Building track for profitability

A railroad’s infrastructure may not always be thought of as a profit center, but how productively it’s built and maintained goes directly to the bottom line.

The overall productivity—and in turn, profitability—of a railroad can be directly tied to its engineering practices. With the economy continuing to heal and traffic levels increasing, advances in the productivity of maintenance-of-way machines will become even more important to the bottom line. Railroads and contractors agree that the next step in advancing equipment will come from collaboration with manufacturers, as well as maintaining a focus on research to continue technological developments.

“There have been a fair amount of improvements in productivity of m/w equipment, particularly on the maintenance side and, in some cases, on the construction side over the past 10 years,” says Bill Van Trump, Union Pacific’s senior assistant vice president-engineering.

He points to the high speed tampers on the maintenance side, as well as the track renewal trains on the construction side as examples of equipment that have allowed railroads to increase maintenance productivity.

“There are still things that are being done fairly manually that can either be automated or turned into a robotic application. Eventually, we’ll get more and more robotics in the system, that is, automation with intelligence. That’s probably the next best opportunity for significant advancements in productivity and reliability so that, when you program a robot to do something, it does it the same way every time, consistently,” says Van Trump.

David Staplin, deputy chief engineer-track for Amtrak, notes that part of what has enabled railroads to make significant productivity increases has to do with the development of machines and processes that attack the root causes of failure in the track structure, and points to the contracting business as being clever in the development of new equipment that the railroads could not or would not want to own.

“As there is still much to be done, I would think that a continuation along that path is needed. For example, railroads are spending research dollars to develop analytical tools to clearly identify weak support conditions in the ballast and subgrade. Machines and methods to remediate these problems would be most welcome. By that, I mean equipment that could fix a problem at a spot short of removing the entire track structure and roadbed, with the corresponding large work windows and train delays that would be necessary,” says Staplin.

For Norfolk Southern, which has many m/w workers with less than five years experience, maintenance productivity begins with picking the right people for the job and then making sure they are trained properly for all jobs, especially those where eliminating manual labor is not feasible.

As far as machine improvements go, Mike Reid, chief engineer program maintenance at NS, points to the railroad’s Charlotte Roadway Shop, which plays a big role in the company’s maintenance and equipment practices.

“If we can’t get it built by a manufacturer, we build it ourselves,” says Reid.

He mentions two areas where he would like to see improvement in equipment. The first would be improved capacity for spikers. The second would be a plate-handling machine for tie and surface gangs that would eliminate needless exposure, which carries the risk of accidents and injuries. He also notes that the Charlotte Roadway Shop just built a riding plate jack.

“So, I’m going to check that one off my list,” says Reid.

Is the blitz back?
“I think that is one of the strategies that is going to have to come back into vogue,” says Van Trump. “With traffic levels down compared to three years ago, they haven’t been as necessary, but I think that’s one of the opportunities we may have to go back to. If you’re going to take a track out of service for an extended amount of time, you get in there with everything you can and you fix everything you can fix so that you don’t have to go back for a long time.”

Reid of NS notes that the railroad continues to perform blitzes every year but advises that the only way to get a true benefit from a blitz is to have a total commitment from all parties. Everyone from engineering to mechanical to design has to be on the same page.

While Amtrak’s Staplin thinks the term “blitz” may be out of date, the idea of getting the most for your outage, whether it be a series of small or major tasks, is a fact of life and required for survival in today’s industry.

“People in the industry have become very clever with track renewal trains for concrete ties, for example. Here, you change all the components in one operation/outage. I think this method could be extended successfully to wood ties as well,” says Staplin.

The contractor perspective
Railroad contractors have a vested interest in the productivity of m/w equipment, as a machine’s efficient operation can directly affect a contractor’s bottom line.

Scott Brace, president of RailWorks Track Systems, Inc., notes that a lot of credit should be given to the manufacturers of m/w equipment, whom he lauds with continuously pushing toward the next innovation and time saving piece of equipment.

“From our end, we hope that they will continue to refine the maintenance requirements on these machines. The equipment that we use—tampers, tie changers, tie cranes and regulators—take a beating out there. We hope for continued innovations on how the equipment requires less maintenance, making the equipment easier to maintain and operate,” says Brace.

When asked where he would like to see improvements in existing machines, Brace took a moment, chuckled and then answered, “Probably, in pricing. The work seems to be getting cheaper, but the price in equipment seems to go up, not only for purchases but for leases, as well as repair parts, but we find our price to do the work seems to be going down.”

Allowing contractors to operate profitably has placed increased importance on m/w machinery’s ability to get on and off the track quickly.

“Now that the economy is coming back faster than the crews and locomotive power are, I think you have to have the mobility,” says Bret George, vice president-marketing at Herzog Contracting Corp. “You have to address the mobility issue whether it’s getting on or off the crossing quickly or getting to a siding or just to do your job more efficiently with tools to be able to require less of a window.”

Josh LeMar, Herzog’s manager of ballast operations, agrees with George and also points to safety as an area of productivity improvement.

