Railway Age May 2022

M AY 2 0 2 2

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

Rahul Jalali, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific

LEADERSHIP DEFINED Champions of Service, Safety and Sustainability

RAILINC LOCOMOTIVE REPORT North American Fleet an Economic Mirror

TIMEOUT FOR TECH

Understanding Failure Risk railwayage.com

August 2017 // Railway Age 1

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AILWAY GE

February MAY 20222020

32 FEATURES 12

Leadership Defined

26

Tech Focus – C&S

32

Railinc 2022 Locomotive Stats

36 40

William C. Vantuono

43

2022 Influential Railroaders

Avoiding Signaling Failures

The Fleet is an Economic Mirror

Tech Focus – M/W

Grinding, Milling, Welding

Timeout For Tech

Fifth in a Series With Gary Fry

MxV Rail R&D

Long-Travel Draft System Testing

DEPARTMENTS 4 6 8 45 46 46 47

Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People Professional Directory

COMMENTARY 2 10 48

From the Editor Watching Washington Financial Edge

Classified Advertising Index

COVER PHOTO Union Pacific Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Rahul Jalali.

Union Pacific photo.

Railway Age, USPS 449-130, is published monthly by the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation, 88 Pine St., 23rd Fl., New York, NY 10005-1809. Tel. (212) 620-7200; FAX (212) 633-1863. Vol. 223, No. 5. Subscriptions: Railway Age is sent without obligation to professionals working in the railroad industry in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. However, the publisher reserves the right to limit the number of copies. Subscriptions should be requested on company letterhead. Subscription pricing to others for Print and/or Digital versions: $100.00 per year/$151.00 for two years in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico; $139.00 per year/$197.00 for two years, foreign. Single Copies: $36.00 per copy in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico/$128.00 foreign All subscriptions payable in advance. COPYRIGHT© 2022 Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reproduced without permission. For reprint information contact PARS International Corp., 102 W. 38th Street, 6th floor, New York, N.Y. 10018, Tel.: 212-221-9595; Fax: 212-221-9195. Periodicals postage paid at New York, NY, and additional mailing offices. Canada Post Cust.#7204564; Agreement #41094515. Bleuchip Int’l, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Address all subscriptions, change of address forms and correspondence concerning subscriptions to Subscription Dept., Railway Age, PO Box 239 Lincolnshire IL 60069-0239 USA, Or call +1 (402) 346-4740, FAX +1 (847) 291-4816. Printed at Cummings Printing, Hooksett, N.H. ISSN 0033-8826 (print); 2161-511X (digital).

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Industry Indicators ‘MARCH 2022 ANOTHER MIXED MONTH FOR U.S. RAIL VOLUMES’ “March 2022 was another mixed month for U.S. rail volumes,” the Association of American Railroads reported last month. “Total carloads were up 1.2% over March 2021. That’s their 12th gain in the past 13 months, but also their smallest percentage gain during that period. Total carloads averaged 233,909 per week, the second most in the past nine months. Intermodal originations were down 6.4% in March 2022. Intermodal has been down on a year-over-year basis for seven of the past eight months. Results were mixed for individual commodities. March 2022 was the best month ever for chemicals, while crushed stone and sand, food products, wood products, and motor vehicles were higher than they’ve been in many months. Grain, petroleum products and paper products, among others, were down compared to recent months. These conflicting trends reflect an economy with a good deal of directional uncertainty.”

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, march 2022 (% change from march 2021)

TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

TOTAL EMPLOYEES: 114,592 % CHANGE FROM MARCH 2021: -0.36%

Transportation (train and engine) 47,697 (+2.79%)

Executives, Officials and Staff Assistants 7,331 (+0.76%)

five WEEKS ENDING April 2, 2022

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

MAR. ’22

MAR. ’21

% CHANGE

114,092 4,120 47,354 33,451 174,338 45,587 327,258 5,334 17,532 26,772 20,697 16,697 43,395 21,242 69,236 101,253 17,740 38,126 19,291 26,031

127,931 4,503 47,354 29,818 156,047 54,620 310,621 5,020 17,423 27,950 23,364 17,081 45,463 19,778 71,803 93,279 17,926 37,872 17,747 30,490

-10.8% -8.5% 0.0% 12.2% 11.7% -16.5% 5.4% 6.3% 0.6% -4.2% -11.4% -2.2% -4.5% 7.4% -3.6% 8.5% -1.0% 0.7% 8.7% -14.6%

1,169,546

1,156,090

1.2%

378,882

408,456

-7.2%

1,548,428

1,564,546

-1.0%

CANADIAN RAILROADS TOTAL CANADIAN CARLOADS

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Professional and Administrative 9,589 (-5.80%)

Maintenance-of-Way and Structures 28,002 (-1.25%)

Maintenance of Equipment and Stores 17,276 (-4.13%)

Transportation (other than train & engine)

Intermodal

five WEEKS ENDING april 2, 2022

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

BY COMMODITY

MAR. ’22

MAR. ’21

% CHANGE

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

96,206 1,241,932

113,953

1,338,138

1,316,355 1,430,308

-15.6% -5.7% -6.4%

0 339,123 339,123

0 372,785 372,785

— -9.0% -9.0%

113,953

CANADIAN RAILROADS Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

4,697 (-1.47%)

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Source: Surface Transportation Board

Trailers Containers

96,206 1,581,055

1,689,140

-15.6% -6.4%

TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

1,677,261

1,803,093

-7.0%

Source: Rail Time Indicators, Association of American Railroads

4 Railway Age // May 2022

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TOTAL U.S./Canadian CARLOADS, MARCH 2022 VS. MARCH 2021

1,548,428 MARCH 2022

1,564,546 MARCH 2021

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Short Line And Regional Traffic Index CARLOADS

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

ORIGINATED MAR. ’22

ORIGINATED MAR. ’21

% CHANGE

53,572 21,206 24,952 13,322 31,367 8,976 11,388 3,073 20,640 9,640 2,703 2,392 20,059 14,537 49,198 12,373 75,945

50,847 22,381 22,480 11,360 32,527 8,202 10,704 3,471 19,261 9,752 2,443 2,082 17,946 14,123 47,359 11,011 76,430

5.4% -5.2% 11.0% 17.3% -3.6% 9.4% 6.4% -11.5% 7.2% -1.1% 10.6% 14.9% 11.8% 2.9% 3.9% 12.4% -0.6%

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TOTAL U.S. Carloads and intermodal units, 2013-2022

(in millions, year-to-date through MARCH 2022, SIX-WEEK MOVING AVERAGE)

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May 2022 // Railway Age 5

Industry Outlook

STB Eyeing Two Rules Revisions THE SURFACE TRANSPORTATION BOARD (STB) is seeking comments by May 23 and June 30, respectively, on a proposal to amend its emergency service regulations “to provide relief for shippers in situations that require immediate relief,” and update demurrage and accessorial rules governing the railroads’ use and handling of privately owned freight cars.

In its April 22 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on emergency relief, the STB specifically proposes to: • “Amend procedures for parties seeking a Board order directing an incumbent carrier to take action to remedy a service emergency.

[Emergency service orders, according to STB, “are designed to preserve rail service where there has been a substantial rail service issue or failure that requires immediate relief.”]

• “Indicate that the Board may act on its own initiative to direct emergency service.

• “Modify the informational requirements for parties in emergency service proceedings.

• “Shorten the filing deadlines in emergency service proceedings and establish a timeframe for Board decisions.

• “Establish an accelerated process for certain acute service emergencies.”

The rule changes would enable STB “to order temporary relief in emergency situations more quickly and effectively, to more rapidly ensure that localized problems do not spread to other parts of the network, and to give parties involved in emergency situations (both rail carriers and shippers) more certainty on the resolution of those issues,” the STB wrote in the NPRM. 6 Railway Age // May 2022

“For several years, the Board has gathered information showing that the existing emergency service rules are too cumbersome to be of use to shippers in need of immediate relief,” STB Chairman Martin J. Oberman said. “This proposed rule would make it possible for a shipper to receive relief in a short but reasonable amount of time during an emergency.

