluer of UIUC and Asger Eriksen of Zetica contributed to this research project.

www.rtands.com

Freight and passenger trains operate more efficiently between Jefferson City and St. Louis following the completion of the Osage River Bridge and Rail Project.

by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor All photos courtesy of the Missouri Department of Transportation

Eliminating the last

bottleneck

R

ailroads are not prone to sit and wait for a public partner when it comes to network investment. However, they are also not prone to let an opportunity slip away that includes a strong public partner, as well as a networkenhancing project. The work performed and the partnership developed as part of the Osage River Bridge and Rail Project joins an ever-growing list of successful examples of publicprivate partnerships in the North American rail industry.

When the project was completed in the fall of 2013, Dave Nichols, Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) director, said, “This project proves that working together, we can deliver needed transportation projects that create jobs, improve safety and foster economic growth.”

The bridge was pinpointed in 2006 when MoDOT, with the University of Missouri, commissioned a rail line capacity study to address increasing delays to Amtrak and freight trains operating across the state. The results aided Union Pacific and MoDOT planning groups in identifying projects to increase capacity between St. Louis and Kansas City and improve ontime performance of both Amtrak and freight trains.

The bridge, located on UP’s Jefferson City Subdivision, is used by both freight and Amtrak Missouri River Runner trains. The bridge was the only single-track portion of UP’s 130-mile route between Jefferson City and St. Louis and 20 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

it created a bottleneck for rail traffic that could find trains idling between eight and 15 hours a day.

Construction began in March 2012 and the $28-million project was the first rail infrastructure project to begin in Missouri under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. UP funded 20 percent of the project, while 80 percent came from funds awarded to MoDOT from the Federal Railroad Administration under its High-Speed Intercity Passenger Rail (HSIPR) Program.

A new 1,232-foot bridge was built adjacent to the existing structure with 10 steel spans supported on drilled shaft foundations. The total structural steel weighs more than 2,365 tons and more than 3,400 cubic yards of concrete was poured to build the concrete piers, caps and columns.

The new mainline saw the installation of 141-pound rail and concrete ties along a new alignment to flatten existing curves and allow higher train speeds. The second mainline along a parallel alignment received 2,625 feet of new 141-pound rail and concrete ties before tying in to the existing mainline.

In addition to the new bridge, the existing bridge required a 22-foot extension that included the removal of the existing west span, relocation of the abutment and placement of two new structural spans. www.rtands.com

Osage river bridge and rail Project According to Tim Schmidt, P.E., project manager at OCCI, Inc., the contractor on the project, the work to extend the existing bridge was scheduled to be completed once traffic had been moved to the new bridge.

“To accelerate the extension, a precast caps with a grouted connection to the drilled shaft was detailed and utilized. Furthermore, the abutment was changed from a drilled shaft construction to driven pile. Due to the proximity of the drilled shaft to the track and the access to the location, this made for a much faster alternative,” said Schmidt.

From the contractor’s point of view, the biggest challenge to the construction of the bridge was the river, which fluctuated between the extremes of drought and flood, making the use of barges difficult.

“Its variability in height alone made this a challenging project,” said Schmidt. “This project experienced both drought (very low water conditions) and flood conditions. To deal with this, we engineered work methods that would allow us to continue working regardless of water elevation. Primarily, we designed our temporary access across the river and work platforms high enough so that work would not get flooded. Although there were several occasions where we could not work on specific locations do to water elevation, there was only one flood that shut down the job entirely.”

www.rtands.com

The new bridge was built adjacent to the existing structure.

Troy Hughes, P.E., railroad projects manager, MoDOT, said another challenge to the project was the proximity of the new bridge to the existing bridge and the effects of vibrations the construction may have on the old bridge.

Hughes notes that the contract for the new bridge limited the types of construction methods to reduce the vibrations. OCCI elected to use an oscillating drill to meet the requirements of the contract.

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 21

Osage River Bridge and rail Project Left, the newly completed project and, right, an aerial of work taking place.

Schmidt explains that OCCI “opted to oscillate the casings to bedrock and then utilize a crane-mounted drill rig to drill the rock sockets. The oscillation method essentially eliminated the concern of a cave in as the casing is advanced ahead of the spoils removal. The cranemounted drill rig allowed for a greater drilling radius and, thus, allowed the temporary access to be placed farther away from the live bridge and, thus, eliminate concerns with settlement.”

Schmidt says the depth of the rock sockets for the drilled shafts was the biggest unforeseen challenge encountered on the project.

“During the pre-drilling of the rock sockets, several voids and incompetent rock was encountered. As such, the rock socket depths were extended accordingly. The rock socket depths ranged from 10-feet to approximately 40-feet in depth. As the depth of the socket increases, so does the difficulty of the shaft and time needed to complete them. To accommodate the additional depths and not delay the project, OCCI worked with UP to switch drilling methods to a reverse circulation drilling method,” said Schmidt.

The project was completed under budget and ahead of schedule in late November 2013. Given the known and unknown challenges of the project, it took communication and coordination between all stakeholders, as well as the proper construction techniques to reach the project’s fulfillment.

Schmidt credits the development of non-river dependent work methods for the project’s early delivery and Hughes points to weekly status meetings where potential issues could be discussed and worked through.

“The project team conducted weekly project status meetings to discuss work that needed to be accomplished in the coming weeks. This included discussing any potential obstacles that needed to be addressed to keep the work on schedule,” said Hughes. “Communication is extremely important. Once the project was ready to place the new bridge into service, the associated trackwork had the potential to create delays. It was important that the project team clearly communicate how that would impact service times, especially to the Amtrak customers.”

22 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

“This project experienced both drought and flood conditions. To deal with this, we engineered work methods that would allow us to continue working regardless of water elevation.”

–Tom Schmidt, OCCI Hughes also stressed the importance of community outreach. Prior to construction of the project, MoDOT met with the local residents to advise them of what to expect during construction, which also provided the opportunity to express the importance of safety around the job site.

Schmidt echoes Hughes’ thoughts that communication and partnering are the key components to the success of all projects.

“Without communication, the expectations of the client can not be met and it leads to poor results. OCCI attributes the communication aspect of this project as one of the primary reasons for a successful project,” said Schmidt.

Donna Kush, Union Pacific vice president - Public Affairs, Northern Region said of the project, “The Missouri Department of Transportation has been a great partner. We look forward to exploring additional opportunities with them that benefit the public and our customers, allowing us to haul America’s goods by the most environmentally-friendly mode of ground transportation.” www.rtands.com

Osage river bridge and rail Project According to Tim Schmidt, P.E., project manager at OCCI, Inc., the contractor on the project, the work to extend the existing bridge was scheduled to be completed once traffic had been moved to the new bridge.

“To accelerate the extension, a precast cap with a grouted connection to the drilled shaft was detailed and utilized. Furthermore, the abutment was changed from a drilled shaft construction to driven pile. Due to the proximity of the drilled shaft to the track and the access to the location, this made for a much faster alternative,” said Schmidt.

From the contractor’s point of view, the biggest challenge to the construction of the bridge was the river, which fluctuated between the extremes of drought and flood, making the use of barges difficult.

“Its variability in height alone made this a challenging project,” said Schmidt. “This project experienced both drought (very low water conditions) and flood conditions. To deal with this, we engineered work methods that would allow us to continue working regardless of water elevation. Primarily, we designed our temporary access across the river and work platforms high enough so that work would not get flooded. Although there were several occasions where we could not work on specific locations due to water elevation, there was only one flood that shut down the job entirely.”

www.rtands.com

The new bridge was built adjacent to the existing structure.

Troy Hughes, P.E., railroad projects manager, MoDOT, said another challenge to the project was the proximity of the new bridge to the existing bridge and the effects of vibrations the construction could have on the old bridge.

Hughes notes that the contract for the new bridge limited the types of construction methods to reduce the vibrations. OCCI elected to use an oscillating drill to meet the requirements of the contract.

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 21

Osage River Bridge and rail Project Left, the newly completed project and, right, an aerial of work taking place.

