Railway Age August 2019

A u g u s t 2 01 9

w w w. r a i lwaya g e .c o m

AILWAY GE S e r v i n g t h e r a i lway i n d u s t r y s i n c e 1 8 5 6

EASING Winter’s

Grip

Slowing the Snowball Effect

RAILWAY INTERCHANGE 2019 PREVIEW Innovation, Education Take Center Stage

TECHNOLOGY FOCUS: LOCOMOTIVES railwayage.com

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AILWAY GE

JULY 2019 AUGUST 2019

32 FEATURES

18

Winter Preparedness

32

As Good As New

36

Railway Interchange Preview

Slowing the snowball effect

Rebuilding is the way to go

Innovation, education take the stage

DEPARTMENTS 4 6 8 40 40 40 41 42 42 43

Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People 100 Years Ago Events Products

NEWS/COLUMNS 2 9 15 16 44

From the Editor Update Watching Washington Financial Edge Short Line/Regional Perspective

Classified

On the Cover:

Professional Directory

CN power leads a BNSF train carrying automobiles east of Rathdrum, Idaho.

Photo: Bruce E. Kelly

Advertising Index

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August 2019 // Railway Age 1

FROM THE EDITOR

AILWAY GE Subscriptions: 800-895-4389

... So Put on a Happy Face!

I

t’s the job of every CEO to put a happy face on earnings presentations regardless of what’s really happening. So says Contributing Editor Roy Blanchard, who’s been around for ... well, ask Roy. Here are a few of his observations worth noting: “We see EPS increasing nicely—only to find out that, absent massive share buybacks, earnings are flat. We see cash flow statements with share buybacks exceeding capital investment, long-term debt increasing by roughly the same amount as cash shelled out for buybacks, and revenues going up on flat volumes.

What’s wrong with this picture?

“As I see it, the positive projections for increased volumes in 2H2019 are not supported by those who are paid to know about the real economic directions of various commodities.

“For example, Union Pacific sees ‘further growth in crude oil and petroleum products, plastics, construction materials and light truck moves.’ But Paul Hodges of the pH Report says, ‘The U.S. is expanding its production of polyethylene, the largest single polymer by 40%, due to shale gas developments. And the idea was it would mostly go to China, because the U.S. market for polyethylene hasn’t grown in 15 or 20 years. What Trump is doing with trade restrictions is really damaging the chemical industry, and we are seeing the first signs of it, because the growth of the

chemical industry over the past 25 years or so has been due to globalization. Now, that’s being cut off at the knees.’

“Norfolk Southern sees ‘a 3% increase in light vehicle production.’ But Daniel Ruiz, auto expert and founder of Blinders Off Research, says, ‘Total global vehicle sales are down about 6.4%. It’s starting to have ripple effects on not just the automakers, but the suppliers. Interest rates have been low for so long that auto prices have inflated to levels that can’t be supported.

There has been some improvement in day supply when you look at it on an overall market basis for the U.S. But it’s important to note that the improvement has come on North American production cuts, not on an increase in demand or sales.’

“In short, it pays to listen between the lines to what’s not said as well as to the official utterances. One must ask what they’re hiding. We know fuel consumption was down 3% on flat GTMs (gross tonmiles), and that GTMs/gallon increased 3.5% while gallons/thousand GTMs were unchanged. That should have been a talking point. Why wasn’t it? All I’m saying is that there is less to the 2H2019 outlook than the railroads are letting on.”

But wait, Roy! Railroads are increasing shareholder value! So, let’s just keep doing The Hokey-Pokey ’till we turn ourselves around. That’s what it’s all about!

WILLIAM C. VANTUONO Editor-in-Chief

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CROSSINGS

Industry Indicators “Sectors Responsible for the Rail Traffic Base are Doing Poorly” “At any point in time, some sectors of the economy are invariably doing better or worse than others,” the AAR noted. “Unfortunately, right now it appears that sectors responsible for much of the rail traffic base are the ones doing poorly. For example, the non-manufacturing index (NMI) from the Institute for Supply Management (ISM), which covers services, was 55.1 in June 2019. That’s well above 50, which is the ‘contraction/ expansion’ threshold. Meanwhile, the ISM’s Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), which covers manufacturing, was just 51.7 in June, its lowest level since October 2016 and not much above the 50 threshold. Manufacturing output rose in May, but is still well below the end of last year.”

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, JUNE 2019 (% change from JUNE 2018)

TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

FOUR WEEKS ENDING june 29, 2019

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity

JUNE ’19

JUNE ’18

% CHANGE

59,363 (-1%)

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

87,387 2,944 35,209 23,254 130,015 53,095 306,617 4,342 13,466 20,944 25,933 16,074 35,561 14,712 67,732 98,351 16,088 32,491 14,787 24,392

94,102 3,181 39,720 23,136 129,402 44,973 336,761 4,585 14,543 23,212 26,506 16,919 39,983 15,988 68,674 109,115 15,314 33,308 15,417 25,728

-7.1% -7.5% -11.4% 0.5% 0.5% 18.1% -9.0% -5.3% -7.4% -9.8% -2.2% -5.0% -11.1% -8.0% -1.4% -9.9% 5.1% -2.5% -4.1% -5.2%

Executives, Officials, and Staff Assistants

Total U.S. CarLoadS

1,023,394

1,080,567

-5.3%

342,948

335,859

2.1%

1,366,342

1,416,426

-3.5%

Total employees: 141,360 % change from JUNE 2018: –1%

Transportation (train and engine)

7,756 (-1%)

CANADIAN RAILROADS

Professional and Administrative

total CANADIAN carloads

11,453 (+1%)

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Maintenance-of-Way and Structures

31,864 (-1%)

Maintenance of Equipment and Stores

25,367 (-1%)

Transportation (other than train & engine)

5,557 (-1%)

Source: Surface Transportation Board

THE ONE-PERCENT SOLUTION? Identical to May 2019, Figures released by the STB show Class I total railroad employment dropped an almost negligible 1% in June 2019, measured against June 2018. For the second month in a row, five of six employement categories experienced virtually the same percentage drop, 1%, when rounding is taken into account. In the short term, it most likely indicates headcount reductions attributable to Precision Scheduled Railroading. Longer term, it’s difficult to predict where employment is headed, especially when traffic is down (but we said that last month).

4 Railway Age // August 2019

Intermodal

FOUR WEEKS ENDING june 29, 2019

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity

JUNE ’18

% CHANGE

105,376

1,075,974

1,054,600 1,159,976

-20.1% -6.0% -7.2%

2 281,209 281,211

0 277,969 277,969

1.2% 1.2%

Trailers Containers

84,156 1,273,029

105,376 1,332,569

-20.1% -4.5%

TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

1,357,185

1,437,945

-5.6%

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

JUNE ’19 84,154 991,820

CANADIAN RAILROADS Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Source: Rail Time Indicators, Association of American Railroads

railwayage.com

TOTAL U.S./Canadian CARLOADS, june 2019 VS. june 2018

1,366,342 june 2019

AILWAY GE

1,416,426 june 2018

Short Line And Regional Traffic Index CARLOADS

by Commodity

ORIGINATED JUNE ’19

ORIGINATED JUNE ’18

% CHANGE

49,730 21,260 29,838 10,399 27,401 7,062 9,069 2,517 16,601 11,119 2,856 2,263 16,402 12,860 42,981 9,243 79,700

43,969 22,996 29,565 9,811 23,588 6,330 9,262 2,652 18,094 10,190 1,963 1,994 17,260 13,212 44,043 9,801 95,936

13.1% -7.5% 0.9% 6.0% 16.2% 11.6% -2.1% -5.1% -8.3% 9.1% 45.5% 13.5% -5.0% -2.7% -2.4% -5.7% -16.9%

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

Copyright © 2019 All rights reserved.

average weekly U.S. Rail Carloads: all commodities (not seasonally adjusted)

ARE YOU A RAILROAD OR SUPPLIER SEARCHING FOR JOB CANDIDATES?

278,000 2018

270,000 262,000 254,000 246,000

2017

238,000 230,000

2019

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Data are average weekly originations for each month, are not seasonally adjusted, do not include intermodal, and do not include the U.S. operations of CN and CP. Source: AAR

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Visit http://bit.ly/railjobs To place a job posting, contact: Jeanine Acquart 212-620-7211 jacquart@sbpub.com

August 2019 // Railway Age 5 RA_JobBoard_1/3Vertical.indd 1

8/17/17 10:59 AM

Industry Outlook FreightCar America Leaving Roanoke

Virgin Trains Service Surpasses One Million Riders After about 18 months in service, Virgin Trains USA recently surpassed one million riders. With stops in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, the service, formerly Brightline, opened for business in January 2018 and initiated full service between all three stations in May 2018. In June, it eclipsed the one-million mark.

The one million rides “delivered a positive, sustainable environmental and economic impact to the communities where Virgin Trains USA currently operates.” The company noted that the rides roughly translated to: • 400,000 fewer car trips on the road (average party size of 2.5 passengers).

• The reduction of 15 million pounds of CO2 emissions.

• 750,000 fewer fuel gallons used on the highways, representing roughly $2 million in savings.

• Cumulative time savings of 76 years (each passenger saved an average of 40 minutes by choosing rail over highway).

“This milestone shows the demand for new ways to travel and the need for greater connectivity in South Florida and other areas of the country,” said Virgin Trains USA President Patrick Goddard. “While we’re still in the adoption phase, our 6 Railway Age // August 2019

inaugural year showed great promise and tremendous opportunity to reinvent passenger rail in America.”

Virgin Trains USA has been looking at a number of other corridors where the company claims it could establish similar services. These corridors include the Texas Triangle of Houston, San Antonio and Dallas, with Austin (and, presumably, Fort Worth) between Dallas and San Antonio; a route between Charlotte and Atlanta; and a portion of the current route of Amtrak’s Crescent between New York and New Orleans, over which there has not been a second daily frequency since the mid-1970s. The company’s list also sports a number of state-supported corridors over which Amtrak operates trains: Chicago-St. Louis, Los Angeles-San Diego, and Portland-Seattle-Vancouver.

Last but not least, it includes Amtrak’s Boston-New York-Washington, D.C. Northeast Corridor (NEC).

Virgin Rail USA has not formally mentioned how it could acquire right-ofway along any of these routes to operate corridor-level schedules (especially enough to compete with Amtrak’s NEC) on any of these prospective routes.

Beginning Sept. 20, FreightCar America will shut down its railcar plant in Roanoke, Va., the former Norfolk Southern East End Shops (ex-Norfolk & Western), moving production to its Cherokee, Ala., facility. The shutdown will affect approximately 200 workers, such as welders, fitters and maintenance. By Nov. 11, 14 years of production at the East End Shops on Campbell Avenue will cease for good.

FreightCar America cited a drop in orders as one factor prompting the closure. According to a regulatory filing, the company delivered 4,214 railcars in 2018, a drop of nearly 5% from 2017.