“There are still a lot of labor-intensive jobs on the railroad and any time you can improve safety, the better it is for everyone,” says LeMar.

A machine’s productivity can only take you so far, if it’s not as safe as it can be.

“When it comes to track maintenance and construction, there’s always ample opportunity for improvement in the area of safety and ergonomics. Manufacturers should continue to develop new equipment that’s ergonomically superior to the last generation of products. Decreasing the risk of long-term repetitive injury to operators should be a matter of ongoing research and development,” says Mark Snailham, vice president–Services, Balfour Beatty Rail, Inc. “It would be encouraging to see continued steps toward reinforcing the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee safety initiatives. Manufacturers could do a better job of partnering with railroads to develop lockout/tagout procedures that comply with the standards of both the individual railroads and OSHA.”

“The main objective is to make a safer machine,” says Paul Laurello, vice president of Delta Railroad Construction, Inc. “In doing so, manufacturers are making it more reliable, faster, and more productive.”

According to Delta, technology is playing a big part in developing machines that are not only safe, but also more productive.

“As long as someone is willing to think out of the box, they’re able to come up with new ideas that further improve the equipment to make it safer and faster,” says Laurello. “[Manufacturers] are starting to use more modern technology, such as GPS and satellite positioning, to improve the equipment, which is really what will take us to the next step.”

In addition to the technology aspect of improving track machines, Delta also notes that machines are becoming easier to maintain.

“Sometimes less is more when it comes to machines,” says Laurello. “Over the years, some of these machines became real complicated, but a few manufacturers are actually starting to go the other way. The more [manufacturers] make the machines run longer with fewer problems and make them easier to fix, the quicker they can get on/off-track and get the maintenance done and keep the trains going.”

Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc., provides one example of getting the maintenance done quickly in order to keep trains running by using the company’s track lifter. Scott Diercks, product development manager at Loram, explains that CN had close to 200 miles of track on a branch line that was sinking down into a boggy area and in need of rehabilitation. According to Diercks, the situation could be remedied in one of two ways: sled the track or undercut it.

“We went out and used the track lifting technology, lifted the track and essentially did a sled job underneath at a much higher rate of speed, using equipment that was less labor intensive and easier to deploy. With the traditional methods you would struggle to average one mile a day; with the track lifting, we were able to complete the rehab work on 100 miles of track in three months,” says Diercks.

Joe Ashley, Loram’s manager, marketing and business development, points to the company’s RG400 series of rail grinders as an example of equipment that has evolved as a result of a well-focused research program.

“We had machines that were averaging 30 miles per day, which was good, and now we’re out there averaging 50-60 miles a day. That, combined with some superior environmental features like lower-emission engines and some new safety designs, has really lead to a much better rail grinding program for many of the Class I’s,” says Ashley.

Computerized maintenance
Relying more and more on computerized maintenance is a trend both railroads and contractors viewed as continuing and growing.

Van Trump dissects track maintenance into two parts, diagnostics and application, but the direct link between the two is either missing or just beginning to develop depending on the equipment used. He gives the example of an evaluator car, which can tell the exact geometry of the railroad. This is followed by a high speed tamper, but the two pieces of equipment are not directly linked.

“The opportunity is there to take the information directly off the evaluator car and download it into a tamper. The tamper follows the evaluator car and the computer tells it where to stop and where to start surfacing and how much surfacing it has to do and really directs the maintenance,” says Van Trump. “The link between diagnostics and maintenance is still sort of a manual thing and there needs to be an automated link between them.”

For Reid at NS, who works a year in advance on planned maintenance based on ground crew observations, as well as the age of the rail and previous maintenance cycles, the future of computerized maintenance would adapt technology to use models that take into account a line’s increase in tonnage, number of rail defects, rail failures, as well as other variables, and develop an optimum maintenance schedule for the upcoming year.

“I think it’s essential as we get one system that overlays the other and that we spend the dollar at the right time at the right location,” says Reid.

Delta notes that it has been embracing computers on its equipment whole-heartedly.

“Technology is getting so much better so fast that we’re really happy to see what’s happening in our industry now,” says Laurello.

Wishful thinking
We asked, if you could have one track machine that doesn’t exist today, what would it be?

Railroad chief engineers provided the following responses:

• Automated inspection.

• A spot undercutter that could dig itself in, work on interior tracks, handle its own spoils, and travel quickly to the job site.

• A high speed rail conditioner that would extend rail life by reconditioning the head of the rail, check for nicks on the base, and rid the rail of other defects.

• A plate handling machine for tie and surfacing gangs.

From contractors:

• A rail laying machine that would pull spikes, remove existing rail, pull and collect all OTM (other track material), and then crib and scarify everything.

• A high speed tie unloader.

• A switch/spot undercutter that cleans ballast instead of wasting the fouled material.

• A smaller version of a track laying machine.

• Under-track maintenance technology that can get on and off track quickly and utilize the majority of the work window.

Suppliers, get your pencils and drafting paper (or CAD programs) out!