Schmidt explains that OCCI “opted to oscillate the casings to bedrock and then utilize a crane-mounted drill rig to drill the rock sockets. The oscillation method essentially eliminated the concern of a cave in as the casing is advanced ahead of the spoils removal. The cranemounted drill rig allowed for a greater drilling radius and, thus, allowed the temporary access to be placed farther away from the live bridge and, hence, eliminate concerns with settlement.”

Schmidt says the depth of the rock sockets for the drilled shafts was the biggest unforeseen challenge encountered on the project.

“During the pre-drilling of the rock sockets, several voids and incompetent rock were encountered. As such, the rock socket depths were extended accordingly. The rock socket depths ranged from 10 feet to approximately 40 feet in depth. As the depth of the socket increases, so does the difficulty of the shaft and time needed to complete them. To accommodate the additional depths and not delay the project, OCCI worked with UP to switch drilling methods to a reverse circulation drilling method,” said Schmidt.

The project was completed under budget and ahead of schedule in late November 2013. Given the known and unknown challenges of the project, it took communication and coordination between all stakeholders, as well as the proper construction techniques to reach the project’s fulfillment.

Schmidt credits the development of non-river dependent work methods for the project’s early delivery and Hughes points to weekly status meetings where potential issues could be discussed and worked through.

“The project team conducted weekly project status meetings to discuss work that needed to be accomplished in the coming weeks. This included discussing any potential obstacles that needed to be addressed to keep the work on schedule,” said Hughes. “Communication was extremely important. Once the project was ready to place the new bridge into service, the associated trackwork had the potential to create delays. It was important that the project team clearly communicate how that would impact service times, especially to the Amtrak customers.”

22 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

“This project experienced both drought and flood conditions. To deal with this, we engineered work methods that would allow us to continue working regardless of water elevation.”

–Tom Schmidt, OCCI Hughes also stressed the importance of community outreach. Prior to construction of the project, MoDOT met with the local residents to advise them of what to expect during construction, which also provided the opportunity to express the importance of safety around the job site.

Schmidt echoes Hughes’ thoughts that communication and partnering are the key components to the success of all projects.

“Without communication, the expectations of the client cannot be met and it leads to poor results. OCCI attributes the communication aspect of this project as one of the primary reasons for a successful project,” said Schmidt.

Donna Kush, Union Pacific vice president - Public Affairs, Northern Region said of the project, “The Missouri Department of Transportation has been a great partner. We look forward to exploring additional opportunities with them that benefit the public and our customers, allowing us to haul America’s goods by the most environmentally-friendly mode of ground transportation.” www.rtands.com

Arch Wood.

Protection’s Chemonite ACZAtreated crossties.

Crosstie suppliers say business is booming in 2014 and see a profitable year ahead.

W

Crosstie Report 2014

by Jennifer Nunez, assistant editor

hile demand for timber crossties is high, supply is still low this year due to high rains. However, suppliers see light at the end of the tunnel as availability starts to increase. Manufacturers of all types of crossties and crosstie preservatives report a steady year and see a bright 2015 for the industry.

RTA

“It has been a year of not only continued consolidation, but also one of stabilizing supply for crossties,” noted Jim Gauntt, executive director of the Railway Tie Association. “We have also had a great year with our educational programs, the annual field trip and major cooperative work and presentations on the wood tie for The International Research Group, The Canadian Wood Preservers Association, RailTEC and Class 1 roads.”

24 Railway Track & Structures

The biggest issue this year, he says, has been getting production back on track to meet the demand of all railroad users of wood ties. He credits wet weather, increasing markets for other products sawn from hardwood logs and higher timber prices, for production softness.

“Our econometric forecast model uses the overall economy, as defined

by GDP, non-durable goods orders, coal traffic and now, crude-by-rail traffic, as its primary drivers for demand,” he explained. “Basically, the underlying fundamental is how much maintenance and new construction is occurring in the rail universe. With both of these rail track activities increasing, demand remains strong and is forecasted to increase over the next few years. Unless some major world or domestic event affects the U.S. economy, balancing supply and demand

October 2014

could occur sooner than our current predictions. At this time, we expect production will continue to improve slowly over the next 12-18 months; demand, however, will also remain strong and continue to increase. Adding to that may be any unmet demand carryover from 2014. So, it is shaping up to be a very busy year for tie suppliers. Gradual improvement will bring balance in the long run, but high demand, which is a good thing, will continue to test tie suppliers’ capacity to respond short term.”

RTA has entered into a major program with Dr. Allan Zarembski and the Univer sity of Delaware to develop cour ses both for the professional engineer and the nonprofessional to teach fundamentals of engineering as it relates to wood tie track applications. The first two video modules will be unveiled at the RTA www.rtands.com

crosstie report Top, Norfolk-Southern’s Jack Hughes attends one of the many RTA hands-on educational events which, starting later this year, will be supplemented with engineering wood tie track videos for professional and non-professionals produced by the University of Delaware.

Stacks of Stella-Jones’ untreated wood ties.

conference this year with more modules to be created each of the next few years.

“It promises to be a wonderful addition to the railroading and tie manufacturing communities since the types of things we will develop are not typically taught in wood engineering and railroad engineering course work,” Gauntt noted. “RTA’s commitment to education will continue to thrive with this new investment in these educational courses.”

RTA Research

RTA has two phases of its alternative wood preservative research project ongoing at Mississippi State University.

RTA is evaluating, in replicated studies in two separate locales, how alternative wood preservatives and treatment systems perform relative to creosote-only treated ties.

“We have even included some non-indigenous species in this work,” explained Gauntt.

It’s a 20-year study, now into our sixth year in Phase 1 and second year in Phase 2.”

Wood

The crosstie market continues to be extremely vibrant across all segments; wood tie demand in particular remains 26 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

exceptionally strong, with recent estimates for the North American railroad market showing a need for 23.5 million ties in 2014, notes John Giallonardo, senior sales manager at Koppers, Inc. “Our sales demand has remained extremely high over the past several years,” he explained. “However, raw material supply shortages over the past 12 months have negatively impacted our business. This issue is not unique to Koppers and has had a significant impact on the entire treating industry.”

Koppers says the resurgence of the U.S. housing market, coupled with an increase in need from the export market, has created a significant increase in demand and price for lumber. The manufacture of board road and crane mat for the shale gas industry has also directly impacted the raw material supply.

“There has been tremendous pressure to raise raw material pricing to remain competitive with these other markets and meet the supply needs of our customers,” said Giallonardo. “Koppers is working very closely with our customer base to keep them abreast of the supply/ demand situation.”

Giallonardo points to the use of borate in the treating process, which he says continues to rise throughout the industry. Several of the Class 1 railroads have opted to increase their overall borate usage system wide.

“The Class 1 railroads continue to be the largest segment of our customer base. I do not expect that dynamic to change for the foreseeable future,” he said.

“However, Koppers is also very much entrenched in the shortline/contractor market, as well.”

The raw material shortages have presented many unique challenges for the railroad industry this year, Giallonardo says. However, he notes that he is starting to see indications that the lumber market is beginning to stabilize and crosstie production is starting to rise.

“Through the cooperative effor ts of our sawmill partners and railroad customers, Koppers is poised to finish strong in 2014 and we should see revenue move north in 2015,” he explained.

“During 2014, the demand for all treated wood products remained strong, as the railroad industry continues to spend capital to improve infrastructure and build new lines to www.rtands.com

crosstie report Top, L.B. Foster has experienced strong sales in 2014 for its concrete ties.

Rocla’s new facility in San Jose Iturbide, Mexico.

we can to get sawmills cutting crossties and meeting our customers requirements.

Concrete

handle the growth of rail traffic,” noted George Caric, vice president of marketing at Stella-Jones, Inc. During the year, the company acquired Boatright Railroad Products treated wood division, which added two treating facilities to the Stella-Jones network, along with adding additional business with two of the company’s Class 1 clients.

“During the end of 2013, we had an extremely wet fall in the crosstie producing region and then experience one of the worst winters on record; that did not allow the sawmills to build up their log inventories,” Caric explained.

Weather, along with a strong demand for grade lumber, mat timbers and hardwood exports created the ‘Perfect Storm,’ hampering green tie production. We are doing everything 28 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

KSA’s pre-stressed concrete crossties are manufactured at its facility located in Sciotoville, Ohio, and are designed for heavy-haul mainlines, mass transit and industrial applications. KSA says its ties meet or exceed all current AREMA specifications and have a 23-year proven track record of reliability along with being both PCI and AAR M-1003 quality certified.