Given the persistent and serious problems presently affecting freight rail service, it is important for the Board to consider new approaches for providing much needed relief to rail customers, not only for the customers’ benefit, but for the well-being of the nation’s economy and all consumers.”

Once comments are submitted, replies are due by June 6, 2022, according to STB, which noted that “[c]onsidering the consistent and pervasive nature of these service issues, the Board is limiting the comment period to 30 days and the reply period to 15 days.”

Additionally, the STB reported the proposal for amendments to the emergency service rules is “in no way intended to be a substitute for the Board’s ongoing consideration of whether to adopt the reciprocal switching rule changes proposed in pending Reciprocal Switching, Docket No. EP 711 (Sub-No. 1). Mr. Oberman said that work on that proposal will continue as one of his priorities for the Board’s attention this year.”

The agency has also invited public comment

by June 30, 2022, on a Petition for Rulemaking that would update demurrage and accessorial rules for privately owned railcars.

The North America Freight Car Association (NAFCA), National Grain and Feed Association

(NGFA), Chlorine Institute (CI), and National Oilseed Processors Association (NOPA) on July 26, 2021 filed a petition for rulemaking. They proposed the STB’s adoption of “regulations, pursuant to its car service authority under 49 U.S.C. § 11122(a)(2), that would allow private railcar providers [shippers, receivers, or other parties that own or lease private railcars] to assess a ‘private railcar delay charge’ when a private freight car does not move for more than 72 consecutive hours at any point between the time it is ‘released for transportation’ and the time it is ‘either constructively placed or actually placed at the private railcar provider’s facility or designated location,’” the STB explained in its Nov. 23, 2021 decision to open a proceeding on the matter.

The associations noted in their July filing that the “overall goal of this proposal … is to maximize the Class I railroads’ efficient use of private railcars without unduly infringing upon the railroads’ freight operations over their respective systems, recognizing that some level of service variability is inherent in any railroad’s operations.” “[A]n update to the rules governing the railroads’ use of private railcars is long overdue,” the associations wrote, “because the railroad industry has evolved to the point that approximately 73% of the railcars in service today nationwide—approximately 1.2 million railcars—are no longer owned by railroads, but are … purchased, or leased, and maintained, by non-railroad entities at little or no cost to the railroads that use them.”

The STB received replies to the petition from the Association of American Railroads (AAR); CSX; Union Pacific (UP); Institute for Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc. (ISRI); a Joint Shippers group including the American Chemistry Council, The Fertilizer Institute, and National Industrial Transportation League; National Association of Chemical Distributors (NACD); National Coal Transportation Association (NCTA); Private Railcar Food and Beverage Association (PRFBA); American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM); Freight Rail Customer Alliance (FRCA); and the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association (COPA). NGFA and the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association filed notices of intent to participate.

While many supported the petition (ISRI, Joint Shippers, NACD, NCTA, PRFBA, AFPM, FRCA and COPA), AAR, CSX and UP opposed it. railwayage.com

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MARKET VIA Testing New Siemens Trainsets VIA Rail Canada’s newest arrival, a full Siemens Venture trainset with a Charger locomotive, made a circuit of the OttawaWindsor segment of the Quebec CityWindsor Corridor on April 13 and 14, 2022.

Beginning in Ottawa, the train ran as a special, No. 649, to test track geometry and passenger loading/unloading performance at all stations between Ottawa, Brockville and Toronto. The train continued westward via Brantford and London to Windsor and back, covering 550-plus miles of the network in one day. The train returned to Montreal late in the evening that day for a total journey distance of almost 1,000 miles.

NORTH AMERICA

BEACON RAIL and GB RAILFREIGHT (GBRF) have signed an agreement with STADLER for 30 Class 99 Eurodual dualpower C-C locomotives including spare parts. The 75 mph Class 99 can operate under 25kV electrification, with an output of up to 6MW, or under diesel traction using a high-power, low-emissions Stage V diesel engine. It has a tractive effort of up to 500kN, high hauling capability and performance, and offers optimal visibility and an excellent working environment for drivers.

In-cab locomotive electronics supplier EB/E has purchased K&L ELECTRONICS, a locomotive electrical component repairer and supplier based in Searcy, Ark. “K&L has an esteemed history as a leader in the aftermarket repair services segment, and I am excited to add that experience to our organization,” EB/E CEO Bryan Grillone said. “Their customer-centric focus and internal culture align closely with EB/E and represent exactly what we search for in business partners. We look forward to leveraging the strengths of each organization to bring even better service and increased value to all of our customers.”

TEKTRACKING LLC last month signed a contract with TRANSDEV RAIL INC., the track and signal maintenance contractor for the SOUTH FLORIDA REGIONAL TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY (SFRTA) to implement TIMPS (Track Inspection, Maintenance Planning and Scheduling System) and SITE (Signal/Crossing Inspection and Testing Efficiency Application) on Tri-Rail, which links Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. TekTracking will support and equip SFRTA/

8 Railway Age // May 2022

Transdev’s track and signal personnel with mobile applications to log all data related to track and signal inspection and required testing. “Transdev Rail is excited to enter into this agreement with TekTracking to fulfill our reporting, inspection and testing requirements on this dynamic rail corridor,” Transdev Rail South Florida General Manager Edward Reardon said. “The TekTracking platform will enable greater versatility for our inspectors and ensure timely recording of critical events and testing for compliance with FRA standards and to better satisfy our client’s needs.”

WABTEC CORP. last month signed a definitive agreement to acquire the Beena Vision wayside inspection system business from TRIMBLE. Terms of the deal, which is intended to expand Wabtec’s digital and electronics portfolio, were not disclosed.

Beena Vision’s machine vision-based, noncontact wayside systems assess rolling stock condition from component level to full train inspection. Installed by railroads worldwide, they also provide real-time alarms, alerts and reports that allow for fleet maintenance management, Wabtec noted. railwayage.com

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Watching Washington

Can STB Motivate Rails to Improve Service?

H

ave you tried pushing on a string? Therein lies a challenge facing the Surface Transportation Board (STB), which regulates rates and practices of freight railroads.

While the STB can figuratively pull on a string to cap freight rates, order reparations and impose penalties for unreasonable practices, negligence and violation of STB directives, such confrontation, says STB Chairperson Martin J. Oberman, is less effectual and less efficient than voluntary actions. But how, in currently highly volatile rail-shipper relationships, might the STB push on that regulatory string to encourage railroads unilaterally to improve rail service quality, such as by adding train crews and making Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) more customer friendly?

Oberman favors motivators as an alternative to big-stick regulatory actions, an approach hopefully appealing to the STB’s small-government, free-marketleaning Republicans Patrick J. Fuchs and Michelle A. Schultz, and also acceptable to Oberman’s fellow Democrats Karen J. Hedlund and Robert M. Primus. “The best way to tackle service problems is to create incentives so that they solve themselves,” Oberman told Railway Age. There is no avoiding that rail servicefailure complaints have been flowing as if gushing from a firehose. Shippers are so aggrieved they are uncharacteristically stepping forward publicly, shunting aside long-standing—and oft communicated in private to STB members—fears of railroad retaliation they say previously choked a willingness to be identified.

So troubling are service-failure complaints that Oberman took an uncommon action—supported in a 5-0 STB decision—directing that senior rail executives appear at a two-day hearing in late April to explain themselves. Future STB actions, said the Board, will be guided by “information provided at the hearing,” identified as “Urgent Issues in Freight Rail Service.” The Board cited a rare Cabinet-officer communication—a

10 Railway Age // May 2022

letter from the Secretary of Agriculture—seeking “urgent action to improve” what he termed “a complete collapse of rail service.” Testifying in person were Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Jewel Brounaugh and Federal Maritime Commission member Carl W. Bentzel.