FreightCar America said it had notified Local 6016 of the Brotherhood of Railway Carmen, which represents some affected employees. Local Chairman Donnie Davis told The Roanoke Times that FreightCar pays its Roanoke workers an average hourly wage of $20 to $21.

He added that he expected severance packages to be negotiated for those who stay until the end.

The closure of the Roanoke plant will leave FreightCar America with only the Alabama manufacturing site, a state-of-the-art facility with a linear production line a company regulatory filing said is five and a half times as large as Roanoke. The Roanoke plant received more work when FreightCar closed its Johnstown, Pa., facility in 2007. The East End shops had been vacant since 2000 when FreightCar leased the location in 2005.

Employment reached as high as 450.

FreightCar said it could save $5 million a year by shifting the work to Alabama, where the company has invested for growth.

FreightCar lost $14.2 million on revenue of $70.7 million during the first three months of 2019. As of late July, its stock was trading near its 52-week low of $5.21 per share. railwayage.com

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WE INVITE YOU TO LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR INNOVATIVE NEW PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AT RAILWAY INTERCHANGE 2019.

SEPTEMBER 22-25, MINNEAPOLIS, MN

Market High-Capacity NSC Hoppers Get Miner Gates, Hatch Covers Miner Enterprises is supplying AutoLOK™ II outlet gates and DuraShield hatch covers for 3,800 new high-capacity grain hopper cars ordered by Canadian Pacific (CP) and CN. National Steel Car is building the cars—2,800 for CP and 1,000 for CN. AutoLOK™ II outlet gates were chosen for the new cars due to their reputation for “fast unloading and simple operation.” The DuraShield hatch covers feature “a composite construction that is lighter and more durable than other designs, while far exceeding standards for seal performance.”

WORLDWIDE Italy’s Interministerial Committee for Economic Programme (CIPE) approved 28 billion euros in additional funding for infrastructure investment by Italian State Railways (FS) on July 24. FS said the announcement gives the green light to update the program contracts between the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport and FS’s two infrastructure subsidiaries: national infrastructure manager Italian Rail Network (RFI) and highways organization ANAS. As a result, RFI’s 2018-2019 update of its 2017-2021 investment program has

been approved with an additional 15.4 billion euros for rail investment, while ANAS has been allocated an additional 12.5 billion euros.

Biarri Rail and Tasmanian Railway Pty Limited (TasRail) have completed the Boss rail planning software system at TasRail’s headquarters in Tasmania, Australia. TasRail chose Biarri Rail and Boss following a competitive bid in 2017. The two organizations have worked over the past 18 months to extend Boss to fulfill TasRail’s master planning requirements.

Boss—Biarri Rail’s cloud-based locomotive master planning software—is “an algorithmic service planning system, using optimization for service and train design, locomotive selection, rolling stock utilization, crew scheduling and rostering, and train path planning.”

NORTH AMERICA ExxonMobil and SABIC have selected Savage to design, build and operate a rail facility that will serve their recently announced joint venture, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures (GCGV), to be 8 Railway Age // August 2019

constructed in San Patricio County, Tex. The rail facility, with an expected completion date of 2021 in anticipation of GCGV’s planned startup by 2022, will be located adjacent to the GCGV facility and will handle railcars transporting polyethylene. Savage, a global partner for transportation, logistics, materials handling and other industrial services across customers’ supply chains, will provide multiple services at the site, such as railcar switching, indexing, washing, loading and repairs; and facility maintenance.

The U.S. DOT Volpe National Transportation Systems Center recommendations for the 2019 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) solicitation includes VisioStack’s proposal Aerial Crossing Inspection System (AXIS), described as “an innovative highway-rail grade crossing inspection system using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and machine learning to perform inspections with unprecedented efficiency. AXIS is an end-to-end solution that will flag and report high-risk profiles for repair to improve the safety of trains, pedestrians and traffic at its location.” railwayage.com

Update

NJT at 40

People, politics and progress

J

William C. Vantuono

uly 17, 1979 was a momentous day in the annals of U.S. transit history.

The New Jersey legislature passed, and Gov. Brendan T. Byrne (19242018) signed, the bill that became the Transportation Act of 1979. The legislation established New Jersey Transit (NJT), and in so doing, began the process of consolidating the state’s bus service under a single statewide umbrella. That step was considered radical in its day, but it set a model for bringing public transportation into the public sector, at a time when railroads and bus companies in the private sector were working hard to get rid of it.

Commuter rail in New Jersey went into steep decline when the private freight railroads that provided service—Penn Central, Central Railroad of New Jersey, ErieLackawanna—one by one fell into bankruptcy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Conrail (Consolidated Rail Corp.), created by the federal government to prevent a total collapse of the Northeastern rail network in 1976, took over, inheriting a system that, despite financial support from the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), was in a state of severe disrepair. Service was, in a word, terrible. It was so unreliable that riders railwayage.com

rarely knew if their scheduled train would actually show up. There was a chronic equipment shortage. The Commuter Operating Agency at NJDOT worked in concert with Conrail managers who could do little to improve service, even if they cared about riders. There wasn’t enough funding to run the service properly, let alone capital for infrastructure improvements and new equipment.

Bus services were no better off. In the greater Newark area, an acute problem was that Public Service Electric & Gas Co. (PSE&G) wanted to get out of operating its vast, financially draining bus network as well as the Newark City Subway (now part of NJT’s Newark Light Rail), the sole surviving streetcar line from the old Public Service network. Like many public utilities in the past, PSE&G once had a streetcar arm, Public Service Coordinated Transport. As happened in many places, the streetcar lines were torn up and replaced with bus lines. PSE&G changed the name of its bus company to Transport of New Jersey in 1971, with the intent of getting out of the transit business by the end of the decade.

The situation in 1979 at NJT included some reform-minded people who wanted

better transit and fought hard to get it. Sen. Francis X. Herbert (1931-2018), a Democrat who represented Bergen County at the time, sponsored the original bill. In his later years, Herbert often told the story about how he fought relentlessly for transit reform, especially since Public Service wanted to abandon its bus business. He spoke of the strong support he received from Gov. Byrne and the fierce opposition he got, especially from other privately owned bus companies. When the dust settled, the bill passed by a single vote.

The late Louis J. Gambaccini (1931-2018), the NJDOT Commissioner at the time, got

the situation in 1979 included reformminded legislators.”

August 2019 // Railway Age 9

NJT started as an agency and assembled a team of managers who later became industry leaders. Some of them are still active, including D.C. Agrawal, who issued the check to Public Service for $32.1 million to buy the assets of the bus company; Arthur S. Guzzetti, who today is Vice President for Policy at APTA; APTA staffers Rose Sheridan and Fran Hooper; Martin E. Robins, who was later director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University; and Stanley Rosenblum, currently President of SYSTRA Consulting.

There were planners and managers at NJT who came later and left their mark, too. They include James Greller, known for his expertise on rail transit, most notably the BMT in 10 Railway Age // August 2019

New York City; Alfred E. Fazio, who served as General Manager of Hudson-Bergen Light Rail and the River LINE light rail and is also a Contributing Editor to Railway Age; and Stan Feinsod, who is still going strong in San Francisco as a consultant. The “First Lady of American Transit,” Shirley DeLibero, served as Executive Director through the 1990s.

Jeffrey A. Warsh, a man of strong and underappreciated vision, succeeded her. Warsh had conceived about 35 transit projects, with help from James P. Redeker, who was recently Transportation Commissioner in Connecticut under Gov. Dannel Malloy.

Those plans were released in 2001, but none of the projects have yet been built.

The crisis that gave rise to NJ Transit also

gave birth to a local rider-advocacy movement. The Lackawanna Coalition was founded three months before NJ Transit, and the New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers (NJ-ARP) was founded the following year. Early New Jersey advocates Albert L. Papp and Jack May were on the scene then, and are still active. Former planner William R. Wright brought his own style of advocacy to NJT’s advisory committees for more than three decades. Jeffrey B. Marinoff advocated so strongly for better transit in South Jersey that much of the rail transit that runs in that region today probably would not exist without his efforts. One citizen-advocate, at least, was rewarded officially. As a lawyer, John McGoldrick fought to save the Princeton “Dinky” (a short branch line from Princeton Junction on the Northeast Corridor to downtown Princeton and the Princeton University campus) when it was threatened in 1975. He was later given a seat on the original NJT Board, which he held for 29 years.

In one respect, little has changed: NJT is still a political organization, born in the cutthroat world of New Jersey politics. It continues to live there, and there is no reasonable expectation at present that it can ever escape. When transit in New Jersey needed reform 40 years ago, publicspirited leaders like Herbert, Gambaccini and Byrne fought for it and ultimately brought it to the Garden State’s bus riders, despite the politics. Later, the same reform came to the state’s rail riders, too. Today, in the administration of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, who claims to be more-transit-friendly, NJT is working to restore credibility and service reliability and recover from the insufficient funding it suffered under Murphy’s predecessor, Chris Christie.

Some rider advocates claim that the state’s elected officials have let their constituents down, but there is always hope that, in the rough-and-tumble world of New Jersey politics, NJT might someday again become the industry leader that it was in its early days.

Forty years ago, those officials who cared about transit established a new agency that stabilized and integrated the state’s transit and improved mobility for its residents and visitors. If that had not happened, transit in the Garden State most likely would never have realized any improvements. That, in itself, is something to celebrate, even if in a subdued manner.

—David Peter Alan, Contributing Editor railwayage.com

NJ Transit

Update

Update NRE Reopens Kentucky Facility

the Paducah plant,” said Steven Beal, President, NRE. “The Paducah plant and its employees have a nearly 100-year history of providing quality locomotive products and services.

Our goal since we shuttered it two years ago has always been to bring it back online and to

get our employees back to work.”

“The reopening of the Paducah facility is merely the beginning,” Beal said. “Paducah will be a key component of the future of our company, and we look forward to growing together.”

NRE

Citing a rebounding rail industry and an increase in work orders, locomotive manufacturer NRE recently announced that it has reopened its 450,000-square-foot Paducah, Ky., plant.

On the heels of the two-year closure, employees have begun making light repairs and inspections of locomotives, as well as other service offerings, NRE said, and the company is looking to fill available positions as plant operations increase.

When at full strength, NRE Paducah provides the following services: • New locomotive builds.

• Remanufactured locomotives.

• Locomotive service.

• Field service.

• New parts and components.

• Remanufactured parts and components.

• Salvage.

“We are very excited to be able to reopen

railwayage.com

August 2019 // Railway Age 11

Update UP Intermodal Terminal Reservation System aligned with PSR

Union Pacific (UP) has updated its intermodal reservation system to “improve ease of use while also improving reservation utilization through technology and better processes” as the railroad continues its transition to PSR (Precision Scheduled Railroading).

UP’s new Intermodal Terminal Reservation System (ITRS) replaces its Gate Reservation System (GRS), allowing for better planning of drays and in-gates. ITRS has been designed with an enhanced user

interface and visible “choice-ology” for dayof-week capacity by service product, which UP says “provides a more precise supply chain process.”