KSA says its crosstie sales in 2013 were steady and made for a very solid year.

“The first half of this year started off slow, mainly due to project delays, but began to pick up in the summer months,” explained Scott Craig, general manager. “The bulk of the business this year will mainly be made up of heavy-haul and transit with a small portion of industrial track. Overall, I would say 2014 will turn out to be a good year.”

Something Craig has noticed, mainly in the second half of the year, is the request for concrete ties has increased.

“I believe the inability to acquire wood crossties and/ or the increasing price has made concrete crossties a more attractive alternative.”

According to Steve Burgess, vice president concrete products at L.B. Foster, 2014 has been a very robust year for sales of the company’s concrete ties.

“We have seen strong levels of activity throughout the year across all of our markets,” he explained. “As was noted earlier in the year at the NRC meeting, capital spending was expected to be strong among both the North American Class 1 and shortline railroads. We have seen that occur throughout the year. And a number of projects have come forward in transit applications across the U.S. and in industrial markets. So, L.B. Foster is on track for a very solid year in supplying our ties for both the new construction, as well as the refurbishment segments of the business. For example, with the difficult winter weather that we experienced, demand for concrete ties for track repairs is high. There have also been a number of recent track expansions to accommodate growth in shipments of fracking sand, crude by rail, grain, automotive and intermodal shipments. Capacity is critical concern to the railroads right now.”

Internally, the company has goals to increase operational efficiencies and new product offerings. L.B. Foster is investigating more automated production systems and selectively upgrading facilities in Spokane, Wash., and Tucson, Ariz.

L.B. Foster has developed different types of resilient www.rtands.com

crosstie report

Top, Axion’s composite ties being installed.

IntegriCo says its composite ties offer crack resistance, high compressive strength and excellent stiffness.

two block ties. The company recently supplied its Low Vibration Track (LVT) tie to Bay Area Rapid Transit in two different configurations for a line extension. A longer length design was developed to accommodate an extension bracket for mounting a power rail insulator post. The company is also studying change in mix design to optimize concrete tie properties and improve sustainability. L.B. Foster continues to collaborate with university and government research teams to translate new product and research ideas into solutions for the company’s 30 Railway Track & Structures

key end-use customer s.L o o k i n g ahead, Burgess is quite optimistic.

“While there are indeed challenges in the future, including the uncertainty of federal transportation funding and environmental concerns, we see strong demand for concrete ties through 2015. Continued investment in our transportation infrastructure, whether among heavy-haul railroads, port expansions or transit agencies, will remain critical. With the growing recognition of the life-cycle cost advantages of concrete ties versus other types of ties, there will be

October 2014

significant opportunities for growth.”

Rocla Concrete Tie, Inc., says it has seen steady growth this past year, particularly with the western Class 1 railroads.

“The cr ude by rail movement has been a positive factor with the railroads investing heavily to continue to improve safety and capacity adding new tracks to their networks, as well as expanding yards to handle car volumes,” explained Brett Urquhart, vice president business development.

Rocla credits this to its new facility in San Jose Iturbide, Mexico, which opened in April. This facility services the Mexican market for Class 1 railroads, industrial and transit systems.

“We have seen a steady growth to the concrete tie percentage versus other types of crossties,” noted Urquhart.

“We believe this is due to the improved material testing and fastening systems, which have helped to improve on some of the issues that the concrete tie business has seen in the past.

Additionally, timber tie prices have trended upwards again, which allows concrete ties not only to be the most cost-effective on a life-cycle basis, but concrete ties are now a lower upfront cost too, in many cases.”

In order to keep up with volumes required by the Class 1 market, Rocla continues to expand its facility in Pueblo, Colo., which was built in 2012. Since then, the company has invested an additional $5 million into the facility and will continue to do so, in order to produce the volume required and handle the logistics.

Composite/alternative

Business in the past year has been www.rtands.com

crosstie report great, notes Cory Burdick, manager, EXOTRAX ® Rail Division, Axion International Inc. The company is seeing continued growth and adoption of its ECOTRAX rail ties from both domestic and international railways.

Domestically, the company says it continues to fill demand from a large Class 1 contract, as well as multiple other freight and transit projects.

“The wood tie industry has suffered a bit in 2014, which has increased demand for our ECOTRAX rail ties, in particular, specialty applications that utilize tie lengths of 10-feet or greater,” Burdick said. “Currently, our tie plants are running at capacity with plans for continued expansion into 2015.”

The international market is currently the company’s biggest growth segment with more than 50 percent of current tie production being exported, namely into the Europe and Oceania regions.

Axion says its ties excel in specialty applications, such as high-rot zones, turnouts, road crossings and bridges.

“Being one of the youngest tie types in the railroad industr y our greatest challenge is education on the product and its best fit, but word of mouth seems to be spreading quickly of a new wor thy alter native,” explained Burdick.

The market for ties in general and composite ties in particular, is quite healthy, notes Scott Mack, chief executive officer of IntegriCo Composites. The company added a number of new customers to its clientele, both metro rail and Class 1.

“One factor influencing our business is that IntegriCo now has more than five years in track with our existing formula, more than any other composite tie company,” explained Mack. “We also have ties that have been in fairly wet sections of track for more than three years, with 112 mgt passing over them and zero failures. This increases other customers’ confidence that our ties will

www.rtands.com

last for the long haul.”

The company says its greatest challenge in the past year has been keeping up with the rising demand and as a result, it recently negotiated a $25-million package with the state of Louisiana to expand operations by 400 percent by year-end 2015.

“Timber prices seem to be going up, making the need for an alternative more acute,” Mack said. “There are concerns about the changing of state and federal regulations related to creosote and the cost of disposal of wood ties. Most importantly, Class 1s and the metro rail folks globally now believe that composite ties are a meaningful alternative to wood ties and there is a great deal of interest in putting composite ties in track.”

Preservation and life extension

“Due to the long, cold, wet winter, there has been a general shortage of white ties entering the production system,” explained Tim Carey, industrial products specialist at Arch Wood Protection, Inc. “Over spring and summer, however, supply started to make up for the shortfall.”

Arch Wood says it continues to invest heavily in testing and monitoring to increase the comfort level of railroads in the use of Chemonite® ACZA ties and to continue its focus on improving the service life of wood ties.

The fire-retardant properties of ACZA and recent independent testing of its FireSheath™ surface-applied fire protective coating on creosote ties have generated interest, says Carey.

“Questions have been raised about fire resistance and ACZA has shown fire retardant proper ties,” he explained. “In preliminary UL tests, Chemonite ACZAtreated lumber, treated to 0.35pcf (0.40 pcf is standard treatment in American Wood Protection Association Standards), had a 41.7 flame spread rating, which displays the properties of a Class B rating. Also, our

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 31

crosstie report

Top, Encore’s RTP applying SpeedSet to concrete ties.

Nisus’ bridge timber borate treatment results.

FireSheath field-applied coating product developed for utility poles was tested by the USDA Forest Products Lab and found to provide protection of creosote ties.

Applied by brush, roller or power sprayer (preferably airless sprayer), the intumescent coating foams up in the event of a fire, creating char which insulates underlying wood from the fire’s heat.”

Arch Wood offers a 25-year limited warranty against termites and decay for Douglas-fir, SYP and hardwoods

32 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

treated with ACZA and Borate.

Encore Rail Systems, Inc., says it is continually involved in the research and development of new products, working with a team of chemists to ensure it has the best products available. The company’s current focus is on remedial tie preservatives applied to ties after they have been adzed.

“In the crosstie industry, chemical tie plugging has now become the industry standard for wood crossties,” said Doug Delmonico, president. “Field testing has shown that ties do live longer when they are chemically plugged.

Because of this, Encore is experiencing continued growth.

We are also involved in extending the life of concrete ties using SpeedSet®, our UV light curing epoxy. The first SpeedSet put in track was in Columbus, Neb., in 2009. The rail was taken out last year and the epoxy was in excellent condition and passed all hardness tests. This was impressive on a 100 million gross ton line. In addition, we are precoating concrete ties with SpeedSet in tie plants across the United States. In the past year, we have installed Encore UV systems in three tie plants.”

