When consideration is given to track engineering and maintenance, many newcomers to the railroad industry don’t realize what massive amount of effort is put forward to properly manage thermal rail stress by track engineering and track maintenance professionals. A concept even more difficult to grasp is the relationship of thermal rail stress to undergrade bridges.
Bentley Systems Inc. has announced the finalists for its Year in Infrastructure 2019 Awards program, which honors “the extraordinary work of Bentley software users advancing infrastructure design, construction, and operations throughout the world.” Twelve independent jury panels of industry experts selected the 54 finalists from 571 nominations submitted by more than 440 organizations in more than 60 countries.
On Oct. 7, 2019, CN and CSX will launch a new intermodal service linking CN’s greater Montreal and Southern Ontario areas with CSX-served ports in Philadelphia and New York/New Jersey.
For a sleep inducer, consider working with the Uniform Rail Costing System (URCS), long a general costing system indispensable for determining maximum reasonable rail rates. Worse, its second side-effect is indigestion, as this 30-year-old accounting relic is much like a classic car lacking modern GPS and satellite radio. Practitioners too often become frustrated with its built-in averages from a time when railroads, rather than shippers, owned most of the freight car fleet and line hauls were shorter as the modern merger movement had not yet run its course.
Wabtec Corp. recently filed a 20,485,156 share offering of GE, and expects to grant the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 2,048,515 shares. Wabtec said it will not receive any proceeds from the sale of the shares in the offering.
Railway Equipment Co. (RECO) has named Russ Gehl as Chief Operating Officer, with leadership responsibility for all operations at the company’s headquarters in Minnesota. He rejoins RECO after serving as Vice President of Maintenance-of-Way Sales at Holland Company, “where he drove consistent growth for Class I and International,” the company said.
Stanley M. Herzog, President of William E. Herzog Enterprises, died August 2, 2019, surrounded by friends and family. He was 70.
Editor’s Note: RealClear Markets published this editorial by AAR President and CEO Ian Jefferies on Aug. 1. With mixed economic signals coming from Washington D.C., Jefferies argues that federal lawmakers must do their part to provide certainty.
Karl Alexy has been named the Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety and Chief Safety Officer of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). He was most recently the FRA’s Deputy Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety and had responsibility for the Office of Safety Analysis, the Office of Technical Oversight and the Office of Regional Operations.
CSX Executive Vice President Operations Ed Harris addressed his railway operating peers at the annual Association of American Railroad Superintendents conference the week of July 22. The topic was his view of Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). We have all seen and read about PSR multiple times. What could Harris possibly add, especially for the experienced operating men and women seated before him?