Already, the STB is finalizing a rulemaking that may create two-railroad competition at sole-served shipper facilities through mandated Reciprocal Switching— requiring, under certain circumstances, the sole-serving railroad switch shipper freight cars to a nearby junction point with a competing railroad in exchange for a compensatory switching fee.

Oberman is optimistic that simply the threat of a Reciprocal Switching mandate—imposed on a case-by-case basis—will be incentive to maintain in the alternative competitive rates and improve service. He is confident a final rule will be completed as early as third-quarter 2022.

Neither the content of that final order nor its fate can be predicted.

In further pursuit of what Oberman terms “raising accountability for service failures,” he aims to improve the definition of a statutory common carrier obligation—the duty of railroads to provide transportation or service on a reasonable request. He seeks to set “standards to which railroads know they must adhere”—developed case-by-case, with penalties assessed for degradation of service that would be treated as negligence or an unreasonable practice.

The Surface Transportation Board Reauthorization Act of 2015 gave the STB authority on its own to investigate service failures and impose remedies, while the STB’s governing statute makes railroads “liable for damages … as a result of an act or omission of that carrier.” The STB may impose civil fines of $8,736 per violation per day. The torrent of rail service complaints stacking up at the STB begs for the common carrier obligation to be equipped with stronger jaws and sharper teeth.

Additionally, Oberman advocates moving forward on rate reform that follows

confrontation is less effectual and less efficient than voluntary actions.” an STB staff recommendation—Final Offer Rate Review—to resolve certain rate disputes where the potential dollar recovery does not justify the expense of a fullblown Stand Alone Cost (SAC) test.

Each party would submit a final offer, with the STB choosing one without modification. While railroads agree to an arbitration process, they oppose introducing evidence of revenue adequacy that could translate to a rate cap, and want awards to be confidential to avoid their having precedential value. Shippers disagree.

While Oberman recognizes there is “no perfect overnight solution,” he is intent— through public hearings at a pace not witnessed in more than a generation—to “shine light on the problem” involving what he terms “a consolidated rail industry with extraordinary barriers to entry.” His greatest challenge may be finding a threevote majority among peers known to be fiercely independent, regardless of political party affiliation.

FRANK N. WILNER Contributing Editor railwayage.com

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2022 Influential leaders

2022

READERS’ MOST INFLUENTIAL LEADERS

LEADERSHIP DEFINED

A commitment to service, safety and sustainability is how Railway Age’s 2022 honorees—selected by our subscribers—approach their roles.

R

ailway Age’s third annual Readers’ Influential Leaders online poll garnered nominations for a large number of active (non-retired) people from all areas of the North American railway industry. We are pleased to present the top 10 nominees, plus five leaders receiving Honorable Mentions.

Kevin Boone Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing, CSX Kevin Boone has established himself as an industry champion of innovative strategic thinking and supply chain solutions that are leading the way for rail to recapture market share through highway-to-rail conversion. Bringing a keen eye for transportation

Kevin Boone Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing, CSX 12 Railway Age // May 2022

economics to CSX when he joined the company from the investment industry in 2017, Boone quickly focused his vision on opportunities for CSX to leverage its service improvements by aggressively pursuing new rail-based solutions that compete head-to-head with trucks.

Since being named to lead the CSX Sales and Marketing team in 2021, Boone has driven new service initiatives and value-added offerings in addition to overseeing major business wins. Among the most significant accomplishments under his leadership was acquisition of Quality Carriers, the largest liquid bulk chemicals trucking carrier in North America, which has enabled CSX to offer shippers the first integrated intermodal chemical transportation solution of its kind. In addition, Boone is leading CSX’s strategy to become more deeply embedded in customers’ supply chains

through solutions that package warehousing, transloading and trucking into door-to-door service offerings.

Boone also has led the CSX Sales and Marketing team to a series of key business wins, including the selection of three CSXserved sites for major new battery-electric vehicle manufacturing complexes—Ford in Tennessee, Rivian Automotive in Georgia and VinFast in North Carolina. He has developed strong customer rapport and pursued innovative relationship-building initiatives, such as CSX’s new Environmental Excellence Awards, which recognize customers for lowering their carbon footprint by shipping more freight by rail. Boone’s vision for rail business growth is having a profound impact at CSX and creating a blueprint for increasing rail’s share of the freight transportation dollar.

Stephen Gardner President and CEO, Amtrak

James Clements Senior Vice President Strategic Planning and Technology, Canadian Pacific railwayage.com

Congratulations to James Clements for being named a Railway Age 2022 Readers’ Influential Leader.

Connect to an exciting career at cpr.ca

2022 Influential leaders

John E. Elkin President and CEO, Atlantic Railways LLC

Bill Furman Executive Chair and Founder, The Greenbrier Companies

Rahul Jalali Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific

Stephen Gardner President and CEO, Amtrak Stephen Gardner, who is gaining political support to build a new Amtrak, was appointed President and CEO effective Jan. 17, 2022, after serving in a variety of leadership roles with the company. Transforming how the nation approaches transportation, Gardner is leading Amtrak during one of the most prominent times for passenger rail in the company’s history. With historic levels of federal investment through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), Amtrak is about to begin a new era with a clear plan to transform and grow the business.

In the coming years, Amtrak will be introducing a new fleet and new services to new communities, providing more convenient, sustainable and equitable transportation options for the nation. The company will be advancing critical capital projects that will modernize and transform rail infrastructure to meet the demands of the future.

Gardner has been with Amtrak since 2009, serving in a variety of leadership roles including President and Chief Operating and Commercial Officer. He has been responsible for efforts to expand state-supported service partnerships, increase Acela capacity, improve Northeast Corridor infrastructure and develop Amtrak’s strategic plan.

with feel important. Commonly referred to as the “Swiss Army Knife” of CP, Clements has made significant impacts on the strategy and vision for CP over the years, none bigger than the acquisition of Kansas City Southern.

The initial thought of creating a strategy and presenting the acquisition to the CP Board of Directors was in the back of Clements’ mind for years. In Fall 2019, he began turning his thoughts into a serious strategy to acquire KCS and developed a proposal to present to the Board. In Summer 2020, he continued his pursuit, and went back to the Board of Directors. Shortly after, it was learned that a private equity firm was also attempting to acquire KCS. This became the catalyst that spurred Clements on to rally key internal stakeholders and drive forward CP’s acquisition strategy.

He went to work, putting the broader strategy together, pitching the business case and strategic value and seeking input from a variety of key stakeholders in CP’s executive team.

In September 2020, after months of preparation, it was showtime. Clements led the presentation to KCS, pitching a merger of equals structure. His preparation, strategy and presentation led to resulting tasks for each organization through Fall 2020. Then, in early December, a private equity firm came calling to the KCS yet again and were making an offer.

Clements immediately engaged the advisors, bankers, lawyers, all key stakeholders and said, “We have two weeks to get into the competition for this multi-billion-dollar deal.”

In addition to coordinating stakeholders from every department, Clements had to keep this historic proposal in the strictest confidence. While his team likely questioned some of his requests during this time, their faith and trust in his leadership resulted in the tasks

and requests being turned around quickly.

Clements and the CP team went back to KCS in December 2020 and successfully pitched the new proposal.

In January 2021, Clements moved into transaction mode. He began to delegate decision making for the departments he ran to the leaders he had in place as he worked out all of the details of merger and acquisition.

He firmly believes in enabling his leaders to succeed and giving them the space to do so. In March 2021, CP and KCS publicly announced the deal between the two railroads. It was an historic day.

A few weeks later, CP’s major competitor, CN, surprised the industry and made an attractive counteroffer to KCS. This setback did not deter Clements from his goal and vision. He doubled down and got to work.