Following are key ITRS points: • ITRS features “a refreshed, superior user interface with color-coded capacity by day of the week and mobile-friendly accessibility.”

• ITRS replaces GRS at six intermodal terminals on the West Coast: East Los Angeles, LATC, City of Industry, Lathrop, Brooklyn and TacSim. In the future, UP says it will roll out ITRS at additional domestic terminals to “deliver a consistent experience across the UP network.”

• Because ITRS “will more closely tie customer reservations to train capacity and terminal fluidity,” UP says it is implementing an accessorial fee for no-show and canceled reservation requests. A reservation canceled less than 24 hours prior to gate cutoff will be assessed a $25 fee. A reservation requested, not utilized and not

canceled will be assessed a $50 no-show fee, which applies to any reservations where the unit is not in-gated by gate cutoff time.

There is no accessorial fee for reservations canceled 24 hours or more prior to cutoff.

To ensure a “reciprocal system,” UP will apply a $100 credit for each individual unit that in-gates before cutoff and does not depart on its corresponding train.

Application of this credit will be calculated and applied by lane. Credits will be applied to fees accrued during the monthly billing period, and will not carry over to the following month to be paid out.

• Lane-specific reservations will be allowed up to seven days in advance of cutoff.

• Each customer with intermodal reservation system activity will receive a monthly statement outlining the activity and cumulative balance due.

• UP’s Master Intermodal Transportation Agreement (MITA) will be updated to reflect these fees and credits.

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Update OmniTRAX Acquiring Winchester & Western OmniTRAX’s deployment of Precision Scheduled Short Line Railroading—a unique strategy that uses point-to-point delivery methods to lower operating costs— will strengthen Winchester & Western’s performance, service, growth and safety.

“OmniTRAX has been growing at an average annual rate of 20%-plus for the past five years, and the acquisition of Winchester & Western, a strategic

distribution hub, is a deliberate step toward enhancing the continued growth and strength of our thriving network,” said Kevin Shuba, OmniTRAX CEO. “Our expansion into these dynamic markets with a diverse, established customer base and strong regional economic partners offers tremendous growth potential, and we have high expectations for economic impact and job production.”

Winchester & Western

A managed affiliate of OmniTRAX, Inc has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the 101-year-old Winchester & Western Railroad, which operates in Maryland, New Jersey, West Virginia and Virginia, from Covia Holdings Corp.

The $105 million transaction is expected to close during third-quarter 2019 and is subject to customary closing conditions, including Surface Transportation Board review.

“The acquisition expands the OmniTRAX-managed short line portfolio into key new distribution locations in multiple East Coast markets, providing OmniTRAX’s customers access to 100 million people within a day’s transit,” the company said. “By becoming part of the OmniTRAX family, Winchester & Western gains the support and leadership guidance that will allow it to implement improved operational strategies with the speed and agility that a logistics company can deliver.

railwayage.com

August 2019 // Railway Age 13

Update Greenbrier Completes ARI Acquisition

The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. (GBRX) has completed its acquisition of the manufacturing business of American Railcar Industries (ARI) from ITE Management LP (ITE).

The deal was completed “substantially consistent with the terms of the parties’ agreement reached in April,” which was valued at $400 million. The terms also say

that GBRX will gain two ARI railcar manufacturing facilities in Arkansas as well as manufacturing and administrative employees in St. Charles, Mo. It adds other operations in Jackson and Kennet, Mo., and Longview, Tex., that produce a range of railcar components and parts, and build hopper car outlets, tank car valves, axles, castings and railcar running boards, among other

1_2pgHorzWrkStTraining2019.qxp_Layout 1 7/17/19 10:00 AM Page 1

ancillary railcar products.

GBRX noted that the operations will be fully incorporated into its North American business model “both from a manufacturing and commercial perspective.” The company added that its U.S. workforce totals approximately 4,000 people, including nearly 1,600 U.S. workers joining from ARI. “Acquiring the manufacturing operations of ARI is a major milestone for Greenbrier,” said GBRX Chairman and CEO William A. Furman. “The transaction advances three of our strategic goals: strengthening our presence in the North American rail equipment market, growing at scale and developing a robust talent pipeline.”

“This is Greenbrier’s greatest expansion effort yet,” Furman noted. “We value the contributions of employees of both Greenbrier and ARI, our shared customers and other partners who have made this combination possible and who will help us continue to grow.”

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Watching Washington

Does STB Deserve Court Deference?

T

he Surface Transportation Board (STB) and other independent regulatory agencies operate as a fourth branch of government, exercising quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative powers.

Although the Constitution prohibits delegation of legislative powers, the Supreme Court in 1825 distinguished “important subjects” from “mere details,” ruling that regulatory agencies may “fill up the details.” In 1989, the Court added that “Congress simply cannot do its job absent an ability to delegate power.” Such delegation has created 242 volumes of federal regulations to supplement 41 volumes of U.S. statutes.

As for the STB, although its members are Senate-confirmed, rail regulators do not answer to the electorate, are insulated from Executive Branch recall and receive largely superficial congressional oversight.

Only once in 24 years (2015) has Congress revised, through reauthorization, the STB’s size, statutory powers and mission.

Also often overlooked is filling STB seats through White House nomination and Senate confirmation. Beginning in 2002, the STB functioned for 54 weeks with but a single member; and since 2015, two of its five seats have been vacant.

While the 1906 Hepburn Act and 1946 Administrative Procedure Act allow judicial review of STB rulemakings and decisions, two Supreme Court doctrines, taken from the names of underlying cases, instruct lower courts to afford agency actions what Cato Institute libertarian scholar William

only once in

24 YEARS has congress revised the stb’s size, statutory powers and mission.

railwayage.com

Yeatman calls “obsequious deference.”

The 1984 Chevron Doctrine instructs courts to grant “deference” to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutory language. This deference gives the STB relatively unchecked latitude in determining “public interest” and “rate reasonableness,” terms Congress only vaguely defined.

Federal Railroad Administration decisions are also afforded the same deference.

The 1997 Auer Doctrine instructs courts to grant “deference” to an agency’s interpretation of its own regulations, much as a baseball batter might call his own balls and strikes.

“Is that a recipe for stability and predictability in the law, or is that a recipe for the opposite?” asked Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. Chief Justice John Roberts said overturning such deference could be a consequential check on “the danger posed by the growing power of the administrative state.”

Although the Chevron and Auer doctrines instruct courts to defer to “expert” regulatory agencies, there is suspicion as to how expert the STB really is.

No nominee since 1954 has had a shipper background; none in modern history has had a background in railroad operations, marketing or rate-making; political connections assured confirmation of one lacking a high school diploma; and another’s resume said he trained the President’s dogs.

While nominees culled from the professional staffs of House and Senate rail oversight committees have knowledge on rail issues at a high level, their expertise arises from reading statutes and congressional testimony, and receiving lobbyist and stakeholder briefings.

And as rail regulators frequently serve but single terms that are staggered, there is constant churning of decision makers as complex issues evolve, inducing reliance on STB professional staff.

Notably, many senior staff were hired from railroads; or depart, along with some regulators, for railroad jobs, or as rail consultants or rail outside legal counsel—facts upsetting to shippers.

Yet how “expert” is the federal judiciary? Justice Stephen Breyer cites millions of regulations so complex that to repeal

there is suspicion as to just how expert the stb really is.” deference doctrines means “instead of paying attention to people who know,” judges would decide.

Still, conservative Heritage Foundation scholar Elizabeth Slattery says deference “turns on its head the Court’s foundational declaration in Marbury v. Madison (1803) that it is ‘emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.’” Defenders of deference say it encourages more innovative regulatory approaches.

Consider that had it not been for the Chevron Doctrine, the year-2000 STBimposed 15-month merger moratorium that derailed the proposed BNSF-CN merger may have fared differently on appeal, as the moratorium lacked explicit statutory authority. In fact, the statute arguably encouraged rail mergers.

While a threat to the delegation of powers doctrine is remote, unfriendly visits

by Congress or the Supreme Court to the Chevron and Auer deference doctrines appear probable in 2020. It’s an issue with broad, consequential and enduring potential impact on rail regulatory outcomes, and surely worth studying and digesting so as to be prepared to influence the debate.

FRANK N. WILNER Contributing Editor August 2019 // Railway Age 15

Financial Edge

Clickbait Journalism at The New York Times

W

ith a 100-plus-degree F temperature and/ or heat index blanket covering half the U.S., the summer doldrums are fully upon us. The time of year lines up with the anniversary of one of the most horrible rail tragedies in recent memory—the Lac-Mégantic derailment in July 2013.

The 47 deaths that occurred as a result of that accident are unrecoverable losses for families and communities.

Their memory should always serve as a reminder of the importance of safety and the need for best practices throughout the railroad industry.

Since the 2013 disaster, the railroad industry has made great strides toward improving safety measures and railcar designs that, when followed, allow railroad operations at a high safety level. Car design strengthening (to the current DOT 117J and 117R standards), PTC and HHFT train speed guidelines all contribute to running a safer rail system. The reality is that until, a la Back to the Future III (don’t act like you’ve never seen it), there are trains that don’t need to be on the track to operate, there are going to be some sort of derailments.

The perception of progress on the rail safety front is not universally perceived.

The New York Times published an article on July 16, 2019 (“A Runaway Train Explosion Killed 47, but Deadly Cargo Still Rides the Rails,” https:// nyti.ms/2JZT4jo), following up on LacMégantic and the safety issues raised at the time of the accident. The main takeaways are that few changes have been made to railway safety, those changes which have been made are unproven and that the industry is not doing nearly enough to support a safer railroad.

Six years later, the article sadly exhumes and retreads the memories of those lost and the pain of those who suffered trauma in order to generate readership (the term d’art for that is “clickbait”). That is an editorial issue.

For North American rail, however, that is not the point. The Lac-Mégantic disaster was a conf luence of events that 16 Railway Age // August 2019

generated a horrible result: An insufficient number of hand brakes applied on the freight cars on a steep track grade, a fire in the lead locomotive and the postfire shutting down of the lead locomotive, killing power to the airbrakes. That series of events resulted in devastating destruction in a populated area.

Avoidable death is a tragedy no one should have to bear. Nonetheless, serious accidents such as Lac-Mégantic (2013), Amtrak’s accident in DuPont, Wash.

(2017), or the Metro-North accidents in Valhalla (2015) and Sputyen Duyvil, N.Y. (2013) should not stigmatize a system. No one has called for passenger rail right-of-way to move out of town centers. They call for better training, safety and technology.

Quebec has allocated $100 million to move the rail line north of the city.

It is a four-year project. This goodwill to a community devastated by tragedy makes complete sense. Additionally, the moving of the rail spur makes the point crystal clear. Rail is needed for communities, commerce and survival. It would be wonderful for every community to receive $100 million to install a work-around and move rail traffic out of the centers of towns. Citizens and railroad executives would support the change. Communities were built around railroad hubs in the U.S. before automobiles and superhighways. It would be great in hindsight to say “wouldn’t it be nice if…”

However, railroad track does not spontaneously appear, and looking at the efforts to prevent pipeline expansion (the most viable alternative for moving crude other than by rail) suggests that NIMBY opposition could easily prevent dedicated freight rail corridors outside of urban or suburban centers (that could be operated at higher speeds), even if the economics could work.