This year, Encore says it has done extensive in-track concrete tie repair using SpeedSet. The company also developed equipment to allow its ride-on tie pluggers to dispense and cure SpeedSet and its wood tie plugging compound seamlessly.

“Using one machine to repair both concrete and wood ties has assisted our customers in increasing their production without having to change tanks or equipment,” noted Delmonico. “Railroads are always looking for more efficient and cost effective ways to repair track, so we are continually working with our team of engineers to design more productive, reliable and operator-friendly equipment.”

Delmonico also noted the increasing importance of the company’s strong aftermarket support with both their parts sales and service team.

“We are seeing great success with our liquid Cellutreat Borate DOT,” noted Kevin Kirkland, president and chief executive officer of Nisus Corporation. “This product is being used as a dip treatment prior to air seasoning.”

The company says that when Cellutreat is applied to the tie, the borates penetrate into the heartwood of the tie, killing any existing wood decay and preventing future decay, preventing the hollow ties often seen in track. As a result, when a tie is pressure treated with copper Naphthenate or creosote, it is actually a stronger tie and will last up to twice as long in track, explains Kirkland.

“We are seeing a great deal of interest from the railroads regarding the safe handling characteristics of ties treated with copper naphthenate,” he said. “The ties treated with QNAP

www.rtands.com

crosstie report copper naphthenate have performance in track as good or better than other oil borne preservatives and they are extremely clean. There is virtually no drippage, which is a very positive benefit, especially on bridge ties being installed over waterways, roads and metro overhead rail. The treaters and crew alike who handle these ties on the job tell us they would love to use only QNAP ties on their jobs.”

Nisus’ business is primarily coming from Class 1s, but Kirkland says a number of shortlines and metros are specifically asking for Cellutreat. The company has treated more than 6,000,000 ties with Cellutreat. Norfolk Southern is treating many of their ties, CSX has installed some for testing, Kansas City Southern has put in their own Cellutreat treatment equipment and both Gross & Janes and Amerities have secured orders for Cellutreat-treated ties from the UP. “We recently worked with NS to supply QNAP-treated pine ties to span a bridge across the Tennessee River next to the University of Tennessee,” noted

34 Railway Track & Structures

Kirkland. “This is an area where the Vol Navy park their boats, so elimination of drippage on the Tennessee River and on the boats was of critical importance.”

One of the challenges with dualtreating new bridge ties is that they are usually not air-dried, so there is not time for the borates to penetrate the ties before pressure treatment, Kirkland explains. Nisus is working on a system to borate-treat these bridge ties during the boltonizing process. That work is in early phase trials, but Nisus says it appears extremely promising.

“Our customers want to understand the differences in physical properties of the different tie life-extension products,” explained Mike Raab, owner and vice president of operations of R-Solutions.

“As crosstie repair becomes more standardized within the maintenanceof-way programs of our customers, there is an effort on their part to understand the differences in pricing and physical properties of the particular tie life-extending materials being presented to the industry.”

October 2014

R-Solutions receives most of its business for tie life-extension products from Class 1s and contractors for shortlines.

A recent project that R-Solutions worked on in conjunction with Racine Railroads Products was the development of a new piece of application machinery.

The delivery system developed for its customers was in direct response to industry needs.

“As tie life-extension products become more prevalent, the need for safer and more efficient equipment was needed,” Raab said. “So, in response to industry need, a new type of rideon tie plugging application technology was developed. The equipment has a state-of-the-art metering system for an accurate mix ratio 100 percent of the time. Also, the unit has an enclosed cab capable of dispensing material from the comfort of an enclosure with a joy stick.”

Willamette Valley Company (WVCO) is a polyurethane and polyurea formulating company that manufactures SpikeFast® for tie plugging wood ties, CTR100 for remediating worn concrete rail seats and Polyquik® fast set polyurea spray coatings.

“The railroads are continuing their research and development due diligence investigating ways to extend the useful life of crossties,” explained John Murray, vice president. “Willamette Valley Company polymer technologies are being tested in areas that include protective coatings that increase abrasion resistance, improve corrosion resistance and the use of repair materials for cracks and concrete spalling.”

Most of WVCO’s business, approximately 80 percent, is derived from Class 1s. WVCO is also a formulator and manufacturer of embedded rail grouts that are used in transits and light rail in North America.

“All railroads are looking for the highest performing polymers that improve the remediation of wood and concrete ties,” he noted. “Improving lateral resistance in wood ties and minimizing rail seat abrasion are the key performance requirements.”

Murray says railroads are looking for automation in the application of polymers in the tie renewal process. New exploration is being undertaken by WVCO, utilizing machine vision and automation to improve the application of polymer technology. www.rtands.com

Tracks west of Toronto’s Union Station leading to the GO Kitchener and Lakeshore West lines. All photos courtesy of GO Transit, a division of Metrolinx.

Expansion fuels

GO Transit’s future

GO Transit’s Georgetown South Project will help people and trains move more efficiently in the Toronto area. by Mischa Wanek-Libman, editor

G

O Transit, a division of Metrolinx, serves riders in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) of Ontario on a combined regional network of trains and buses. In April 2014, its average daily train ridership reached 197,000, which trails only the trio of railroads serving the New York area and the Chicago area’s Metra service. Train ridership on its network is expected to nearly double by 2020.

In order to remain competitive with frequent and reliable service, expanding and enhancing its network is a must.

The US$1.09-billion (CA$1.2-billion) Georgetown South (GTS) Project is about capacity, meeting the current needs of GO Transit’s Kitchener, Milton and Barrie rail corridors, while building infrastructure to meet anticipated future needs. The GTS Project also serves as a key element of The Big Move, Metrolinx’s 25-year, US$45.22-billion (CA$50-billion) transportation plan to change the way residents of the GTHA get around.

Construction began in 2010 and is taking place along a 12.42-mile (20-km) stretch between Bathurst Street in Toronto to Highway 427 in the Region of Peel.

It consists of widening and modifying 15 bridges; building one new bridge; seven road-to-rail grade separations; one rail-to-rail grade separation; lowering the rail corridor at three locations; station work and major track and grading construction, civil works, signal installations and utility relocations. To date, more than 217,200 cubic meters of concrete have been poured for the GTS Project’s grade separa36 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

tions, which is enough concrete to build Toronto’s iconic CN Tower five times over.

In addition to the work mentioned above, the GTS Project rail expansion will accommodate the new Union Pearson Express that will connect Toronto Pearson International Airport and Union Station.

Prior to the start of the GTS Project, GO train service from Kitchener, Milton and Barrie was limited only to rush-hour due to the availability of a single track north and the West Toronto Diamond, a rail-to-rail crossing of passenger and freight trains. When complete, the expanded corridor will accomodate between four and eight total tracks (three to five will be available by 2015), allowing for all-day, two-way service. Had improvements to the corridor not been made, GO Transit says the GTHA would have required eight additional highway lanes by 2031 to deal with the additional demand.

Vehicle congestion wasn’t the only concern, without improvements, movements of passenger and freight trains would have reached critical mass, as well.

“Without separating rail-to-rail street-to-rail interactions, we would add to the gridlock by delaying rail and street traffic. This would also impact the reliability of our on-time performance targets. For example, the West Toronto Diamond is considered the busiest rail intersection in the country. It would have been next to impossible to increase commuter service at this already busy intersection without separating www.rtands.com

expansion fuels GO Transit’s future [freight] rail and commuter rail traffic,� said Mark Ostler, media relations and issues specialist at Metrolinx.

The West Toronto Diamond Grade Separation will separate passenger train traffic from freight traffic by lowering four sets of GO Transit tracks and constructing two bridges, one for vehicle and pedestrian use on Old Weston and Junction Roads and the second to carry freight trains all while Canadian National, Canadian Pacific ,VIA Rail Canada and GO Transit service continues.

Working within an active corridor is just one of the challenges presented by the project. According to Ostler, a compressed schedule, dense urban neighborhoods along the majority of the rail corridor, maintaining accessibility across the rail corridor at crossings and limited availability of property outside the rail corridor to help stage construction were additional issues planners had to overcome while working on the project.