He stood alongside Keith Creel in remaining steadfast that the CP’s offer would ultimately be deemed superior. Clements worked tirelessly, and in late July 2021 he pitched KCS a competitive offer. KCS deferred its shareholder vote and deemed CP’s offer superior.

James Clements Senior Vice President Strategic Planning and Technology, Canadian Pacific James Clements leads the largest department at Canadian Pacific (CP) outside of Operations. With just shy of 1,000 employees, both union and non-union, under his purview, he effortlessly makes each person he interacts 14 Railway Age // May 2022

John E. Elkin President and CEO, Atlantic Railways LLC John Elkin is very committed to bringing jobs and economic development and impact to the Badin, N.C. area by bringing on line a long unused branch line serving an industrial site.

Elkin, a resident of Pelion, S.C., is founder of Atlantic Railways, managing day-to-day operations from the company’s Cayce, S.C. headquarters. He served in the South Carolina Army National Guard for 22 years, retiring in 2021 after tours in Camp Bucca, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He is also a 17-year law enforcement veteran. railwayage.com

Congratulations!

Amtrak® President & CEO

Stephen Gardner for being named one of Railway Age’s Most Influential Leaders.

“A new era of passenger rail is upon us. Amtrak is making transformational investments to modernize our trains, stations and infrastructure.”

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2022 Influential leaders

Michael Miller President, North America, Genesee & Wyoming

Rob Reilly Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, CN

Pascal Schweitzer Group President, Global Freight Services, Wabtec Corp.

Elkin started his railroad career with Norfolk Southern as a conductor with the Piedmont Division in 2008. He served in various positions with the predecessor short line railroad operator in Badin. In 2020, he formed Atlantic Railways as a successor to operate the Badin Branch railroad in Stanly County, N.C. Atlantic Railways’ primary business is freight car storage, but the company’s work to return rail services on the branch line has led to new business. As a result, it anticipates the return of regular freight business by fourthquarter 2022. Atlantic Railways also leases passenger cars. Elkins’ goals have been line rehabilitation while also seeking additional territories and business development.

Leading a small business, Elkins has multiple roles. He manages business development, information technology, revenue protection, compliance, and the vehicle fleet. He also serves on train crews as a certified engineer and conductor. He routinely coordinates with CSX and NS, and also manages the railroad’s small police department as Chief, with two part-time special agents who primarily handle trespassing enforcement.

“Atlantic Railways’ staff is what really brings this railroad together,” Elkins says. “My appreciation for them is difficult for me to express in words. I ask them to always think outside the box to take care of our customers; our staff delivers on that request every time they set foot on a property. We are a small but growing railroad, all thanks to our people.”

are vast. In 1981, as a co-founder of The Greenbrier Companies, he started a small asset leasing business that would become a leading international freight transportation equipment manufacturer and services provider.

Over the ensuing four decades, the company grew from 10 employees to becoming publicly traded with billions in annual revenue and more than 13,000 global employees.

Furman is an innovator who has transformed the industry on multiple occasions.

He pioneered and marketed the Twin-Stack® intermodal well. He worked with the FRA and AAR to adapt railroad infrastructure, including tunnel clearance heights, to accommodate double-stack service. This product was a huge success because it significantly increased transportation capacity while reducing operating costs. He also oversaw the invention of the Auto-Max® and Multi-Max™, revolutionizing automobile transport by rail.

Most recently under Furman’s leadership, Greenbrier partnered with Norfolk Southern and U. S. Steel to develop a new, high-strength steel gondola. The new steel increases the railcar’s durability while reducing tare weight and allowing for more goods to ship in one unit. This revolutionary design will lead to increased environmental sustainability and a longer gondola life.

From the shop floor to industry leadership in regulation, Furman maintains a safetyfirst mindset. He was a champion of the Safer Tank Cars Now initiative in the mid-2010s. In response to growing safety concerns surrounding increasing levels of tank car shipments of flammable materials, Greenbrier introduced the “Tank Car of the Future,” featuring safety enhancements that were ultimately adopted by the FRA and PHMSA as part of a new industry

standard, the DOT-117 tank car. This awardwinning policy campaign is enshrined in the United States Library of Congress.

Furman expanded from leasing to add manufacturing in Greenbrier’s first five years in operation. He then introduced repair and refurbishment services within the following five years. During his decades-long tenure, he also expanded Greenbrier’s operations across the United States and around the globe to Mexico, Brazil, Romania, Poland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. These additions significantly broadened Greenbrier’s global manufacturing footprint, addressable market and reach to best assist its customers.

Under Furman’s leadership, the evolution of Greenbrier’s integrated business model has helped ensure that the company successfully navigates the peaks and troughs of the global freight transportation economy, expands its market position and earnings potential, and enhances its customer service offerings for the long term.

Bill Furman Executive Chair and Founder, The Greenbrier Companies Bill Furman’s contributions to the rail industry 16 Railway Age // May 2022

Rahul Jalali Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, Union Pacific Union Pacific’s mission is to Build America; Rahul Jalali’s leadership and influence in the technology space does just that. Soon after becoming CIO, Jalali launched a product transformation that will regularly deliver value-generating capabilities, prioritized jointly by the business and technology groups, with a focus on agility and customer centricity. Jalali’s team of nearly 1,000 technologists is modernizing UP’s platforms by establishing a presence in the Cloud and launching a connected data platform to provide valuable business insights, while maintaining railwayage.com

ai165100546744_262170 RailwayAge_AlanShaw _Top10Execs _FINAL PRINT.pdf 1 4/26/2022 4:37:48 PM

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Congratulations to Alan Shaw for being named one of the most influential leaders in our industry.

As Alan becomes Norfolk Southern’s new CEO, he brings with him a 28-year legacy of leadership and a mission to create a more customer-centric, operations-driven railroad. Service, productivity, and growth guide that mission, and make clear why he is indeed one of the industry’s most influential leaders.

Thank you for all you do that makes us Thoroughbred Proud.

To learn more visit norfolksouthern.com © 2022 Norfolk Southern Corporation | All Rights Reserved

2022 Influential leaders UP’s cost structure. A key initiative in UP’s technology strategy is a project-to-product transformation. Jalali’s team has adopted a “two-in-a-box” model within the business, where UP business and tech teams work closely together throughout a product’s life cycle. The business teams have embraced this way of working, and the technology team recognizes the increased engagement, achieving an 80% time-to-market reduction.

Additionally, Jalali has led his team to deliver transformative transportation products to the business, such as CADX and DigiCrew. CADX, the third generation of UP’s Computer-Aided Dispatching System developed in-house, has increased dispatcher efficiency by reducing transactions and focusing on keeping trains moving. In its first year alone, there has been a 58% reduction in major rule violations and close calls by train dispatchers. DigiCrew is an innovative product that streamlines and standardizes the work being done by transportation employees by digitizing the paperwork needed to operate trains onto mobile devices. A reduction

in the amount of paperwork and printer maintenance will result in annual savings of approximately $1 million, and benefits the environment due to the elimination of millions of printed pages and printer supplies.

Jalali continues to grow his internal and external networks, making tech employee development a key focus area of his, serving as a mentor to many UP employees and actively functioning as the executive sponsor of UP’s Young Professionals Employee Resource Group. He additionally serves on the Nebraska Chapter’s Make-a-Wish Foundation board of directors.

Michael Miller President, North America, Genesee & Wyoming With a transportation career that includes a trucking company, a rail customer, a Class I railroad and now 12 years at G&W, Michael Miller is deeply respected across the entire rail industry and by employees and customers as someone with unparalleled supply chain expertise.

As a commercial leader, Miller is often the voice of the customer at industry meetings as well as a proponent of technology advancements within G&W and the rail industry as a whole, including the RailPulse coalition’s efforts to provide customers real-time visibility of the North American railcar fleet.