The focus of safety and prevention needs to be training and technology. The Times article falls into a common trap: Under the veil of emotional distress, it misdirects the focus onto policy and statistics. It cites an increasing number of runaway trains without hearing from

NORTH AMERICAN RAIL DESERVES FAR MORE RESPECT for safety efforts.” the CN or Canadian Pacific about their focus on decreasing those incidents. It focuses on the number of crewmen in a locomotive without noting the FRA’s May 2019 announcement: “Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) determined that there is no safety rationale for a rule requiring two persons in the cab of every locomotive and any laws regarding crew size are pre-empted.” (https://www.aar. org/news/aar-fra-affirms-railroads-ability-to-modernize-rail-operations-whileimproving-safety/).

Worse still, it highlights deregulation as a possible cause for the tragedy, completely ignoring a long-standing postderegulation history of improving safety on the rails.

Tragedy happens everywhere—on the roads, on the water, in the air. LacMégantic was a terrible event. The proper lesson to learn is that applying technology and providing training is a pathway to improved safety. Media stories that report positive change don’t sell, but North American rail deserves far more respect than that.

DAVID NAHASS President Railroad Financial Corp. railwayage.com

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Winter Preparedness

Slowing the

Snowball Effect In sub-zero conditions, equipment and infrastructure demand equal attention.

By Bruce E. Kelly, Contributing Editor

18 Railway Age // August 2019

railwayage.com

Winter Preparedness

R

All photos by Bruce Kelly except where noted

ailways are vulnerable to weather conditions that can slow or cripple operations, and therefore the f low of commerce, across large portions of any nation or continent. In North America, the winter of 2018-19 proved that innovation is needed in critical areas of train operation and track functionality to counter the effects of sub-zero temperatures, which only worsens when joined by high levels of liquid or frozen precipitation.

railwayage.com

Areas of Greatest Impact There are few places in railroading where snowfall is heavier and the methods for removing it are more aggressive than California’s Donner Pass. Union Pacific (UP) faced increasingly wet, heavy snow on Donner during late February and early March, its flangers and spreaders derailing several times during their effort to clear the double-tracked main line. When the big muscle of UP’s snowfighting fleet—rotary snowplows—got sent into the mountains, one of them suffered a bearing failure on its rotary blade shaft.

Further north, outside Oakridge, Ore., Amtrak’s southbound Coast Starlight became the focal point of national news broadcasts after it got stranded in the wake of a severe winter storm on Feb. 24. Host railroad UP said it “received unprecedented snowfall resulting in hundreds of trees falling onto our tracks.” By the time UP reopened its route through western Oregon on Feb. 26, the Coast Starlight and its 180 passengers were already backtracking northward to find other means to complete their travel to California.

For BNSF, winter began with waveinduced washouts in December on its route along the British Columbia shoreline north of the U.S.-Canada border. However, mudslides along Washington’s Puget Sound had less impact than previous winters.

BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas says, “We saw a more-than 70% decrease in mudslide blocking events. Enhanced tech with catchment walls, slope contouring and stabilization from Mukilteo to Everett has been successful.” During January and February, BNSF dealt with the aftermath of record snowfall in the Seattle/Tacoma area, as well as avalanche conditions in the Cascades and August 2019 // Railway Age 19

Winter Preparedness the switches are supposed to make contact.

Switch heaters come in a variety of forms.

Calrod tubular heaters use electricity to generate radiant heat at switch points. Hot air blowers, which use a combination of gas and electricity, clear other switches in other parts of Metra’s system.”

According to Metra, those conventional, manufacturer-supplied switch heating systems “are ideal for heating switch points,” but they could not be used at A-2 “due to the density of the switches there.”

A-2’s gas-fed flame system was “customized explicitly for that interlocking.” Metra did note that “a few ties must be replaced every year due to heat damage,” but insisted “there is far more control over the flames, making them not only safe, but effective.”

Rocky Mountains, plus deep drifting snow in the north central plains.

But it was the extreme cold that hampered North American rail operations more than anything else. In a Jan. 30 service advisory, BNSF said, “All-time records have been broken in many locations, including Chicago, with air temperatures nearly 30 below zero and wind chills around 50 below zero. The harsh conditions have resulted in multiple trains stopped due to broken rails as well as air flow issues involving trains’ braking systems despite the implementation of [train] length restrictions and distributed locomotive power.”

Fighting Ice with Fire Amtrak faced cancellations and delays due to heavy snow or freezing rain from the Midwest to the Atlantic Coast, as well as highly publicized hold-ups in Oregon 20 Railway Age // August 2019

and northern California. Among the many factors contributing to lost time for Amtrak’s Empire Builder were switch heaters that reportedly failed to perform as intended, forcing crews to clean out switch points and hand line for their route.

The passenger operation whose winter problems generated the most alarming images on the evening news was Chicago’s Metra. In late January, the sight of tracks at Metra’s A-2 interlocking engulfed in flames, with commuter trains rolling right through, was described—rather disingenuously—by CNN as “a medieval solution to a modern problem.” Metra officials responded to CNN’s misinterpretation with a statement issued Jan. 29 by explaining, “Despite popular belief, the tracks themselves are not on fire. Instead, the flames come from a gas-fed system that runs adjacent to the rail, generating heat on the critical areas where

Enhanced Focus on Operations, Brake Systems The two North American rail carriers with the most wide-spread exposure to winter arctic air are CN and Canadian Pacific.

Both railroads issued operating plans heading into the winter of 2018-19 outlining their challenges.

Due to the increased potential for rails to break in extreme sub-freezing temperatures, CP said, “A train’s maximum speed must be reduced by at least 10 mph when temperatures drop below negative 25 degrees Celsius [negative 13 Fahrenheit], and by at least 20 mph when temperatures drop below negative 35 C [negative 31 F].”

CN describes minus 25 C as a “tipping point,” and says, “Below that temperature, railway technologies—steel rail, steel wheels and long compressed air brake systems—become more vulnerable to problems that can disrupt normal operations.”

At both Canadian railroads and some U.S. counterparts, train make-up gets modified during winter, with train lengths reduced and DP (distributed power) locomotives added in a combined effort to compensate for loss of air pressure across the braking system. CN also deploys a countermeasure that was once common on BNSF predecessor Burlington Northern: air repeater cars. CN said these customized boxcars equipped with air compressors “supplement the air supply to the train air brake system, in a similar manner to locomotives under distributed power.” Twenty air repeater cars were in service during the railwayage.com

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winter of 2017-18. CN said it was tripling the number for 2018-19.

A significant weakness in a train’s brake system during winter is where gladhand connectors link the air brake lines between each car and locomotive. Rubber gaskets that are intended to seal the airflow between gladhands can shrink and become brittle in sub-freezing temperatures, resulting in leakage that slows both the application and release of brakes throughout the train.

According to preliminary findings by the Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB), brake system leakage may have contributed to the runaway and derailment of a CP grain train east of Field, B.C., on Feb. 4, 2019. Three crew members were killed soon after they boarded the train at Partridge, on the west slope of the Continental Divide. The train unexpectedly lost brake pressure and began rolling. The three locomotives (one each at the front, middle and rear) were unable to provide sufficient dynamic braking on the 2.2% descending grade. The previous crew who had brought the train to Partridge reported inadequate braking during their trip and made an emergency application to bring it to a stop.

It’s believed that the train’s air bled off while 22 Railway Age // August 2019

standing in sub-freezing temperatures at Partridge, with no hand brakes applied to hold it safely in place.

Two days after the Field runaway, CP issued revised instructions on mountain grade train handling that, among other things, emphasized the use of hand brakes to secure trains while they recharge their air following one or more emergency brake applications. Canada’s TSB, meanwhile, performed testing on the 13 remaining cars, which did not derail in the incident, and determined that, “The air brake system on these cars would not provide adequate braking effectiveness to ensure the safe operation of a loaded unit grain train in a situation where the air brakes are required to remain applied for an extended duration, such as while descending a steep grade.”

In late 2018, CP said it had collaborated with grain shippers and the Canadian Rail Research Laboratory on a study which, according to CP, “suggested winter operating performance could be improved with new gasket materials for air brake components, and procedures to ensure air hose coupling components are equipped with new gaskets when cars are repaired.”

CN says gladhand gaskets on its railroad

are changed “systematically as part of normal car inspections to increase effectiveness.” Companies on the manufacturing and supply side of the rail industry should take special note of CN’s announcement that, “We are doing further research to identify and implement additional options and new materials that can increase the efficiency of gaskets in cold temperatures.”

Wabtec/GE Transportation is taking steps to improve winter performance of air brake systems. Amy Magee, Senior Global Communications Leader, tells Railway Age, “As part of our continuous improvement efforts we have implemented design changes to our ABDX control valve product line. Specifically, we have redesigned our main piston diaphragms. We also changed the material of our emergency portion slide valve and the service portion graduating valve. These changes improve cold weather performance, offer greater resistance to severe vibration, and provide longer service life. We have also implemented a new packing cup material for our brake cylinder product line. This new material will provide longer service life and will also improve cold weather performance.”

Wabtec is also working on a potential railwayage.com

MY

CY

CMY

K

solution for securing long, heavy trains in inclement weather. Magee says, “We are currently developing an automatic parking brake. This device will not replace the conventional handbrake, but could serve as a secondary securement device. It would automatically engage to retain braking force by mechanically preventing the brake cylinder hollow rod from retracting in the event the brake cylinder pressure leaks off. The device engages when brake pipe pressure drops below a certain point. Otherwise, the device remains disengaged, allowing normal operation of the brake cylinder. These innovations will help improve customer safety, productivity and efficiency.”

TECHNOLOGY to Ease Winter’s Grip Rails Company offers a complete line of snow removal equipment, including five types of switch heaters, snow detectors and automatic control systems, including a new wireless control and monitoring system and accessories. There is a Rails Switch Heater for every snow removal requirement, all available for dispatcher control or automatic operation.

One of the company’s staples, the Rails Co. 5 hp HAB (Hot Air Blower) Switch Heater, has been upgraded with a more powerful 5 hp high-pressure blower to distribute high-velocity, high-volume hot air throughout the switch area via ducts and nozzles, keeping the switch open and operative in severe winter weather. The

unit delivers 3,600 CFM of hot air to the switch area, which is more than double the volume of previous models. It is equipped with a user-adjustable High/Low BTU output which minimizes fuel usage, and a variable, timer-based Hi/Lo flame control is also provided that is adjustable to each application.

Another company staple, Rails Tubular Electric Switch Heaters are designed and built for efficiency, reliability and low cost operation. They have no moving parts and conform to AAR specifications. They perform consistently regardless of whether switches and rails are covered in heavy, wet snow, ice or light, fluffy flakes. Standard heaters, for switches up to 45 feet long, are rated from 100 to 500 watts per foot, in voltages to 600 watts, AC or DC. Optional wattages, voltages and split-length heaters are available.