Ostler said the project team overcame these challenges and constraints by using three strategies. First, construction was staged carefully to maintain productivity and efficiency and to accommodate the needs of an operating rail corridor.

Second, the project team remained mindful of the communities GO Transit works within and serves. This meant choosing less invasive construction methodology where possible, such as augering instead of pile driving; establishing a community relations team with three office locations to help engage the community and resolve any project related issues or concerns; monitoring noise and vibration levels 24

www.rtands.com

New track between Humber River Bridge and Islington Ave.

hours a day, seven days a week to ensure levels are not above unreasonable levels; providing regular communications with the community through print, face-to-face and through electronic channels, such as social media, monthly e-letter and a dedicated project website.

Additionally, GO Transit kept the community involved through interesting outreach efforts. For example, the community was allowed to pick the final strut design from three options presented for the Strachan Avenue Overpass.

GO Transit has also planned multiple “Thank You Cele-

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 37

expansion fuels GO Transit’s future A train running on the lowered corridor at Strachan Avenue.

brations” within the communities where the GTS Project construction has and continues to occur. The celebrations not only give GO Transit an opportunity to showcase the completed work, but to show gratitude toward the community.

“Given the unprecedented size and scope of the GTS Project, it was critical to have ‘boots on the ground’

38 Railway Track & Structures

working with the communities in which we work and serve. We could not have completed this project without the patience and understanding of our neighbors and the support of our stakeholders,” said Ostler.

The third strategy was using ingenuity and new techniques to meet project deadlines. For example, GO Transit

October 2014

trains operated on the Canadian Pacific rail corridor to allow for the lowering of the rail corridor through the Weston Tunnel to avoid having to build two separate corridors as was done at the West Toronto Diamond and the Strachan Avenue Overpass.

The project also used bridge slide technology, which Ostler says had not been widely used in Canada previously, to install the four bridges at the West Toronto Diamond. By using a slide-in bridge design, GO Transit was able to slide four bridge spans, weighing a combined 11,023 tons (10,000 metric tons), via computerized high-speed tandem hydraulic jacks on slide paths into their final positions. This allowed the spans to be installed within hours. Ostler says another innovative construction technique was the use of ALUMA’s new travelling formwork system to pour the 984.25-foot (300-meter) covered section of the Weston Tunnel.

As with all construction projects, no matter the extensive plans, issues can and do crop up. The most recent timing challenge GO Transit has run into

www.rtands.com

expansion fuels GO Transit’s future is the delay in the reopening of the Old Weston/Junction Road rail crossing, which is part of the West Toronto Diamond Grade Separation. The crossing was originally scheduled to reopen at the end of September, but has been postponed until early December to allow Canadian Pacific to complete the installation of crossing signals. Work will not be completed until the end of October and following the signal installa-

tion, Metrolinx then needs to complete its construction activities in the area, which will take an additional month.

“There are always unforeseen challenges in any construction project.

Given the timeline and scope of the GTS Project, it was important to partner with our contractors and design consultants to problem solve any hurdles as they come up. It’s been a collaborative effort to achieve our goal to

substantially complete the GTS Project by the end of 2014,” said Ostler.

GO Transit has entered the final push to completion on the GTS Project. It is on track to substantially complete all of the elements of the GTS Project by the end of the year with the exception of noise walls/security fencing. The project’s final touches (noise walls, fencing and landscaping) are scheduled to begin in late October.

GTS project: by the numbers To date, GO Transit has installed close to 37.2-miles (60 km) of track weighing 22,450 tons (22,000 tonnes) for the project.

Strachan Avenue Overpass

• Piles Installed: 2,000 • Earth Excavated: 220,000 cubic meters • Concrete Poured: 35,500 cubic meters – almost the amount of concrete poured to build the CN Tower

West Toronto Diamond Grade Separation

• Piles Installed: 2,338 • Earth Excavated: 200,000 cubic meters • Concrete Poured: 55,000 cubic meters – almost enough concrete to build 1.5 CN Towers

Denison Road Underpass • Piles Installed: 8,560 square meters of sheet piling • Earth Excavated: 59,800 cubic meters • Concrete Poured: 5,040 cubic meters

Weston Tunnel

• Piles Installed: 2,289 • Earth Excavated: 307,000 cubic meters • Concrete Poured: 115,000 cubic meters – almost enough concrete to build 3 CN Towers

Carlingview Underpass

• Earth Excavated: 140,000 cubic meters • Concrete Poured: 4,400 cubic meters

www.rtands.com

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 39

AREMA NEWS Professional Development If you need additional continuing education credits, plan to attend one of AREMA’s seminars or online seminars.

Bridge inspection & streambed scour seminar October 20-23,2014 Madison, WI

Message from the President

Conference wrap-up

Building the steel interstate February 3, 2015 Lanham, MD Please visit www.arema.org to register and to find out more information about these seminars or contact Desirée Knight at dknight@arema.org.

Randy Bowman AREMA President 2014-2015

online seminars railway electrification: an introduction and overview October 22, 2014 1p.m.-2p.m. EST new paradigm for transportation infrastructure funding November 18, 2014 1p.m.-2p.m. EST introduction to railroad and transit security: a practitioner's look December 9, 2014 1p.m.-2p.m. EST Please visit www.arema.org to register and to find out more information about these seminars or contact Mandie Ennis at mennis@arema.org.

40 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

I know many of you were in Chicago for this year’s AREMA Annual Conference and Exposition. It was well attended and a huge success. If you weren’t there, you missed an exciting and informative event. It was a very busy time with lots of activities and oppor tunities packed into the week. Several technical committees met either before or after the conference. Adding to that, there were also a number of well-attended seminars conducted that ranged from a half day to three days.

The exposition opened on Sunday at noon with more than 200 exhibitors. There was a lot of traffic on the floor of the exhibit halls with opportunities for technical discussions about products and services. I hope those of you who attended were able to visit with those you already do business with, as well as make new acquaintances, discuss new possibilities and new ideas that may provide future business interactions. I want to thank all of those companies who exhibited. There was truly something there for everyone and always a great opportunity to network.

We were very fortunate to have a diverse group of speakers from government, railroad and finance to make addresses during the week. Our keynote speaker for the opening session on Monday morning was Joseph Szabo, administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration. On Tuesday, Joseph Boardman, president and chief executive officer of Amtrak, spoke at the Annual Chairs’ Luncheon. Then, on Wednesday, railroad industry analyst Anthony Hatch gave us an update on how the railroads were faring in the marketplace and on Wall Street. All three of these were very informative presentations. I would like to thank these gentlemen for taking time out of their busy schedules to give us their timely and interesting presentations.

With 67 diverse technical presentations covering pertinent engineering topics, our conference was again a big success. The presentations provided insight into some important developments in our industry plus new ideas on tackling old issues we are faced with every day, as well as new challenges we will be faced with in the future. As always, there was the opportunity for further technical discussion after the sessions ended.

The networking oppor tunities continued to grow at the conference. For the fifth year in a row, there was a LinkedIn Networking Hour on Sunday where LinkedIn members met for a discussion on the professional networking service. On Monday, we held the 3rd Annual Early Careers Event where those members who are young in their careers are paired with mentors to gain www.rtands.com

2014 - 2015 Upcoming Committee Meetings Oct. 14-16 Committee 30 - Ties Oct. 15 Committee 28 - Clearances Oct. 22-23 Committee 4 - Rail Nov. 10-12 Committee 37 - Signal Systems Nov. 12-13 Committee 36 - Highway-Rail Grade Crossing

Warning Systems

Orlando, FL Orlando, FL Kansas City, MO Overland Park, KS Overland Park, KS

Jan. 6-7 Committee 10 - Structures, Maintenance & Foundations Hollywood, FL Jan. 29 Committee 9 - Seismic Design for Railway Structures San Diego, CA Jan. 29-30 Committee 8 - Concrete Structures

& Foundations Panama, Central America Feb. 3-4 Committee 15 - Steel Structures San Diego, CA May 19 Committee 9 - Seismic Design for Railway Structures Kansas City, MO

Negotiated airline discount information for AREMA Committee Meetings can be found online at http://www.arema.org/meetings/airlines.aspx.

practical knowledge and expand their professional networking circle in the industry. Also on Monday, we held the 9th Annual Meet the Next Generation Event. This event has continued to grow every year since its inception and this year continued that trend. There was an hourlong panel discussion followed by a two-hour networking reception.