Under his stewardship, G&W has consistently outperformed both the trucking and rail industry in biennial customer satisfaction surveys, and amid the pandemic in 2021, achieved a record score of 8.1 out of 10 in overall customer satisfaction.

As an operational leader, Miller is the consummate team player, always levelheaded and fair, and firmly committed to the safety and well-being of his colleagues. He is the face of G&W’s annual Safety Month campaign each June as well as the company’s OneG&W initiative to strengthen standardization, knowledge sharing and camaraderie across its 113 North American railroads. And over the past two years, his steady hand has guided G&W’s North American operations through more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases,

WE ARE HIRING

Wabtec is more than just its products.

Our people are some of the most talented and passionate professionals in the industry, all driven by the same purpose to move and improve the world. wabteccorp.com/careers 18 Railway Age // May 2022

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2022 Influential leaders while prioritizing a healthy work environment for frontline employees, reliable rail service to customers and seamless connectivity with Class I partners.

Miller is responsible for both commercial and operating functions and has oversight of G&W’s North American Operating Regions.

He joined G&W as Chief Commercial Officer, North America, in September 2010 and was responsible for all commercial functions until assuming his current role in October 2018.

Before joining G&W, Miller was with Norfolk Southern, Derivion Corp., Georgia-Pacific and Roadway Express.

Rob Reilly Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, CN In just over two years as CN Chief Operating Officer, Rob Reilly has led a safety culture change that has created a safer railroad, while improving customer service and all key operating metrics, and enabling CN to lead the industry in fuel efficiency and sustainability.

CN delivered 14 consecutive record months

for Canadian grain movement, and the Ops team continued to set records for the industry, saving nearly $30 million in fuel costs during 2021 from their initiatives alone while reducing emissions.

Under Reilly’s leadership, personal injuries decreased by 32%, finishing 2021 with an alltime lowest injury frequency ratio. Accidents decreased by 18%, for the second-lowest accident ratio in CN history, with a nearly $60 million reduction in accident costs. In total, 182 fewer employees were injured, with zero fatalities—an ongoing fatality-free period that has never occurred in CN history. As Reilly often says, “this is the most important number on the scoreboard.”

Reilly and his team redefined CN’s training curriculum for all new employees by embedding safety into rules instruction. He brought DEKRA North America in to coach and teach safety leadership to all managers. And he embraced technology advancements to make CN safer, such as ETAV (Electronic Track Authority Verification) and the Autonomous Track Inspection Program.

During Reilly’s tenure, CN promoted its first-ever women to key leadership posts in Operations: General Manager of an operating division, General Manager of the Network Operations Center, Chief of Bridges and Structures, and Vice President of Safety.

Rob Reilly was appointed Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at CN in July 2019. He also assumed interim responsibility for CN’s Information and Technology function from November 2019 to September of 2020. Joining CN with 30 years of experience in the rail industry, Reilly is responsible for CN’s 24/7 operations overseeing about 20,000 railroaders from the Transportation, Engineering, Mechanical, Network Operations and Safety groups across North America.

He brings to the company extensive leadership in safety, rail operations, field application of rail technologies, and a deep understanding of the intermodal business at major ports and large terminals. Reilly’s railroading career, which has taken him across North America in a succession of increasingly senior positions, began in 1989 at the Santa Fe (now BNSF).

Nicely done, Rahul.

Congratulations to Senior Vice President Information Technologies and Chief Information Officer Rahul Jalali for being named one of Railway Age’s 2022 “10 Most Influential Industry Leaders.”

20 Railway Age // May 2022

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Congratulations Kevin Boone Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing

Congratulations to Kevin Boone, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, for being recognized as a 2022 Railway Age Top 10 Most Influential Leader. Thank you for all you’re doing to deliver for our customers, company and industry.

csx.com

2022 Influential leaders Pascal Schweitzer Group President, Global Freight Services, Wabtec Corp.

At the heart of Wabtec’s business is the locomotive fleet that Pascal Schweitzer and his team support from cradle to grave—about 24,000 units in operation across the most strategic freight corridors in the world.

These are heavy-haul, main line locomotives whose performance is critical to the success of customer operations. These locomotives must be safe, reliable, available, fuel-efficient, deliver the best tractive effort, and comply with environmental regulations. This fleet, which covered 1.5 billion miles in 2021, has an expected useful life of 25 to 30 years. To perform well, these locomotives require significant maintenance, requiring investment of 1.5 times the value of a new unit to optimize performance, without counting major retrofits or modernizations.

That’s where Schweitzer and Wabtec’s experienced Global Freight Services team of more than 1,300 employees comes in. They are responsible for improving critical customer

outcomes in the areas of product reliability, asset utilization, velocity, fuel consumption, operating expenses and railcar dwell time.

What’s more, they are helping enable customers to increase efficiency, reduce costs and slash emissions of their existing fleets.

The best example of Schweitzer’s leadership is Wabtec’s modernization program, which has grown from a handful of modifications to more than 1,100 in five short years.

Customers are looking to modernize their fleets with new technologies; it is critical that these upgrades are interoperable with existing equipment. Schweitzer’s team has transformed Wabtec’s modernizations for the rail industry by customizing solutions for customers and installing state-of-the-art technology.

The program helps railroads realize outcomes including increased tractive effort, fuel efficiency, reliability and adhesion, which reduces maintenance, repairs and overhaul expenses.

Wabtec’s modernizations yield significant advantages, including improved fuel efficiency by as much as 25%; a more-than 40% increase in reliability; haulage ability increased by up to

55%; and a reduction of maintenance, repair and overhaul expenses by 20%.

In addition, Schweitzer has helped expand Wabtec’s portfolio of products and services into the maintenance-of-way and railcar movers segment with recent acquisitions of Relco and Nordco.

Alan Shaw President and CEO, Norfolk Southern Alan Shaw became the newest Class I CEO upon the retirement of Jim Squires on May 1. He is a thought leader on growth strategies for the industry, particularly how rail can win business in the $800 billion truck market.

Shaw has a unique combination of skills and experience that prepared him to lead the company. He’s a veteran railroader who understands operations and will drive continued improvement in service and efficiency. At the same time, he has an unparalleled understanding of customers and markets, as well as the vision to grow shareholder value in a competitive, rapidly evolving industry.

Shaw is one of the freight industry’s most

Congratulations to Michael

Miller, President of G&W North America, for his recognition in the 2022 “Most Influential Industry Leaders” list.

Our employees, customers and suppliers value your commitment to world-class safety and freight-rail service every day.

22 Railway Age // May 2022

gwrr.com railwayage.com

2022 Influential leaders respected leaders, with 27 years at Norfolk Southern in marketing, operations and finance. He was appointed Chief Marketing Officer in May 2015, and under his leadership the company has built the strongest intermodal franchise in the Alan Shaw eastern U.S., positionPresident and CEO, ing it for growth in Norfolk Southern consumer-oriented, ser v ice-sensitive markets. He is responsible for innovations in customer-facing technology, sustainability and new product offerings. He has articulated a new vision of a more customer-centric railroad. He advocates for railroads to recognize that, even though they are a B2B industry, customer expectations are shaped by their experiences with B2C companies such as Amazon and UPS. During his most recent role as CMO, NS launched customercentric product innovations such as Thoroughbred Freight Transfer, technology innovations such as the NSites platform that connects businesses with rail-accessible development sites, and enhancements in how the rail industry can help customers reduce carbon emissions.

In a further example of innovative, customer-centric thinking, NS under Shaw’s leadership partnered with the Georgia Port Authority (GPA) and the federal government to create a pop-up yard at its Austell Intermodal Facility to help alleviate the backlog of containers. Today, the pop-up is a full-scale facility, strategically ready for expansion nationwide. USDOT Secretary Buttigieg recently visited the site and hailed it as a success story that can be replicated around the country.