Units can be operated automatically, by a dispatcher or manually. Both 5 hp HAB Switch Heaters systems and Tubular Electric switch Heater systems can be combined with Rails’ Wireless 900MHz Radio Control System and a secure VPN router to provide wireless control and monitoring of the heaters. Wireless controls eliminate control wires buried in the ground in new or existing installations. Switch heaters may be started or stopped and running status monitored from a local bungalow or control room or remotely via the World Wide Web. The secure network can be connected and accessed with a personal computer, cellular

Thermon Heating Systems offers snow-clearing systems for hot bearing and hot wheel scanners, wheel profile systems and dragging equipment detectors.

24 Railway Age // August 2019

phone or tablet computer.

Thermon Heating Systems, well known for its electric SwitchBlade element and gas-fired Hellfire winter switch heating systems, also offers snow-clearing systems for hot bearing and hot wheel scanners, wheel profile systems and dragging equipment detectors. With more of these detection systems installed, in combination with extreme winter weather, the company has seen an increased demand for these types of applications. Considering the wide array of winter weather conditions, there is no one solution that suits all. Therefore, based on local conditions, THS provides combinations of crib heaters, heated covers and air curtains to clear snow from around detectors to allow unobstructed operation and line of sight.

As the name suggests, crib heaters are installed between ties and beneath the heated item, such as dragging equipment detectors.

Heated covers are installed over detector heads to keep snow and cold out, and keep snow and ice from building up around and underneath the scanner head. A hole cut at the appropriate spot provides the required line of sight.

Air curtains are best suited for locations with high snowfall and extreme cold. Under these conditions, without any snow clearing means the snow and ice will eventually create a dome that blocks the line of sight.

Air curtain systems direct high-velocity air over the top of the scanner to keep snow from accumulating.

Since 1965, Spectrum, Inc. has been a leading manufacturer of railroad and electric heating solutions offering a complete line of track switch heaters, control cabinets and railcar thaw shed heating systems.

Spectrum announced a further expansion in production facility with the introduction of its new CNC Turret Punch, which the company said “will allow us to offer new innovations in our product designs and improved lead times.” Plant Manager Eric Schlote and Production Engineer Tony Risko are heading up the preparations required for the new machinery.

The foundation of Spectrum’s track heating system begins with the SureStart™ Control Cabinet, which supplies power to Flat-Jacket Snow Melters and Crib Heaters strategically placed at turnouts to keep them free of snow and ice. The unit can railwayage.com

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Winter Preparedness

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Winter Preparedness

support from one to 12 circuits, supplying power to multiple switch points. Utilizing only standardized commercial off the shelf parts (COTS) allows for quick and easy maintenance and prevention of down time. SureStart™ Control Cabinets come standard with the ability to be controlled manually, automatically via snow/temperature sensors or remotely via external customer control.

Spectrum is currently involved in and has also recently completed several new railroad projects with Eastern and Western Class I railroads. These projects include supplying switch heaters for several major classification and hump yards and main line switches throughout the country.

Magnum Series switch heaters from Railway Equipment Company include gas and electric powered hot air blowers, cold air blowers, plus fiberglass switch covers which not only help prevent accumulation but also trap and re-circulate heated air at switch points. Related accessories include snow accumulation detectors and RECo’s Rail-Net system, which monitors the condition of switch heaters, lubricators, and other wayside equipment and reports 26 Railway Age // August 2019

their status to the customer via a secure online portal.

During the frigid winter months, diesel locomotive engine coolant tanks and passenger car potable water systems are in danger of freezing, which can result in expensive damages, lengthy repairs and interrupted schedules. ThermOmegaTech, located near Philadelphia, designs and manufactures freeze protection valves for locomotives and passenger cars to prevent freeze-ups and keep trains running on-time all winter long.

The GURU® Plug, which the company describes as “the North American standard for freeze protection on diesel locomotives,” is installed at the lowest point in the coolant system. The thermostatic, self-actuating valve responds to engine coolant water temperature by using a thermal actuator.

The valve senses the water temperature and will automatically pop open and drain the water storage tank if the temperature gets close to freezing, before damage can occur.

Due to the nature of wax actuators, ThermOmegaTech recommends replacing your GURUs every 18-24 months to keep freeze protection operating at peak performance.

According to Dana Logue, Railroad Product Manager, “As the GURU® Plug ages, it will eventually lose a small amount of stroke.

While this would never compromise your freeze protection, the upward creep could lead to nuisance dumping at temperatures above its standard ‘pop’ temperature.”

For an economic and efficient way to maintain GURUs, ThermOmegaTech offers a GURU® Rebuild Program. “The customer simply sends used GURU® Plugs to our factory where they are disassembled, their internals are scrapped and replaced, and the cartridge body and hex nut are cleaned,” Logue noted. “The valve is reassembled with a brand-new thermal actuator and interior components and tested to ensure full functionality before being returned to the customer. Refurbished GURU® Plugs that go through the rebuild program are restored to full operation at about half the cost of a brand new valve.

This presents a significant cost savings for locomotive operators who may have hundreds of GURUs installed. Orders with 50 GURUs or fewer will be processed upon receipt of the purchase order through our UTEX program, and are typically returned railwayage.com

Rails Company

Rails Company offers five types of switch heaters, snow detectors and automatic control systems, including a new wireless control and monitoring system and accessories.

Winter Preparedness

nVent

nVent’s portfolio includes solutions for heating switches, contact rail, overhead catenary wires, as well as heating control systems.

to the customer within one week. The quick turn-around means that companies can be winter-ready in as little as a week.”

For easy identification of which installed GURUs are eligible for the rebuild program, ThermOmegaTech implemented five color caps that rotate annually. “2019 is red and 2018 was white,” Logue said. “If a GURU® has a yellow, green or other color cap, it’s probably time to send it in for rebuild.”

Passenger car potable water systems also need to be protected from freezing temperatures when car heat is turned off for changing locomotives or during layovers.

ThermOmegaTech’s self-actuating GURU PC® valve monitors ambient temperatures and will automatically drain the water tank if the temperature drops close to freezing. The GURU PC® is also eligible for the GURU® Rebuild Program. nVent offers a comprehensive line of rail infrastructure heating solutions that improve railway safety and reliability in harsh winter conditions. With advanced heat trace cable technology from nVent RAYCHEM along with railway signal and electrical expertise from nVent ERICO, nVent “has become the go-to provider of railwayage.com

railway heating systems in North America,” the company said. “Our portfolio includes solutions for heating switches, contact rail, overhead catenary wires, as well as heating control systems. We offer a wide range of system configurations, including optional self-regulating or constant wattage heating cables, to meet the precise needs of each location. We also provide services that include full system design and ongoing field support. We are currently providing heating systems to multiple major metropolitan transit authorities in the Northeast Corridor engaged in projects to improve, rebuild and expand rail lines and yards.”

With infrastructure upgrades of new track, power and signal systems installation, nVent has designed and is now supplying heating systems that include more than 70,000 feet of contact rail heating cable, heating cable for approx. 150 switches totaling more than 6,000 feet, and approx. threedozen heating system control panels.

Hotstart expanded the marketability of locomotive pre-heating systems through its acquisition of U.K.-based IPU Group in May 2019. According to HOTSTART, the deal allows them “to offer a wider variety of

engine heater products and to directly serve more customers in the U.K.” Headquartered in Spokane, Wash., HOTSTART also has facilities in Houston and Chicago, as well as Germany and Japan.

“The Great Lakes region of the U.S. serves as a critical conduit for international commerce,” HOTSTART noted in a recent case study. “To transport materials overland, railroads must contend with conditions that can swing quickly from mild to extreme in a matter of hours.

To see just how our heaters are put to the test, we monitored a HOTSTARTequipped locomotive through the worst of a Great Lakes winter—November to April. Temperature swings were common throughout the season. March alone registered a high of 68 degrees F and a low of just 2 degrees F. November and December also had highs above 50 degrees F and lows below 10 degrees F. Despite these swings, average engine temperatures remained constant, above 120 degrees F until spring, when heater usage lowered.”

HOTSTART tested its APU5 DieselDriven System, Model No. APU5-110-110, August 2019 // Railway Age 27

Winter Preparedness

Power Drives, Inc.’s PowerHouse™ Idle Reduction Technology is available in two compact models: The APU and the 120. The APU incorporates a Tier 4-compliant, 9.5 hp Kubota® engine.

equipped with a three-cylinder inline fourcycle engine for heating engine coolant and lube oil. This unit features 72 V charging 3 kW cab heat.

“The APU’s fuel-sipping engine provided significant fuel savings, consuming a fraction of what the locomotive’s diesel engine would per hour,” HOTSTART noted. “Its

diesel-driven capability provided additional flexibility, allowing the locomotive’s engine to be shut off at any time, in any location, in any weather.”

At a calculated fuel cost of $1.80 per gallon, with a monitored heating period of 660 hours and APU gallons used of 0.45 gph/0.81 gph with heat boost (458 hours/222 hours with heat boost), HOTSTART’s numbers were as follows: Idle gallons/hour of 4.1 (low idle) and 5.2 (high idle); 638 APU gallons used at both low and high idle; idle cost/hour of $7.38 (low idle) and $9.36 (high idle); total saved gallons of 5,294 (low idle) and 6,886 (high idle); total saved cost of $9,529.20(low idle) and $12,394.80 (high idle).

Excessive idling in the winter months can be very costly due to high oil consumption. Power Drives, Inc.’s (PDI) PowerHouse™ Idle Reduction Technology is available in two compact models: The APU and the 120. The APU (Auxiliary Power Unit) incorporates a Tier 4-compliant, 9.5

SwitchBlade®- Electric Switch Heater

Power Drives, Inc.

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www.fastraxind.com • sales@fastraxind.com 28 Railway Age // August 2019

railwayage.com

Winter Preparedness hp Kubota® engine that drives an alternator, powering the pumps and tricklecharging the locomotive battery bank. It consumes, on average, 0.38 GPH (gallons per hour) of fuel once at temperature. The 120 operates from a 120/240 VAC external power source and consumes, on average, 0.35 GPH of fuel, once at temperature, with low electrical requirements. Both units feature the PowerHouse Heat Exchanger, rated at 136,000 BTUs/hour (40kW). It provides rapid coolant heating, maintaining coolant temperature of 100 degrees F, even in extreme cold.

The PowerHouse also offers remote monitoring capabilities, which allows users to monitor operating parameters in real-time remotely on smart devices or computers. Remote monitoring gives realtime alerts, keeping track of fuel savings, engine temperatures and other information, around the clock. “It’s basically set ’em and forget ’em,” says customer TNW Corp.

PDI adds that its water separation technology protects against frozen compressed air lines by eliminating water.