It’s a great forum for prospective railroaders, student participants and those who are new to the industry to find out more about railroading and make connections that will help them throughout their careers. It was great to meet these young ladies and gentlemen who will lead this industry into the future.

Another very important part of our conference again this year was the AREMA Spouse Program. AREMA President Joe Smak’s lovely wife, Pam, hosted the program this year. The spouses were provided a hospitality suite throughout the week and a historical tour of the Hilton Chicago. They were treated to a very nice brunch in the Waldorf Ballroom with Master Sommelier Rachel Speckan on Monday. On Tuesday, they took a trolley tour, learning about the great city of Chicago. They dined at The Signature Room on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Center overlooking the view. Many thanks to Pam for hosting the hospitality suite and providing a wonderful experience.

I would like to thank all of the corporate sponsors. Their support through sponsorship of various portions of the conference and exposition helped to make this event the premier railroad engineering conference in North America. My thanks also to the Conference Operating Committee for their tireless work in preparing for and executing the logistics of the conference. Also, many thanks to the AREMA staff for all they do throughout the year, but especially for all the hard work they do behind the scenes that makes this conference and exposition as successful as it is year after year.

On Wednesday morning, I began my tenure as president of AREMA. It will be an honor to serve as the leader of AREMA. I want to thank those who have served before me and provided leadership and guidance along the way. A special thanks goes to Past President Joe Smak, a man of integrity and passion for the rail industry and this association. You have served AREMA well, my friend.

I look forward to the coming year and the challenges it will present.

I promise to work hard in my new role and I will strive to live up to the expectations placed on me. I know that with the support of our board of governors, board of directors and AREMA staff, we will build AREMA even stronger.

Be safe and make a positive difference. www.rtands.com

FYI… If you attended the AREMA 2014 Annual Conference & Exposition in Chicago, IL last month, THANK YOU for contributing to the great success of this event! With more than 220 exhibits and more than 2,200 attendees we had an outstanding turnout and are very grateful to the industry for so much support.

Save the date for the AREMA 2015 Annual Conference to be held in conjunction with Railway Interchange 2015 in Minneapolis, MN from October 4 - 7, 2015.

Call for papers. Papers are now being accepted for the AREMA 2015 Annual Conference to be held in conjunction with Railway Interchange 2015 in Minneapolis, MN, from October 4 - 7, 2015. The deadline is December 15, 2014. Please visit www. arema.org for more information and to submit a paper online.

AREMA’s Official Facebook Page Become a fan of the official AREMA Facebook Page and stay up-to-date on the most recent AREMA information.

The Official AREMA LinkedIn Group Join the official AREMA LinkedIn Group by visiting www.linkedin.com and searching groups for “American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association.”

Put your career on the right track with AREMA’s Railway Careers Network.

Services are FREE and include confidential resume posting, job search and e-mail notification when jobs match your criteria.

Not an AREMA Member?

Join today at www.arema.org Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 41

AREMA NEWS

Getting to know John Holleman Each month, AREMA features one of our committee chairs.

We are pleased to announce that the October featured chair is John Holleman, chair of committee 34 - scales.

AREMA: Why did you decide to choose a career in railway engineering?

Holleman: I didn’t. It was more of a case of railway engineering choosing me. My original plan was a career in architecture, but I quickly learned that I was more analytical than artistic. This resulted in a switch to engineering. When I first began my career in the early 1970s in structural/civil design, railway engineering wasn’t even on my radar. My primary interests at the time were heavy industry, such as steel, mining, etc. However, through a series of fortunate coincidences, I was exposed to the rail industry and discovered that this was a career avenue I hadn’t even thought about. It didn’t take long to decide that this is where I wanted to be.

AREMA: How did you get started?

Holleman: My first job out of school was with Streeter Amet Co. who was a manufacturer of scale equipment, specializing in high capacity weighing systems for industrial applications.

One of their product lines was rail scales and at the time, they were a major supplier of this equipment to the railroads.

Although my design responsibilities covered the gamut of high capacity weighing applications, my primary interest always led me back to rail. I joined Systems Associates, Inc., in 1986 as manager structural engineering. Our primary products are railcar weighing and identification systems and we are a major supplier of this equipment to both general industry and the railroads. This position with SAI has enabled me to direct most of my efforts towards the rail industry.

AREMA: How did you get involved in AREMA and your committee?

Holleman: Systems Associates has always been a strong supporter of AREMA and is actively involved in Committee 34. As a part of our company policy, I too was encouraged to participate. However, due to the manufacturer/supply company committee membership restrictions, I was only able to participate on an unofficial basis for several years. I was finally able to join AREMA and Committee 34 in 2002.

Since that time, I have chaired several sub-committees and I took on the committee chairmanship in 2013.

AREMA: Outside of your job and the hard work you put into AREMA, what are your hobbies?

Holleman: During the summer months, I enjoy cycling, both the pedal and motorized types. Every year I try to take at least one long trip on my Harley. This year’s adventure was a 2,500-mile jaunt around Lakes Huron and Superior. Wintertime is for downhill skiing and snowshoeing.

Although, I don’t seem to get many opportunities these days, I also enjoy camping, hiking and kayaking.

AREMA: Tell us about your family.

Holleman: My wife, Kathy and I have been married for 35 years and we live in Ringwood, Ill. Kathy is an early learning educator and we have three sons. Tim is a website designer in Merrillville, Ind., Joe is a captain in the Marine Corps and is presently stationed in the Republic of Georgia and Pete is a 42 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

john holleman Chair, Committee 34 - Scales Manager, Structural Engineering Systems Associates, Inc.

civil engineer in Raleigh, N.C. We have also been blessed with two grandsons, Alek and Maks.

AREMA: If you could share one interesting fact about yourself with the readers of RT&S, what would it be?

Holleman: I don’t know if it’s a passion or a curse, but I’m a consummate home remodeler. We’ve lived in our home in Ringwood for more than 20 years and I can't recall one of those years where there wasn’t something being added, demolished and replaced or at the very least, rearranged. I'm very particular in what I want and how I want it done and I've found that the only way to accomplish this is to do it myself.

Consequently, I've become proficient at carpentry, plumbing, electrical work and cabinet making. This "do it yourself" process does, of course, require a wife who can tolerate dust on a fairly continual basis and small inconveniences, such as doing the dishes in the bathroom sink until the kitchen is actually done or dealing with missing cabinet doors as that’s next year’s project. Passion or curse? I’m still not sure.

AREMA: What is your biggest achievement?

Holleman: It may be a bit of a cliché, but I would have to say my greatest achievement is my kids. Both Kathy and I are extremely proud of their accomplishments and successes at Continued on page 44 www.rtands.com

AREMA Publications Reflections on a Half Century of Railway Engineering and Some Related Subjects©

Railway Memoirs by William G. Byers, PE

2015 Communications & Signals Manual of Recommended Practices© The Communications NOW AVAILABLE & Signals Manual is a manual of recommended practices written by AREMA technical committees in the interest of establishing uniformity, promoting safety or efficiency and economy. The Communications & Signals Manual of Recommended Practices is an annual publication.

Downloadable Sections Available Online.

2014 Manual for Railway Engineering© There have been numerous updates to more than 5,000 pages of the Manual for Railway Engineering. The chapters are grouped into four general categories, each in a separate volume: • Track • Structures • Infrastructure & Passenger • Systems Management. The Manual is an annual publication, released every April. It is available in four-volume loose-leaf format, CD-ROM, revision set (loose-leaf only) and individual chapters (hard copy and downloadable formats).

Downloadable Chapters Available Online.

To order any of the AREMA publications, please visit www.arema.org or contact Beth Caruso at +1.301.459.3200, ext. 701, or bcaruso@arema.org.

www.rtands.com

2014 Portfolio of Trackwork Plans© The Portfolio of Trackwork Plans consists of plans and specifications that relate to the design, details, materials and workmanship for switches, frogs, turnouts and crossovers, crossings, rails and other special trackwork. This is a companion volume to the Manual for Railway Engineering.