HONORABLE MENTION Marc Buncher President and CEO, Siemens Mobility, North America Carrie Demers Donchez Yardmaster, Norfolk Southern Alex Engelke General Manager, East Chicago Rail Terminal Tom Hilliard Chief Engineer Signal and Communications/U.S. Track, CN Jennifer Mitchell Deputy Administrator, Federal Railroad Administration

24 Railway Age // May 2022

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TECH FOCUS – C&S

AVOIDING SIGNALING FAILURES Why do they occur so often?

Which solutions can help prevent them?

BY ZACH PRYSTASH

26 Railway Age // May 2022

railwayage.com

I

Bruce Kelly

n Great Britain, the problem of frequent signaling failures is in the public eye, because of the well-developed network of passenger traffic. This trend is not surprising, as the passengers are greatly affected by train delays caused by signaling failures. Although this issue is no less prevalent in the U.S. compared to the U.K., it is more often acknowledged by the railroad industry than by the general public. However, this fact doesn’t make signaling failures unworthy of our attention, because they still cause damage. Signaling failures for both passenger and freight traffic are associated with a large investment of time required to study the problem and its elimination, as well as financial costs.

There are many reasons for signaling failures, and some may be preventable before they occur. Railway companies have started emphasizing this even more because so many new technologies and devices have appeared that contribute to convenient monitoring and preventive maintenance of the signaling equipment. However, developing a robust post-failure response strategy is also critical. By focusing on these two key points, Great Britain railways reduced signaling failures by nearly 10% in five years. However, there is still room for improvement. In this spirit, PSA shares their expertise on how to minimize signaling failures of the existing system, as well as what you need to pay attention to when designing new signaling systems.

railwayage.com

WHAT CAN GO WRONG? Safety, as always, remains the top priority when choosing any rail solution.

Concerning the rail signaling system, this holds especially true because the latter is responsible for preventing train collisions. The system doesn’t allow a train to move into a section when another train is there. For the signaling system to properly perform its functions, it is critical to configure the following subsystems: Something can go wrong in every subsystem, and the longer the device functions, the higher the risk of its failure. However, these subsystems are

TECH FOCUS – C&S designed to be fail-safe to eliminate the possibility of harm to other equipment, the environment, or to people. In case of some equipment failure, the signal changes to a prohibitory traffic sign, showing the track section as occupied, which forbids the train driver from moving forward. Failures associated with the appearance of a false prohibition sign of the auto-blocking traffic light are usually indicated as failures when the system has left the safe state. False failures are referred to as false traffic signal failures in the signaling or train control system, and activation failures in rail and highway crossing warning systems.

These failures are extremely dangerous as the system continues to operate in unsafe conditions.

When choosing rail solutions for the design of a railway station, it is necessary to consider how they can minimize the risks of signaling failure. Below, we’ve described the most common reasons for failures and ways of avoiding them.

TRACK CIRCUIT FAILURE When the track circuit fails, the signaller can’t identify if the track section is clear or not. Most often, the cause of the failure of this mechanism is adverse weather conditions, such as rain, snow, and flooding. As a result, the track circuit can suffer from corrosion, as well as from other types of rail contamination, that may lead to short circuits.

So, the main idea behind track circuit protection is safeguarding against the entrance of foreign substances.

The track circuits can be protected from ice and garbage using isolation, protectors, and electric heating systems. The cause of some issues, such as frequency drift, can fast-track circuit component aging. In this case, it might be worth considering upgrading the equipment on all lines, such as using molded tail cables to improve their performance. Each company evaluates its resources and business goals before innovating or simply changing equipment. But when deciding to upgrade the signaling, you need to choose a reliable development partner. The beauty of outsourcing is that it enables you May 2022 // Railway Age 27

TECH FOCUS – C&S

Figure 1. Examples of Patterns and Areas of Volatility in Digitalization.

to hire the best signaling engineers globally with the right education and experience. The right specialists will be able to analyze your specific equipment quickly then design individual rail solutions.

RAILROAD SWITCH FAILURE The railroad switch is operated remotely and is manually engaged in case of failure.

It can be fixed in a single position to allow

From the industry’s first in-track mobile welder in 1972 to a fleet of nearly 200 today

the train to move further. However, like track circuits, track railroad switches might fail to function properly due to ice or debris. An insulation system combined with protective covers is sufficient to avoid such failures. Railroad switches can also expand in size at high temperatures. Painting the track in white can prevent expansion and help to decrease their temperature by almost 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

AXLE COUNTERS FAILURE Axle counters can also suffer from heat or power supply failure. The train can’t be detected on the track section when this happens. It is critical to install a reliable power supply to avoid this. The most reliable solution, especially for new systems, is to install uninterruptible power supplies, which can replace aging cables, too.

Flash-Butt Welding

We engineer and manufacture the equipment we operate, so our customers can rely on us to have the right equipment and teams to provide a quality flash-butt welding solution every time. hollandco.com #HollandRail 28 Railway Age // May 2022

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SIEMENS MOBILITY

Built for excellence.

Built with pride.

We’re invested in the potential of America. Rail infrastructure investment is critical, for jobs, for the economy, and for the environment. While the products we create transform today, it is the ingenuity of the American worker that is redefining tomorrow in communities across the country. usa.siemens.com/builtwithpride

TECH FOCUS – C&S

Designing a smarter air dryer required

listening

more closely to our customers.

NYAB’s innovative DrySupply Smart Max LD-1000® Air Dryer features a unique, 3-stage pre-filtration system unmatched in eliminating moisture, oil, and air-borne contaminants from your train’s air supply system. Pre-filtration extends the desiccant life and thereby supports a 10-year overhaul schedule and an extremely low Life Cycle Cost (LCC).

Operationally, eliminating oil and moisture from the train’s air supply system helps prevent freeze-ups that can plague cold-weather operations and protects the brake control equipment from contaminants that can degrade brake performance and reduce reliability.

Innovation like this is possible when you passionately listen and respond to your customers. In this case yielding a dryer design that provides our customers with the dependability and reliable service they expect.

To learn more or schedule a consultation, call Jason Nicol at 315.786.5220 or email jason.nicol@nyab.com

E₂O : Engineered to Outperform

315.786.5200 | www.nyab.com 30 Railway Age // May 2022

OTHER COMMON CAUSES Sometimes signal lights fail. Not a big deal, right? While it’s easy to find the problem and replace the light bulb, switching to LED will reduce the frequency of changes and improve performance. When planning the station design, we recommend including LED lamps.

Another unpleasant case is the theft of signaling, telecoms, and power cables that can be scrapped afterward. Here we can advise improving the security system on the railway, for example, by installing surveillance cameras or special sensors that will report the presence of an intruder.

PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE As noted earlier, in most cases, the ultimate reason for signaling failures is the human factor.

Signaling equipment suffers when it’s not carefully and regularly maintained.

Rail contaminations are becoming more and more critical, and it’s leading to signaling failures. Therefore, when designing signaling systems, use materials more resistant to external factors to reduce the need for human participation. Often, human error leads to the most catastrophic failures, which can have tragic consequences. So, it’s not enough to just have a diagnostic system of signaling mechanisms that can flag the issue when it appears. There is a clear need to prevent such cases by continually monitoring the system status to identify possible failure before it happens.

Thanks to modern technologies, the influence of the human factor is being reduced. For instance, the Internet of Things solutions can collect both discrete and continuous data from signaling equipment and analyze it to identify issues.

Thus, you can determine the technical condition of the equipment, a place, and causes of a malfunction, forecasting the technical condition of the equipment. It will help:

• To reduce the number of failures by fixing them at the inception stage.

• To automate the control and maintenance of the signaling equipment’s quality.

• To reduce the time required to find the equipment’s malfunction and restore the working state of the signaling equipment.