ZTR Control Systems says its SmartStart II-e Automatic Engine Start Stop (AESS) technology maintains locomotives in a ready-to-use state. “SmartStart® has been helping to reduce locomotive idling and delivering outstanding fuel savings, on a global scale, for more than 25 years, but it can also provide remote reporting of fuel and emissions reductions,” the company notes. “SmartStart® has a return on investment of less than 12 months, and it saves North American railways 1.5 million gallons of fuel every month.” Its benefits are “reduced fuel and lube oil consumption, reduced emissions and restart exhaust smoke, and consistent fuel management and verification of fuel savings. Documentation is available remotely or through a direct connection.”

SmartStart® can be used in conjunction with ZTR’s KickStart™ battery supplement system, which reduces battery drain and improves cold weather starts. KickStart™ uses supercapacitor technology to supplement the locomotive batteries during the engine start, reducing strain on the batteries. The benefits: “Less energy drain from the batteries, longer battery life, faster cranking speed, less time to recharge the batteries, improved cold weather starts, railwayage.com

and ultimately, increased locomotive availability. KickStart™ also features a diagnostic interface, “easy installation and zero maintenance.” Supercapacitors, ZTR says, “work with the locomotive’s regular batteries to deliver the power required and reduce damage, supplying the bulk of the power needed during the initial crank. This helps the locomotive batteries during the

locomotive engine starting phase by providing a surge of additional electrical current at the beginning of the cranking sequence.

ZTR’s NEXSYS III-I is a control system that “revitalizes higher-mileage locomotives.” ZTR says it improves dry rail adhesion by up to 44% and wet rail adhesion by up to 29%, based on testing performed at TTCI.

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800–605–9818 August 2019 // Railway Age 29

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Locomotives Wabtec AC44C6M rebuild/upgrade for Norfolk Southern.

AS GOOD AS In a soft market for new locomotives, rebuilding is the costeffective way to go. By ANDREW CORSELLI, MANAGING EDITOR

N

ewer isn’t always better— especially when it comes to locomotives. Modern, though, is a horse(power) of a different color.

Modernization is all the rage in the industry these days, and with good reason.

Refurbishing locomotives and the next step up, remanufacturing them with significant upgrades, can be a boon to any given railroad in myriad ways.

Rebuilding a locomotive—or even a locomotive f leet—can be an effective 32 Railway Age // August 2019

way for railroads to cut expenses and even improve reliability. Eschewing a new locomotive for a rebuilt one that contains more new components than used ones, can save railroads $1 million or more per unit, estimates Railroad Financial Corp.

President and Railway Age Financial Editor David Nahass.

“The cost differentials are significant because if you’re paying [about] $3 million for a new locomotive and you can rebuild something for [about] $1 million and you have higher reliability and better fuel

economy, it’s a no-brainer for the railroad,” Nahass said. “That’s why the trend has clearly been favoring rebuilding vs. new.”

Indeed, the market is favoring rebuilding at this point in time. And at least one industry vet thinks it’s a trend for the foreseeable future.

“The market with the Class I industry as well as industrial government and transit markets will be very strong for the next three- to five-year period,” said Knoxville Locomotive Works (KLW) President Jim Wurtz. “Our business is very strong right railwayage.com

Locomotives

New Wabtec

now. We anticipate this for the next two to three years for our products, which include repowering conventional locomotives other than building or repowering to Tier 4.” the cascade effect But as good as the climate has been for modernization of older road units, the market for new road units and major overhauls of switcher locomotives has been rather soft.

“The railroads have been shedding so many locomotives and cascading them down into switcher service that they’re available for sale at rock-bottom prices,” said Bill Fahrenwald, James Street Associates. “There’s just no way to compete with railwayage.com

that right now, even with a sustainable switcher locomotive. A railroad can buy a used switcher for low-requirement-type service relatively inexpensively. So it’s really difficult to compete with that.”

Nahass strongly concurs. “The Tier 4 units being produced by the OEMs just are really not what the industry wants to buy,” he said. “CN made a purchase; they’re sort of like the guinea pig, I guess, with the 250 they bought. But I think it will be a while before you see the really big horses step into ordering Tier 4 units. They really are going to have to see a consistent demand and need that they feel can’t be satisfied by their existing locomotive rebuilds or by the market at large.”

EPA Guidelines Despite a shiny market outlook, refurbishing is a bit tricky, thanks to EPA emissions standards guidelines, according to Nahass.

Those guidelines can quickly throw a wrench into a railroad’s modernization plans and knock them down a few pegs—or up a few Tiers.

“Refurbishing is a fairly complicated process,” he said. “If you have a unit that is in one Tier and you want to refurbish that unit and keep it in that Tier, you have to follow a fairly rigid set of guidelines that revolve around how much you spend as a percentage of the cost of replacement parts and making sure that you maintain less than 50% of the total cost of replacing that locomotive in kind, in order to maintain the same emissions Tier.

“If you don’t maintain that same emissions Tier, you have to go up to the modern standard, which is Tier 4. There are certain courses of action that can lead you to—if you’re Tier 1—ending up having to comply with something called a Tier 1+ standard.

So it’s fairly technical, and the railroads are very sophisticated and the parties remanufacturing are very sophisticated that they stay within those guidelines.”

Nahass added that Norfolk Southern (NS), for example, has been refurbishing many locomotives by transforming them from DC to AC traction but maintaining EPA compliance without requiring a move to Tier 4. “That’s why people are favoring rebuilding locomotives over building new,” he said. “You can rebuild older units, improve the technology and stay within a lower EPA Tier guidance, which maintains better fuel economy and generally makes a higher percentage level of availability.”

PSR a Plus One factor driving rebuilding is Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR). Class I’s like Canadian Pacific (CP) and CN embarked on their PSR journeys about a decade ago, according to Pascal Schweitzer, Group President of Freight Global Services, Wabtec.

The company has capitalized on this.

“PSR is making locomotive reliability and performance much more important,” he said. “Obviously the fleets are getting smaller. Railroads are focusing on capital efficiency. But that means that the locomotives that are operating are absolutely August 2019 // Railway Age 33

Locomotives

critical for the railroad, and we see a very high focus on locomotive reliability and overall economic performance. Throughout PSR implementation, we have intense dialogue with our customers around the expected performance of the locomotive fleet and what it can do. This fits well with our approach to our customers, to make sure that we work together to implement and optimize their strategy over the lifecycle of their locomotives.”

Why Modernize?

One reason for modernization’s popularity, Schweitzer assessed, is that railroads are getting more sophisticated with regard to their overall fleet maintenance. More investments in technology mean a longer lifecycle for the locomotive; a “mid-life refresh” can take a unit’s performance to a higher level.

“It’s a cost and reliability matter,” Nahass said. “If you’re a railroad, it’s simple math.

If a locomotive is available 75% of the time because it’s new and Tier 4, and it’s available 90% of the time when it’s Tier 2 and you’ve rebuilt it, there’s going to be a point where you need one or two more locomotives to keep the same level of operability. Then you’re talking about additional expenses.

The math is really easy. That’s really what it comes down to. It’s not the emissions compliance in the abstract; it’s really on a 34 Railway Age // August 2019

pragmatic basis. It’s a function-over-form decision that the railroads are making.”

International Market In a sure sign of the times, some OEMs have been building their overseas business. For example, based on its recent acquisition of GE Transportation, Wabtec completed delivery of five diesel-electric PowerHaul® series locomotives to Körfez Ulatirma, a subsidiary of Tüpra, Turkey’s largest refinery.

Körfez Ulatirma is the first private operator in Turkey to make such a purchase since the government began issuing licenses to use its main lines two years ago. The locomotives are expected to provide faster and more efficient transport of products between Tüpra refineries and related fuel terminals.

The locomotives were built by TÜLOMSA, Wabtec’s strategic regional business partner, at its plant in Eskisehir, Turkey. TÜLOMSA produces Wabtec’s PowerHaul locomotives for the European, Middle Eastern and North African markets. Under the partnership agreement, Wabtec provides leading technology and design, while TÜLOMSA provides local manufacturing, assembly and final testing.

“We have been working to increase the speed and productivity of our logistics as we expand our operations,” said Tufan Baarır, General Manager for Körfez Ulatirma.

“Now that we have five powerful new locomotives added to our fleet, we are able to move goods between Tüpra Refineries and the fuel terminals more efficiently and better meet our customers’ needs.”

“We have a long-standing partnership with Turkey that will continue beyond the delivery of these new locomotives,” said Gökhan Bayhan, Russia/CIS/Middle East and North Africa Regional GM for Wabtec.

“Wabtec will be providing service support and technical expertise to maximize performance throughout their lifecycle.”

Also, citing a rebounding industry and an increase in work orders, locomotive manufacturer NRE recently announced that it has reopened its 450,000-square-foot Paducah, Ky., plant. On the heels of the twoyear closure, employees have begun making light repairs and inspections of locomotives, as well as other service offerings, NRE said. The company is looking to fill available positions as plant operations increase.

“The Paducah plant and its employees have a nearly 100-year history of providing quality locomotive products and services,” said NRE President Steven Beal.

“Our goal has always been to bring it back online. Reopening of the Paducah facility is merely the beginning. Paducah will be a key component of our future, and we look forward to growing together.” railwayage.com

Wabtec

Wabtec PowerHaul® locomotive for Körfez Ulatirma, Turkey.

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Interchange INTERCHANGE Preview PREVIEW Innovation, technology and education take center stage in Minneapolis.

RAILWAY INTERCHANGE

I

t’s the Greatest Railroad Show in North America. Every two years, the railway industry gathers in one location for a precision-planned and –scheduled event where knowledge, ideas and innovative technologies are shared. That event is Railway Interchange, the largest railway exhibition and technical conference in the Western Hemisphere, attended by nearly 9,000 industry professionals from around the globe.

Railway Interchange 2019, to be held at the Minneapolis Convention Center next month (Sept. 21-25), in addition to a massive indoor exhibit floor full of suppliers from every railroading discipline, includes an impressive outdoor exhibition of the larger-than-life 36 Railway Age // August 2019

vehicles that power, maintain and transport goods in our vibrant industry. These interactive, hands-on exhibits underscore the event’s primary focus: Innovation in Rail Technology and Education.

This “truly massive event,” in the words of its organizers, showcases the latest technology, services and research by members of the Railway Supply Institute (RSI), the Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association (REMSA), and Railway Systems Suppliers, Inc. (RSSI). Railway Interchange also features technical presentations and discussions by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenanceof-Way Association (AREMA) and

2019

the Railway Supply Institute and its partner associations.

Why attend Railway Interchange 2019?

There are plenty of reasons. You’ll stay current with our industry’s rapid technological evolution. You’ll see how you can augment your professional development through the educational forums and technical sessions presented by AREMA, the Coordinated Mechanical Associations, the League of Railway Women and others.