AREMA Bridge Inspection Handbook© The AREMA Bridge Inspection Handbook provides a comprehensive source of information and criteria for bridge inspections for engineers engaged in the assessment of railway bridges. This handbook is published as a guide to establishing policies and practices relative to bridge inspection. It covers such topics as confined spaces, site conditions, loads & forces, nomenclature, bridge decks, timber, concrete & steel bridges, movable bridges, tunnel and culvert inspections, and emergency & post-earthquake inspections.

Also included are many color photographed examples in several chapters, as well as a glossary in the back of the book.

Practical Guide to Railway Engineering© This guide provides a comprehensive overview and understanding of the railway system. Whether you are new to the rail industry or a long-time contributor wanting to learn more, this bound book and CD-ROM offer in-depth coverage of railway fundamentals and serve as an excellent reference. (Also available in a CD-ROM version only.)

The Governance Nominating Committee, Chaired by Past President James N. Carter, Jr., has completed its task and the following nominee has been officially elected. Michael J. Wheeler assumed his Board of Governor’s position at the AREMA 2014 Annual Conference & Exposition in Chicago, IL. Wheeler joined Norfolk Southern in 1985 as a r e s e a r c h e n g i n e e r.

He ser ved in positions of increasing responsibility in operations before being named vice president t r a n s p o r t at i o n i n 2 0 0 9 .

Since 2012, Wheeler has been in his current position at Norfolk Southern as vice president – engineering.

He holds a Bachelor of Science, Metallurgical Engineering Degree from the University of Tennessee and an MBA from Virginia Tech.

He has been elected to a three-year term as governor on the Board of Governors.

Joseph M. Santamaria had been previously nominated. The AREMA Bylaws note that a candidate must be an active vice president engineering at the time of installation to office.

Santamar ia will be unable to serve since his plans are to retire prior to the Installation Ceremony at the AREMA Annual Conference.

We wish Santamaria well in his retirement.

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 43

AREMA NEWS Student Chapter highlight:

University of Manitoba

The University of Manitoba AREMA Student Chapter and Canadian National staff brave blizzard-like conditions to learn about rail car maintenance.

When was this AREMA Student Chapter established?

The University of Manitoba AREMA Student Chapter was started in August, 2012. We are now entering our third year as an active student chapter.

How many members does this student chapter currently have?

Currently, the roster for the student chapter is at 31

members, predominantly undergrad students, but with several graduate students, as well.

Who is your chapter president?

Our current student chapter president is Mark Reimer, but we will have a new president in the fall of 2014 when we hold elections for our executive committee.

Has this student chapter had any recent exciting events occur that you would like to share with the readers of RT&S? We have had two very full years that have included guest lectures, trips to the AREMA Annual Conference and technical tours of industry facilities right here in Winnipeg (we’ve had great support from the staff at Canadian National and Canadian Pacific). Two really exciting events we have been fortunate to experience are the tours of the CP and CN rail terminals (flat and hump switching, respectively). In both instances, local staff has volunteered their time, on Saturdays, to tour us through the facilities and show us how they operate. In addition, the chapter has started a railroad employment co-op to help get our students working in the industry during their degree.

Do you have any upcoming events?

For the next academic year, we have a field trip planned to an underpass project and a tour of the new Canadian National Training Facility in Winnipeg. The University of Manitoba Student Chapter had representatives at the AREMA Annual Conference. We have always been very grateful of the support AREMA provides to enable us to attend this great event and we look forward to it every year.

Continued from page 42 this point in their careers. Professionally speaking, I can think of several projects that I’m particularly proud of. These have ranged from "it can’t be done" projects and then figuring out how to do it and getting it done, to new or unusual "one-ofa-kind" applications that gives one a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment upon their successful implementation.

However, when all is said and done, I would hope that my greatest achievement will be that I left my little corner of the rail industry in a better state than when I found it.

AREMA: What advice would you give to someone who is trying to pursue a career in the railway industry?

Holleman: In many cases, I think this may be more of an issue of convincing people that a career in the railway industry can be a rewarding and professionally satisfying choice. The possibility of getting your hands dirty doesn’t particularly appeal to many young people looking for career opportunities these days and at face value, I don’t think these young candidates consider the rail industry to be particularly high-tech. They need to be shown otherwise. The rail industry is overgrown with high tech. Just think about the work being done in track design, communications, energy efficiency, etc. Regardless of a person’s discipline or training, the opportunities in the railway industry can be unlimited. Yes, their hands may get dirty, which in my opinion is half the fun, but at the end of the day, there will be a sense of accomplishment and hopefully the satisfaction of a job well done.

44 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

www.rtands.com

www.rtands.com

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 45

PRODUCTS Internal tie inspection

Cable tray

Snake Tray® has created a patented cable tray to convey, aim and isolate RF cables, along with traditional security and signal cables in one system for transit and rail tunnels. Snake Tray cable tray can accommodate multiple tiers of cable pathway, along with a special separated pathway that isolates and aims the RF cable for optimal signal strength. Snake Tray nests together, which was designed for economical shipping and easy material handling and comes in stainless steel to weather all environmental conditions. Phone: 800-308-6788.

46 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

Georgetown Rail Equipment Company introduced the Aurora Xi™, an internal tie inspection solution that uses backscatter x-ray technology to find flaws deep within track components that traditional inspection methods might miss. Aurora Xi builds upon the GREX’s Aurora® track inspection system, which is capable of looking at the surface of ties and other track components.

Aurora Xi takes inspections further by adding internal imaging capability. It goes beyond the surface to reveal everything from hollow spots in wood ties to the size and depth of cracks in concrete ties. GREX developed Aurora Xi in partnership with the University of Florida Nuclear Engineering Department. Graduate students from the department spent the summer of 2014 at GREX headquarters in Georgetown, Texas, working alongside engineers on the first prototype. The first Aurora Xi hi-rail vehicles are currently in production and will be put to work in the field in the first quarter of 2015. It is capable of scanning track at speeds in excess of 40 miles-per-hour and once a scan is complete, detailed reports allow railroads to pinpoint individual ties and other components that need to be replaced.

Phone: 512-869-1542.

www.rtands.com

Ad Index Company

Phone #

Amsted RPS

AREMA Marketing Department

Auto Truck Group Birmingham Rail & Locomotive Co. Custom Truck & Equipment Dixie PreCast

Encore Rail Systems, Inc. L.B. Foster Co.

Georgetown Rail Equipment Company Harsco Rail

Herzog Railroad Services, Inc.

Herzog Services, Inc.

Holland Co.

Hougen Manufacturing, Inc.

IntegriCo Composites Koppers, Inc

Koppers Railroad Structures Landoll Corporation

Neel Company, The Nisus Corporation

North American Rail Products Inc. NRC R-Solutions

Racine Railroad Products

RAILCET Rails Company

Railway Educational Bureau, The RailWorks Corporation

Schenck Process Stella-Jones Corporation V&H Inc., Trucks Willamette Valley Co.