Modern microprocessor signaling systems are equipped with built-in self-diagnostic tools. But such systems do not always allow to prevent equipment failure, only alert about the existence of the corresponding defect.

Depending on the type of signaling equipment, you can either expand the built-in diagnostic functionality by adding new modules or equipping the system with additional sensors. By doing this, it would be possible to ensure continuous monitoring of all the critical parameters, such as current power consumption, voltages in track circuits, insulation resistance of cable cores, time of the points shifting, signal phases, etc. For example, you’ll be able to notice a decrease in the current power consumption that might lead to LEDs failures. By tracking the increase in power consumption, you might realize that there is some leakage current between wires, and so on.

When it comes to data analysis, it is possible to build up the new software and hardware and update the existing one, add new data processing functionality, control objects, make the required corrections in their functionality, and analyze emerging diagnostic situations. Don’t underestimate your existing signaling assets. Collected data can be sent to the workstations of various services. By having the correct organization of the distribution of diagnostic information, it is possible to improve the quality of their interaction.

in most cases, the ultimate reason for signaling failures is the human factor.

MONITORING Many track circuits and axle counters already have sensors for remote railwayage.com

monitoring. In Britain, for example, this number reaches 40%. The latest IoT sensors can simultaneously measure many parameters and even be powered by the energy from the train vibration while it’s running. In addition, the data is collected by the sensors and transmitted to the server for processing and analysis. This process can be automated using artificial intelligence algorithms instead of the need for specialists to analyze the collected data. Every minute, sensors collect a large amount of data from the entire railway line. AI technology can easily group similar data and identify new, previously missed patterns. More detailed information will help the company accurately predict when a particular mechanism may fail and, as a result, perform preventive maintenance proactively.

As well as sensors, drones can monitor the signaling equipment, trains, cars and infrastructure objects. Some applications, such as TerraDrone, allow the creation of 3D models based on shots taken by drones.

Using these tools is convenient when modeling the signaling system, the track, stations, and trains. Since the signaling system does not exist in isolation from other railway infrastructure facilities, this solution is convenient because it provides data from all the railway lines.

Implementing these solutions allows you to: • Organize continuous monitoring of the interlocking equipment status with an indication of deviations from the norms.

• Easily interface with microprocessorbased equipment; • Build new software.

• Perform quality control and maintenance on the equipment.

• Create the prerequisites for the transition to new methods of device maintenance.

If necessary, you can expand the system by adding special modules. One example is the automatic analysis of current oscillograms obtained during the translation of the station points to diagnose their condition. It may be necessary to provide different conditions for all of the rail infrastructure objects on a single line as they may be located a long distance from each other. Therefore, the complete railwayage.com

digitalization of railways would also help in the field of improving safety.

CONCLUSIONS Signaling failures often happen because of physical causes such as rail contamination, corrosion, heat, or flooding conditions. To minimize risks of their occurrence as well as expenses they cause, we advise: • To have a reliable on-premises team that can help to fix the issue immediately, and apply maintenance measures in due time.

• To consider IoT solutions for the railways, such as smart sensors, drones, and simulation software. Implementing the entire IoT ecosystem will help the company to analyze data and apply timely predictive maintenance.

• To consider modern protective materials while designing the railway station.

They will help reduce the incidence of contamination.

• When you have to upgrade equipment, design a new signaling system or station, contact a team of signaling engineers with a corresponding college degree and great experience in the rail industry. They will be able to suggest effective rail solutions that will suit your railway conditions.

If you correctly implement a strategy to improve the signaling system by taking into account advice from above at the design stage, you would minimize train and freight delays, and therefore reduce costs of railway operation. The best option is to implement continuous computer monitoring, as well as AI algorithms to be able to identify the problem before it occurs. Finally, digitization of the entire railway line is the most effective and optimal path.

Zach

Prystash

is

Business

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Manager, Rail Signaling at Professional Software Associates Inc. (PSA). Thriving at the junction of railway signaling and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) inside PSA, Zach specializes in building client solutions that bring together signaling technologies and overall business objectives. A liaison to PSA’s invaluable technical engineering team, he provides companies with expertise in the signal design of electrical interlockings, microprocessors and relay-processor systems.

May 2022 // Railway Age 31

RAILINC LOCOMOTIVE REPORT

ECONOMIC MIRROR 2021’s minor fleet size decrease reflects COVID-19’s economic impacts and excess locomotive supply due to utilization improvements surrounding PSR.

R

ailinc’s analysis of the North American locomotive fleet reveals that the size of the total fleet decreased slightly in 2021.

Detailed analysis reveals the following trends: 32 Railway Age // May 2022

• At the end of 2021, the locomotive fleet totaled 37,988, down 465 units from 2020.

• The average age increased 1.1 years, to 29.2 years, and the median age also increased 1.0 years, to 24.8 years. This was the twelfth consecutive year the average and median ages increased.

• Most new additions to the fleet since the mid-1990s have been six-axle locomotives with a horsepower rating of 4,000 or higher. Locomotives with alternating current traction motors (AC units), which perform well at hauling heavy loads, accounted for most new additions to the railwayage.com

William C. Vantuono

BY DAVID HUMPHREY, PH.D., SENIOR DATA SCIENTIST, RAILINC CORP., FOR RAILWAY AGE

RAILINC LOCOMOTIVE REPORT

Figure 1: North American Locomotive Fleet Counts At Year-End (Active Locomotives In Umler)

Figure 2: North American Locomotive Fleet Number Of Locomotives By Age (Active Locomotives In Umler)

fleet in the past decade. Finally, locomotives with the highest fuel capacity—more than 4,500 gallons—make up the largest percentage of the fleet.

When Railinc began reporting on locomotives in 2013, the size of the locomotive fleet was increasing each year. This paused in 2018, when the locomotive fleet decreased by three units and that decline continued in 2021— amounting to a –1.2% growth rate. Overall, in 2021, the number of locomotives decreased by 465 to 37,988 units. (See Figure 1).

Only five new locomotives joined the North American fleet in 2021, down from 77 the previous year (see Figure 2). It was the fifth consecutive year that the fleet added fewer than 500 new units. railwayage.com

Historically, the average age of the fleet and the number of locomotives added to the fleet mirror the economic environment. When the economy is strong—as in the mid-1990s and mid-2000s—and there are more railcars in service, the average age is lower and the fleet tends to grow. During periods of recession, fewer new locomotives join the fleet. The decrease in 2021 reflects both the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the excess supply of locomotives due to industry utilization improvements surrounding PSR (Precision Scheduled Railroading).

As new locomotives join the fleet each year, larger railroads move older units to less-demanding roles, sell them to regional

and short line railroads, or make them available to be rebuilt or refurbished.

A locomotive has a long service life and can be used in a variety of ways over that time. It can make long hauls during its first decades of service. Then, it can work on regional and short line railroads in middle age. Finally, it can perform lighter duty service—such as moving railcars in a yard—at 60 or 70 years old.

AC UNITS CONTINUE GROWTH DC traction locomotives make up 62% of the North American fleet, down 1% from the previous year. The share of AC traction locomotives has increased 12% since 2011 as more AC units join the fleet (see Figure 3).

Although DC diesel locomotives continue May 2022 // Railway Age 33

RAILINC LOCOMOTIVE REPORT

Figure 3: North American Locomotive Fleet AC Vs. DC Power By Year (Active Locomotives In Umler)

to account for nearly two-thirds of the North American fleet, AC locomotives have dominated among additions in the past 10 years.

Only five DC units were added in the past two years, and in the past six years, about

34 Railway Age // May 2022

96% of all new locomotives were AC units.

Locomotives with a horsepower rating of 4,000 or higher continue to make up the majority of the North American locomotive fleet. These locomotives comprised 56% of

the fleet in 2021 (see Figure 4).