You’ll have the opportunity to participate in special forums such as the AREMA Young Professionals Program and Meet the Next Generation Networking Event, among other events and opportunities tailored especially for rail industry professionals. railwayage.com

William C. Vantuono

By William C. Vantuono, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

INTERCHANGE PREVIEW Vernice Armour, a motivational speaker who served as America’s first African American female combat pilot, will give the keynote address at Railway Interchange 2019. “Leveraging her ‘Breakthrough Mentality’ and ‘Get Guts’ mindset, Vernice ‘FlyGirl’ Armour propelled herself from beat cop to combat pilot in a record-breaking three years,” the event organizers note.

“As featured on CNN, MSNBC, The View, FOX News, Oprah Winfrey and others, FlyGirl’s fresh, edgy style, high, contagious energy and unique, gutsy essence moves and inspires her audiences. Since 2007, she has inspired countless organizations and individuals to create breakthrough results.”

The AREMA Annual Conference, in conjunction with Railway Interchange 2019, “provides an opportunity for members of the railroad industry to increase their knowledge, technical expertise, network and provides a forum for exchanging ideas,” AREMA notes. “You’ll also learn about the latest innovations, technologies and keep your education up-to-date by refining your skills and uncovering new ways to grow your career and business. Professional Development Hours can be earned for participating in the Conference (subject to the individual state board’s final authority). Take advantage of this excellent opportunity to interact with your fellow railroad industry professionals and learn more about the railway industry.”

The AREMA 2019 Annual Conference will feature 80 technical presentations, three educational seminars, informative keynote speakers, committee meetings and the Annual Committee Chairs Luncheon, the Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence, a spouse/guest program, student activities, and the aforementioned Young Professionals and Meet the Next Generation Networking events.

The RSI Education & Technical Training Conference at Railway Interchange 2019 “serves to educate attendees on new technologies and trends in the rail industry and provide an opportunity for industry networking and collaboration. There are more than 50 educational sessions on railcar maintenance, rail operations, air brake technologies and trends, and a focus on leadership in the rail industry,” RSI notes. “Session content is provided by the Railway Supply Institute, the Air Brake Association, the International Association of Railway Operating Officers, railwayage.com

the League of Railway Women, the Locomotive Maintenance Officers Association and the Railcar Technical Services Association.

The mission of the Air Brake Association (ABA) is “to enlighten, educate and establish a dialogue to advance the safety and success of the rail industry. The ABA provides a forum that allows for the dissemination of knowledge that plays an integral part in the development of technology. The technical presentations provide the industry with a platform to not only discuss pertinent issues, but also offer innovative solutions.

The 2019 program includes papers discussing important industry initiatives such as air brake regulatory trends, expert testimonials on the latest air brake technologies and tips for reducing wheelset costs.”

Among the ABA sessions: • Regulatory Reform and 49 CFR Part 232-2019: This session will discuss the new notices of proposed Rulemaking of Executive Order 13777 issued on 2/24/17 with regard to EOT device waivers, single car air brake tests, 232 Appendix B updates, 24-hour off-air for Class 1 brake inspections, air flow method calculations, permitting 90 CFM air flow on DP trains, automated single car tests and extended haul notification. The speaker is Steve Zuiderveen, MP&E Senior Safety Specialist, Office of Railroad Safety, FRA. • Wheelset Savings Study – Using Conventional Powered Sustained Release Hand Brakes: This session will detail a comparison study of Group Q and Group N hand brakes equipped on 60 freight cars of two Class I railroads using AAR car repair billing data of wheel replacements illustrating monetary savings incurred when using statistical analysis concerning the time value of money. The speaker is Dan Davern, Amsted Rail.

• Underslung Air Hose Arrangements – The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: This presentation will focus on air hoses that are located under the couple, the problems they can cause if not properly adjusted, the basics of the underslung air hose arrangements, what a good system looks like and common problems that cause unwanted air hose separations and train delays. The speaker is Dave Cummins, CN. The International Association of Railway Operating Officers (IAROO) “provides its members with the latest

operating and technical information that drives superior railroad management now and in the future.” IAROO’s 2019 program includes railroad technology trends: opportunities and challenges; a PTC implementation update, transportation security and NTSB’s Most Wanted List.

Among the IAROO sessions: • CFR 243-Training, Qualifications and Oversight for Safety-Related Railroad Employees: An overview of regulatory components and anticipated involvement from participating railroads as to prepare for the implementation date. The speaker is Brandon Hanzlicek, Manager Transportation Training, BNSF. • Transforming Railroad Policy and Investment: Placing Railroads at the Center of North American Economic and Environmental Revitalization: The future of U.S. rail transportation depends on legislators, planners, business operators, financiers and citizens aligning on the value of railroads. The speaker is Michael Sussman, President of Strategic Rail Finance and Founder of OnTrackNorthAmerica. He has overseen the capitalization of freight rail projects in 44 states and Canada, and has conducted more than 1,000 educational meetings with local and congressional officials and staff. He will share his experiences carrying the flag of the railroads and their contribution to society, and discuss a multifaceted plan for progress.

• AAR Train Control, Communications and Operations Committee Research Update: This is AAR’s efforts related to advanced train control, including new methods of operation, autonomous train capability and autonomous vehicle interactions with crossings. The speaker is Michael R. Newcomb, AVP Transportation Systems Development, Union Pacific; and Chair, AAR Train Control, Communications and Operations Committee.

• LOCOTROL Remote Control Locomotives and Advanced Yard Technologies: Wabtec-GE Remote Control Locomotive (RCL) technologies have continued to expand capabilities from switching operations to use on the main line to enable reduced-crew operation. This session will cover existing and emerging RCL technologies and how they can help increase automation in yards and enable efficient train operations on the main line. The speaker August 2019 // Railway Age 37

is Adam Franco, Senior Digital Product Manager, Wabtec (GE Transportation).

• Innovation and Technology in the Railroad Industry: The Next 25 Years.

What are the likely challenges and technical opportunities for North American railroads between now and 2045? Are railroads changing and/or innovating fast enough to succeed and avoid disruptive change?

Michael Iden, Union Pacific (retired 2018) and a consultant to the railroad industry, will address this important topic.

• Obstructive Sleep Apnea – Implementing Countermeasures or Hoping for the Best: Railroad employees with undiagnosed and untreated Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) may compromise their own health and pose significant safety risks to themselves, co-workers, their company and the public. This presentation provides insights why and how Anacostia Rail Holdings (ARH) implemented a screening, testing and treatment program at its six railroads. The speaker is Thomas A. Leopold, CSP, Chief Safety and Compliance Officer, Anacostia Rail Holding, Inc. The Locomotive Maintenance Officers Association (LMOA) “represents railroaders and suppliers with a mission of driving improvements and recommendations for safer, more reliable rail operations.” Its mission includes reducing maintenance costs, improving locomotive productivity and reducing the environmental impact of locomotive operations and maintenance.

The 2019 conference will present topics of interest to locomotive maintenance professionals including locomotive emissions 38 Railway Age // August 2019

labeling and record keeping, best practices for locomotive storage, battery life and fuel usage, locomotive systems and maximizing the use of data analytics, and opportunities and trends in predictive maintenance.

Among the LMOA sessions: • Locomotive Storage Revisited: Recommendations from a previous LMOA paper will be revisited, including potential issues with new engine technology and lessons learned from units that were returned to service after storage. The speaker is Tom Kennedy, Kennedy Rail Consulting.

• Problem Solving Basics: There are various problems that impact locomotive performance, the most troublesome being those that keep coming back after you thought they were resolved. Problemsolving steps and tools will be reviewed to ensure root causes are properly determined and permanent corrective actions are put in place. The speaker is Tim Standish, Progress Rail.

• Emissions – Locomotive and Engine Labeling and Record Keeping: Labeling considerations will be reviewed to reduce confusion as to where labels are located and what information is included on them. The presentation will also go over thoughts on emission records to help maintenance departments with tracking along with sharing of this information with other roads. The speaker is Mark Duve, Norfolk Southern.

The Railcar Technical Services Association (RTSA) is “dedicated to the freight car maintenance professional. Our mission is to provide a value-added forum for sharing

railcar customer maintenance needs through new technology, practical experience and best practices with the purpose of improving profitability. RTSA provides its members with a solid knowledge and understanding of railcar maintenance. The 2019 conference will be one of our most exciting with a full agenda covering current issues critical to every railcar maintenance professional, presented by speakers who are on the leading edge of today’s technology and regulations.”

Among the RTSA sessions: • AAR M-1002 – Who Should Apply, and How: This session will provide valuable information to tank car owners, manufacturers, repair shops and component suppliers engaged in the design, fabrication, manufacture, repair and assembly of tank cars, tank car tank components, service equipment and closures. The track will focus on AAR’s Circular CPC-1338, with respect to new and revised definitions and facility certification. The discussion will also respond to questions that have arisen since issuance of the circular. The speaker is Matt Forister, TTCI. The League of Railway Women (LRW) “is committed to improving the rail industry by connecting and cultivating women in rail.

The mission is to advance the representation, recognition and opportunities for women, thereby promoting diversity and improving the business results of the railroad industry.

LRW’s educational sessions cover topics about leadership, industry knowledge, collaboration and improving business results.”

Among the LRW sessions: • Future of Technology in Rail: “Smart transit,” “smart rail” and “smart trains” have become common industry catch phrases. The disruption technology in the railway industry is placing demands on technology strategies and infrastructures to support today’s business requirements. Hear how technology has evolved and is disrupting the railroad industry. Experts will share how technology has impacted their past and current roles and how they foresee technology for rail in the future. Speakers are Lisa Matta, VP, Product Management, Wi-Tronix, LLC; Patti Lavoie, Operations Supervisor, Toronto Terminals Railway; Maria Waddy, Director of Sales Enablement, Icomera; and Kari Gonzales, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, TTCI. railwayage.com

William C. Vantuono

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People / 100 years / Events DOUG MORRISON HDR

High profile: Doug Morrison has joined HDR Inc. as Freight

Technology Leader, Kansas City, Mo., collaborating with freight rail clients and project teams to identify and implement technology services. Working with HDR’s teams in data acquisition, geospatial, asset management and advanced technologies for surface transport, he will customize projects to help rail clients leverage the benefits of emerging technology to improve system operation and management. Bringing more than 25 years of experience in transportation technology, Morrison most recently managed the profit/loss center for Bartlett & West. Prior, he was a national GIS manager for HNTB. In addition, Morrison holds two patents for PTC data solutions. He was responsible for the hardware and software that allowed a refabricated railcar to collect and process PTC data in real time and automatically send it back to the office for analysis. He also developed the routine and process for change detection in PTC management.

B

ytemark, Inc., a mobile commerce ticketing and integration supplier to the mass transit industry, appointed Eric Reese as Chief Operating Officer. Prior to Bytemark, Reese worked at Gannett Fleming.

Before that, he served as Director for Global Strategy for Scheidt & Bachmann, and as Director, Revenue for the CTA. Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) named Gregory Elsborg its first Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer.

Elsborg is tasked with forming new business partnerships, growing DART’s “Mobility as a Service” (MaaS) and leveraging technology.