Fax#

e-mail address

Page #

913-345-4807

913-345-4818 jstout@amstedrps.com 301-459-3200

301-459-8077 marketing@arema.org 816-412-2131 816-412-2191 eschoenfeld@autotruck.com 205-424-7245

205-424-7436 railroad@centurygrp.com 816-241-4888

816-241-3710 bboehm@cte-equipment.com

770-944-1930

770-944-9136 fbrown142@aol.com 866-712-7622

303-922-6178

www.encorers.com 412-928-3506

412-928-3512 glippard@lbfosterco.com 512-869-1542 ext.228

512-863-0405 karen@georgetownrail.com 803-822-7551

803-822-7521 mteeter@harsco.com 816-233-9002

816-233-7757 tfrancis@hrsi.com 816-233-9002

816-233-7757 rebersold@herzogservices.com 708-672-2300 ext. 382

708-672-0119 gpodgorski@hollandco.com 866-245-3745

800-309-3299 info@trak-star.com 254-743-6419 254-770-1700 sales@integrico.com 412-227-2739

412-227-2841 ambrosegf@koppers.com 800-356-5952 608-221-0618 rrdiv@koppers.com 800-428-5655 888-293-6779 jim.ladner@landoll.com

btemple@neelco.com 703-913-7858 703-913-7859 865-577-6119 jimg@nisuscorp.com

cerhart@narailproducts.com

604-946-7272 888-692-1150 202-715-2920 202-318-0867 info@nrcma.org 303-777-9692 www.r-sols.com

custserv@racinerailroad.com 262-637-9681 262-637-9069

grif1020@yahoo.com 866-724-5238 217-522-6588 973-763-4320 973-763-2585 rails@railsco.com

bbrundige@sb-reb.com 402-346-4300 402-346-1783 866-905-7245

952-469-1926 jrhansen@railworks.com

mktg@schenckprocess.com 262-473-2441 262-473-4384

kdulski@stella-jones.com 800-272-8437 412-894-2846

a.thoreson@vhtruck.com 715-486-8800 714-387-0657 541-484-9621

541-284-2096 03alishab@wilvaco.com

31 Cover 3 34 37 7 8 25 Cover 2 15 16 14 5 2 46 33 27 23 39 21 35 37 12 38 4 18 8 48, 51 Cover 4 6 29 38 19

Reader Referral Service This section has been created solely for the convenience of our readers to facilitate immediate contact with the RAILWAY TRACK & STRUCTURES advertisers in this issue.

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

Advertising Sales general sales OFFICE Jonathan Chalon Publisher (212) 620-7224 55 Broad St., 26th Fl. Fax: (212) 620-7224 New York, NY 10014 jchalon@sbpub.com CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, NC, PA, RI, SC, VT, VA, WV, Canada Quebec and East, Ontario Mark Connolly (212) 620-7260 55 Broad St., 26th Fl. Fax: (212) 633-1863 New York, NY 10014 mconnolly@sbpub.com AL, AR, IN, KY, LA, MI, MS, OH, OK, TN, TX Emily Guill (312) 683-5021 20 South Clark St. Fax: (312) 683-0131 Ste. 1910 Chicago, IL 60603 eguill@sbpub.com

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AK, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, KS, MN, MO, MT, NE, NM, ND, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY, Canada -足AB, BC, MB, SK Heather Disabato (312) 683-5026 20 South Clark St. Fax: (312) 683-0131 Ste. 1910 Chicago, IL 60603 hdisabato@sbpub.com Australia, Austria, China, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Worldwide Recruitment Steven Barnes Suite K5 &K6 The Priory +44-1444-416375 Syresham Gardens Fax: +44-1444-458185 Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom sb@railjournal.co.uk

Africa, Britain, Belgium, France, Far East, Germany, Portugal, Switzerland, Middle East, South America, Rail Tenders Louise Cooper Suite K5 &K6 The Priory +44-1444-416917 Syresham Gardens Fax: +44-1444-458185 Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom lc@railjournal.co.uk Italy & Italian-speaking Switzerland Eastern Europe, Baltic States, Scandanavia Julie Richardson Suite K5 &K6 The Priory +44-1444-416368 Syresham Gardens Fax: +44-1444-458185 Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom jr@railjournal.co.uk

Italy and Italian-speaking Switzerland Dr. Fabio Potesta Media Point & Communications SRL Corte Lambruschini Corso Buenos Aires 8 +39-10-570-4948 V Piano, Int 9 Fax: +39-10-553-0088 16129 Genoa, Italy info@mediapointsrl.it Japan Katsuhiro Ishii Ace Media Service, Inc. 12-6 4-Chome, +81-3-5691-3335 Nishiiko, Adachi-Ku Fax: +81-3-5691-3336 Tokyo 121-0824, Japan amskatsu@dream.com Classified, Professional & Employment Jeanine Acquart (212) 620-7211 55 Broad St., 26th Fl. Fax: (212) 633-1325 New York, NY 10014 jacquart@sbpub.com

Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 47

CALENDAR OCTOBER 12-15. APTA Annual Meeting & Expo. Hilton Americas & George R. Brown Convention Center. Houston, Texas.

Phone: 202-496-4839. E-mail: aatkins@apta.com. Website: www.apta.com.

12-17. International Railway Safety Conference 2014.

Maritim Hotel Berlin. Berlin, Germany. Phone: +49 30 29764448. E-mail: info@irsc2014.org. Website: www. irsc2014.org.

14-17. 96th Annual Railway Tie Association Symposium and Technical Conference. Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress.

Orlando, Fla. Phone: 770-460-5553. E-mail: ties@rta.org.

Website: www.rta.org.

20-22. Fundamentals of Urban Rail Transit Systems: Engineering, Construction, and Maintenance. David Evans And Associates, Inc. Portland, Ore. Contact: Dave Peterson. Phone: 800-462-0876. E-mail: peterson@epd.engr.wisc.edu. Website: www.epd.engr. wisc.edu/webP737.

21-24. Track Safety Standards Part 213 Classes 105 Workshop. Council Bluffs, Iowa. Website: http://www. railwayeducationalbureau.com/TrkInspWrkShp.html.

NOVEMBER 4-6. Bently’s Year in Infrastructure 2014. Hilton London Metropole Hotel. London, UK. http://app.certain.com/ profile/web/index.cfm?PKWebId=0x5864932b63&.

5-6. Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety. Hilton Garden Inn - Chicago O’Hare. Des Plaines, Ill. Contact: Dave Peterson. Phone: 800-462-0876. Fax: 800-442-4214.

E-mail: peterson@epd.engr.wisc.edu. Website: www.epd. engr.wisc.edu/webP649.

9-11. ASLRRA Central Pacific Region Meeting.

Worthington Renaissance Hotel. Fort Worth, Texas.

Contact: Jenny Bourque. Phone: 202-628-4500. E-mail: jbourque@aslrra.org. Website: www.aslrra.org.

10-14. Railroad Track Inspection & Safety Standards.

University of Tennessee - Knoxville. Chattanooga, Tenn.

Contact: Diana Webb. Phone: 865-974-5255. Fax: 865-9743889. Website: www.http://www.ctr.utk.edu/ttap.

18-20. Fundamentals of Railway Bridge Engineering and Management. Crowne Plaza Hotel Jacksonville Airport.

Jacksonville, Fla. Contact: Dave Peterson. Phone: 800462-0876. Fax: 800-442-4214. E-mail: peterson@epd.engr. wisc.edu. Website: www.epd.engr.wisc.edu/webN887.

JANUARY 2015 7-10. NRC Annual Conference & REMSA Exhibition.

Westin Diplomat. Hollywood, Fla. Contact: Ashley Bosch. Phone: 202-715-1247. E-mail: abosch@nrcma.org.

Website: www.nrcma.org.

48 Railway Track & Structures

January 2014 October

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Professional Directory

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(717) 328-5211 • fax (717) 328-9541 • www.kwreese.com

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NEW & USED EQUIPMENT

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Bridge Safety Standards FRA Part 237 establishes Federal safety requirements for railroad bridges. This rule requires track owners to implement bridge management programs, which include annual inspections of railroad bridges, and to audit the programs. Bridge Safety Standards Part 237 also requires track owners to know the safe load capacity of bridges and to conduct special inspections if the weather or other conditions warrant such inspections.

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Railway Track & Structures

October 2014 51

EMPLOYMENT

Director, North American Sales Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc.

See the full job posting and apply today at http://jobs.loram.com

RAILWAY TRACK AND STRUCTURES

Classified & Professional Directory

advertise today

NATIONAL STEEL CAR is a progressive industry leader dedicated to the manufacturing of railway rolling stock. Our dedication to customer satisfaction, the competitive spirit of our people and our commitment to excellence in everything we do have earned us our distinguished reputation: Currently seeking a qualified individual for the following position:

REGIONAL MANAGER OF MARKETING AND SALES SOUTHWESTERN USA Reporting to the Regional Vice President of Marketing and Sales the successful candidate will be responsible for: • The presentation and sale of freight cars, freight car products/parts or freight car services to current and potential customers.

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• Knowledge of railcar type, parts and features an asset Please respond in confidence to: Human Resources P.O. Box 2450 Hamilton, ON L8N 3J4 Fax: (905) 544-1633 Email: brucknerh@steelcar.com

AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY CANADIAN EMPLOYER www.steelcar.com

52 Railway Track & Structures

October 2014

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