Railworks CEO Kevin Riddett has been named to the Railway Supply Institute Board of Directors. He will fill the remainder of a three-year term set to expire at the end of 2019 and has been nominated for a full three-year term beginning in 2020, replacing Jim Hilderhoff of GE Transportation

following the company’s merger with Wabtec. Wabtec’s Freight and Industrial Group President Mike Fetsko will continue to serve on the RSI board on behalf of Wabtec and GE Transportation. John Hebert has joined RSI as Director of Communications and Member Relations, leading overall communications and managing member recruitment and retention.

Reading & Northern promoted Jonathan Barket to Vice President Communications and Signals and Matthew Collins to Assistant Vice President C&S. Barket started at R&N in 2003 as a signal assistant. Collins began at R&N in 2008 as a signal maintainer on the Lehigh Divison.

Kenneth Leslie Lawson, who enjoyed a distinguished career in railway engineering, planning and research and development, died at his home Bluemont, Va., June 19, 2019. He was 90.

100 years ago in railway age august 1919

Union Agreements Become “Scraps of Paper” The recent strikes on the railways, especially the widespread strikes of shop employees, have demolished the last argument in favor of government operation that had been left standing. This was the argument that government operation would prevent strikes. There were no serious strikes on the railways under government operation as long as the government promptly advanced wages every time a class of employees asked for it.

40 Railway Age // August 2019

september 11-13, 2019

ASLRRA Central/Pacific Region Meeting San Antonio https://aslrra.org

SEPTEMBER 22-25, 2019

RAILWAY INTERCHANGE 2019, PRESENTED BY RSI, REMSA, RSSI, AREMA, and the CMA. Minneapolis https://railwayinterchange.org. info@railwayinterchange.org. exhibitionsponsorships@ railwayinterchange.org. aremaconferencesponsorships@ railwayinterchange.org.

October 8-9, 2019

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSINMADISON Fundamentals of Railway Train Control and Signaling Philadelphia dmpeter5@wisc.edu. https://epd.wisc.edu.

October 14-16, 2019

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSINMADISON Fundamentals of Railroad Bridge Inspection Madison, Wisc. dmpeter5@wisc.edu. https://epd.wisc.edu.

October 17-18, 2019

next-gen train control 2019, PRESENTED BY RAILWAY AGE and parsons Philadelphia https://www.railwayage.com/ nextgen/

NOVEMbER 12-13, 2019

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSINMADISON Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Safety Des Plaines, Ill. dmpeter5@wisc.edu. https://epd.wisc.edu.

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Cable Racking System for NYCT Canarsie Tunnels After Hurricane Sandy tore through the Northeast in 2012, the saltwater that flooded some MTA New York City Transit subway tunnels degraded the cabling and switches that carry traction power and communication, causing systemic failures and service interruptions, among them the twin Canarsie Tunnels on the “L Train” connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn under the East River.

Built 100 years ago, the cables were installed in terracotta pipes inside a benchwall, a concrete walkway running the length of the tunnel. The original proposal to repair the cabling called for returning the tunnel to its original condition, necessitating a complete shutdown of the tunnels for 15 to 18 months at a cost of $470 million. The plan was to remove and replace all 14,000 feet of benchwall by hand to avoid damage to the tunnels’ inner concrete lining and outer iron ring, and then install 126,000 feet of power cable and 176,000 feet of communications cable inside a rebuilt benchwall. But a service shutdown was railwayage.com

deemed unacceptable.

Working with WSP (the Engineer of Record) and Judlau/TC Electric JV, Snake Tray helped design and implement a new cabling system for subway power and communications: the Snake Rack system, which is used to suspend the cables from the side of the tunnel. The cables are installed out of reach and above any potential flood line. While the cables are exposed, racking allows for easier periodic inspection and post-installation repairs as well as extra capacity for future upgrades such as fiber optic and signaling cables.

More-resilient fireproof cable jacket technology provides protection from heat and water, satisfying NFPA 130 fire code requirements. The benchwalls are left in place, replacing or fortifying sections only where the structure was compromised by age or flooding. The old cables are abandoned inside, greatly reducing demolition and re-construction time and expense.

Snake Tray’s solution eliminated a service shutdown while expediting the project at a

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Snake Tray cable management systems are modular solutions designed for rapid deployment and engineered for longevity.

The Snake Rack system as planned for the Canarsie Tunnel project requires drilling about 3,600 holes in each tube, a fraction of the estimated 50,000 holes an MTA study found would be needed to mount a generic shelf system.

Once the Snake Rack system is installed, laying the cables is accomplished quickly by stringing them into the rack directly from the work train, providing additional time and labor savings. As of late July 2019, the Snake Rack system in the first tube is complete, finished in just two consecutive weekends.

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August 2019 // Railway Age 41

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Ad Index Company

Phone #

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Birmingham Rail & Locomotive

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12

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28

fastrax™-thermon heating

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28 12

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30-31

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Progress Rail A Caterpiller Co

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Rail movement planner

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RAILWAY EQUIPMENT CO.

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21

railway educational bureau

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14,35,C3

spectrum inc

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7

alisha.barrowcliff@wilvaco.com

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Miner Enterprises new york air brake

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13

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

Advertising Sales MAIN OFFICE Jonathan Chalon Publisher 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7224 Fax: (212) 633-1863 jchalon@sbpub.com AL, KY, Jon Chalon 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7224 Fax: (212) 633-1863 jchalon@sbpub.com CT, DE, DC, FL, GA, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, NC, OH, PA, RI, SC, VT, VA, WV, Canada – Quebec and East, Ontario Jerome Marullo 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7260 Fax: (212) 633-1863 jmarullo@sbpub.com

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AR, AK, AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, IL, In, KS, LA, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NE, NM, ND, NV, OK, OR, SD, TN, TX, UT, WA, WI, WY, Canada – AB, BC, MB, SK Heather Disabato 20 South Clark Street, Suite 1910 Chicago, IL 60603 (312) 683-5026 Fax: (312) 683-0131 hdisabato@sbpub.com The Netherlands, Britain, France, Belgium, Portugal, Switzerland, North Germany, Middle East, South America, Africa (not South), Far East (Excluding Korea /China/India), All Others, Tenders Louise Cooper International Area Sales Manager The Priory, Syresham Gardens Haywards Heath, RH16 3LB United Kingdom +44-1444-416368 Fax: +44-(0)-1444-458185 lc@railjournal.co.uk

Scandinavia, Spain, Southern Germany, Austria, Korea, China, India, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe Baltic States, Recruitment Advertising Michael Boyle International Area Sales Manager Nils Michael Boyle Dorfstrasse 70, 6393 St. Ulrich, Austria. +011436767089872 mboyle@railjournal.com Italy, Italian-speaking Switzerland Dr. Fabio Potesta Media Point & Communications SRL Corte Lambruschini Corso Buenos Aires 8 V Piano, Genoa, Italy 16129 +39-10-570-4948 Fax: +39-10-553-0088 info@mediapointsrl.it

Japan Katsuhiro Ishii Ace Media Service, Inc. 12-6 4-Chome, Nishiiko, Adachi-Ku Tokyo 121-0824 Japan +81-3-5691-3335 Fax: +81-3-5691-3336 amkatsu@dream.com CLASSIFIED, PROFESSIONAL & EMPLOYMENT Jeanine Acquart 55 Broad St., 26th Floor New York, NY 10004 (212) 620-7211 Fax: (212) 633-1325 jacquart@sbpub.com

AILWAY GE August 2019 // Railway Age 43

Perspective: ASLRRA

Be Prepared for Anything

I

n 1907, Boy Scout founder Robert Baden-Powell, an English soldier, devised the Scout motto—Be Prepared.

He published it in Scouting for Boys in 1908. Upon publishing the Scout motto, Baden-Powell was asked the inevitable follow-up question: Be prepared for what?

“Why, for any old thing,” he answered.

Being prepared is the theme of ASLRRA’s upcoming series of regional meetings to be held in San Antonio, Tex. (Central/Pacific Region, Sept. 11-13), Columbus, Ohio (Eastern Region, Oct. 7-9), and Charlotte, N.C. (Southern Region, Nov. 11-13). The meetings will feature an effort to educate and train short line railroaders on cyber security, technology developments, crisis management and the challenges associated with natural disasters. The meetings will feature subject matter experts, with considerable time set aside for sharing best practices among short line companies, and for discussing and debating how the industry can become better prepared for these types of events.

Some of these events are new and require a lot more thinking on our part. Some are not new, but the tools to deal with them are, and we need to be willing and able to work with those tools.

Cyber security is a challenge with the potential to wreak havoc as we increasingly rely on computers and mobile devices to run and manage our companies. Our financing and record keeping, our train schedules and dispatching operations, our communication with shippers and much of what we do to ensure safety are increasingly

Class II and III railroaders

register

online 44 Railway Age // August 2019

dependent on technology. The challenge is particularly difficult because the technologies and the associated threats to them are constantly evolving in what can feel like dramatic fashion. It is imperative that we understand the technologies and keep pace with the changes.

Natural disasters, particularly weatherrelated ones, are not new, but are a disruptive and dangerous proposition and appear to be occurring at an increasing rate and intensity. The short line industry can do a better job at disaster recovery and resilience planning. ASLRRA is working to develop useful resources for our members on this front.

Whether it’s putting the necessary plans and procedures in place in advance, planning for routing detours or loaner equipment, quickly establishing company rates for emergency material delivery, making plans to move equipment and employees out of harm’s way, cataloguing the right contacts with relevant government agencies, working with insurance agencies before and after disasters, or understanding how to use embargos, there is much we in the short line industry can do better.

Waiting until our tracks are underwater or a bridge has washed out is not the time to begin planning. We intend to use the fall regional meetings as a platform to facilitate discussions about how the short line industry can best prepare for crisis situations, explore potential resources and share best practices for maintaining/restoring operations after disaster strikes.

Addressing the physical and human aspects of a crisis is the first and most important task. But dealing with the public relations and the inevitable politics of a crisis is also critical. Handled poorly, it can create financial and regulatory problems that linger long past the actual event. Our regional meetings will feature a variety of experts that will provide the dos and don’ts of crisis management.

And finally, the meetings will feature what we hope will be a candid and lively discussion on the appropriate use of social media and proper practices of employee conduct and interaction. Like cyber

it’s the theme of aslrra regional meetings over the next few months.” security, these are relatively new issues where standards and expectations are changing in dramatic fashion.

Before Baden-Powell wrote his Scouting for Boys handbook, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys. In July 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 boys to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire, where they set up camp for a fortnight. With the aid of various instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, lifesaving, patriotism and chivalry. The lessons served as the basis for the handbook and the foundation for a remarkably successful international organization that survives to this day.

ASLRRA’s regional meetings will be held in the air-conditioned comfort of hotels rather than the pup tents of Dorsetshire, but the admonition—Be Prepared—will be the purpose and hopefully the outcome of these gatherings. I encourage all short lines, industry suppliers and anyone involved in our industry to attend one or more of these meetings. You can review the meeting agendas and register online at www.aslrra.org.

Chuck Baker President ASLRRA

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