Locomotives between 2,000 and 3,999 horsepower comprised 33% of the fleet in 2021, down from 39% in 2011.

The fleet continues to add lower-horsepower locomotives, though at generally decreasing rates. These lower-horsepower additions to the fleet are made up of rebuilt locomotives and new units used as switcher locomotives.

Locomotives with a horsepower rating of 4,000 or higher dominate among AC locomotives, which tend to be newer. Overall, there are close to two-thirds more DC locomotives in the North American fleet than AC units. However, DC units are more evenly distributed by horsepower rating—and locomotives with horsepower ratings of less than 4,000 make up the largest share.

Six-axle locomotives make up 68% of the North American locomotive fleet, the first time in a decade this share has remained stagnant. Six-axle locomotives distribute the weight of a locomotive to the rails across more wheels and deliver tractive effort through more wheels and traction motors.

railwayage.com

RAILINC LOCOMOTIVE REPORT Most six-axle locomotives were built in the past 30 years.

Locomotives with fuel capacity of more than 4,500 gallons make up 57% of the North American fleet. This share has grown in recent years, while the share of locomotives with fuel capacity between 3,500 and 4,500 gallons continues to decrease (down 6% since 2011). This is consistent with the recent trend of the fleet adding new highhorsepower, six-axle locomotives, which have larger fuel tanks.

ROAD UNITS AND SWITCHERS To distinguish locomotives used in road service from those used in switching service, Railinc has applied the following definitions: • A road unit is a locomotive with six axles and a horsepower rating of 2,500 or higher.

• A switcher is a locomotive with four axles and up to 2,500 horsepower.

Road units make up 67% of the North American locomotive fleet, while switchers

Figure 4: North American Locomotive Fleet Horsepower By Year (Active Locomotives In Umler)

account for about 23% of the population.

Locomotives with four axles and a horsepower rating higher than 2,500 make up 9% of the fleet. However, the industry shifted away from making this locomotive type in

the mid-1990s, and most additions of this type are refurbished units.

Railinc is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads. For more information, visit www. railinc.com.

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May 2022 // Railway Age 35

tech focus – M/W: m/w: grinding, milling, welding

STEEL SHAPERS Extending life for the industry’s foundation—steel rail—is a challenge for railroads and suppliers, as longer, heavier trains dominate.

ith freight and passenger railroad traffic returning to pre-pandemic levels, Railway Age asked rail grinding, milling and welding suppliers to address research and development as well as the market outlook for rail maintenance. What’s on the horizon?

“Smart” products that not only boost safety and sustainability, but also reduce track time, which is at a premium today.

HOLLAND LP Demand for rail welding is high across the board, EVP of Business Development Russ Gehl tells Railway Age. “This is partially due to lingering delays brought on by the pandemic on the transit and project side,” he says. “When it comes to maintenance welding, the labor squeeze that all industries are experiencing has caused a shortage 36 Railway Age // May 2022

of skilled thermite welders, making flashbutt welding more frequently requested. We have a very user-friendly control system and can train up quickly while keeping quality high due to automation and our existing teams’ expertise.”

Gehl points out that Holland can provide railroads the gang performance data they need to make decisions around scheduling, crew size and defect density management— all leading to increased productivity.

The company is currently working on rail installation, capital expansion, defect remediation and rail maintenance for Class I railroads. Additionally, its MobileWelders are at work on Florida’s Brightline, and it is providing welding service for Kansas City Street Car, Toronto Transit Commission and Amtrak, and gearing up for welding on Mexico’s Tren Maya.

Holland debuted the HAMR—Holland Automated Manganese Refurbishment—for

frogs and crossing diamonds a few years ago and continues to invest in the technology and process. On the flash-butt welding side, the company is improving its short plug welding method that addresses defect remediation, which has less waste, allows for a smaller gang, and is a quicker process overall, Gehl says.

LINSINGER (AUSTRIA) “We believe that rail milling will play a bigger role in the future than it does today in North America,” Senior Sales Manager Elvis Kozica says. “Energy prices are permanently rising, especially now, fired by the Ukraine crisis.

Therefore, we believe that there will be more transportation, public and freight, switched from road to rail to save costs and protect the environment. Due to higher frequency on rail, railways will need to adopt their maintenance strategies accordingly. … On busy networks, we see the growth of RCF (rolling railwayage.com

RailWorks Maintenance of Way

W

BY MARYBETH LUCZAK, EXECUTIVE EDITOR

tech focus – M/W: grinding, milling, welding contact fatigue) as well as head checks, which rail grinding is not able anymore to manage cost-effectively and sustainably, and this is where rail milling comes into play. This scenario is already present in Europe and Asia. With rail milling technology, customers are able to ‘reset the clock’ for replacing rail.”

Customers today are seeking plain line and switches and crossing rail milling work, Kozica tells Railway Age. Last year, Linsinger introduced its first rail maintenance machine with hydrogen zero-emission propulsion technology that will help “railways to achieve their carbon footprint goals,” he adds.

LORAM At Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc., “we are always looking to improve safety and find ways to make our machines ‘smarter’ to keep staff off the ground and out of harm’s way,” Product Manager-Rail Chris Lidberg tells Railway Age. Such machine automation, he says, also helps increase efficiency and reduce track time. For example, Loram’s Rail Pro Infinity software—introduced last year for use on the RG400 series grinding machines— “allows us, in essence, to have an infinite amount of patterns, so we remove the right amount of metal on a given rail segment,” Lidberg explains.

Looking ahead, the company is exploring battery and hydrogen power as part of its de-carbonization plan, and is optimistic about a boost in projects due to the recently signed Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. “IIJA will benefit the industry as a whole and in particular the Northeast

Corridor, as it will provide significant support for our customers,” Lidberg says.

thermite weld will last the life of the rail,” Manoleff says.

PANDROL Pandrol North America is working to bring welding from “the stone ages to the modern ages,” according to Dave Manoleff, Manager of ATW. One way to do this is to speed the thermite welding process—a customer request. “Currently it takes about an hour to do one from start to finish, and track time is a premium,” Manoleff says. “If we can develop something that’s a little bit quicker, safer and more user friendly, it’s a win for everyone.” For safety and ergonomic reasons, the company would like to have welders stand to do the work and not be on top of the rail, he says. Additionally, a product that is easier to use—especially with declining talent in the welding field— would be a benefit.

Currently in the U.S., railroads mainly use the company’s QP (Quick Preheat) plus CJ (Crucible One-Use) product.

While the welding projects have decreased as Class I railroads have installed continuous welded rail—which at 1,800foot lengths have fewer joints than traditional 40- to 50-foot rail sections—training is on the rise, says Manoleff, who started as a welder at a Class I. “Everybody is having trouble finding people,” he points out, and looking to suppliers like Pandrol for help.

“Track welding is a fairly simple process, but there’s a lot of steps to take to do it to make sure it lasts in the track,” he notes.

A thermite weld can last anywhere from one year up to 20 years in track, depending on traffic level, track subgrade and current rail life. “If all procedures are followed, a

PLASSER AMERICAN Despite rail grinding being a well-established and proven technology, rail degradation has accelerated “in many railway networks beyond the capabilities of grinding technology,” according to Richard Stock, Global Head of Rail Solutions.

“To prevent premature rail exchange, rail milling can provide regenerative rail maintenance solutions—creat[ing] an ‘as new’ rail condition by removing all defects and restoring the rail profile according to target profile,” he says. “But rail milling has application scenarios beyond regenerative maintenance. It is a spark- and dust-free process that is perfectly suited for application in tunnels, in stations, on bridges or elevated track; in fire sensitive/fire ban areas; and in general urban environments.”

Plasser, he says, is currently focusing on North American transit systems for milling, and will be offering services with the ROMILL Urban 3 E3 rail milling train—designed and built by Schweerbau International (SBI) and Robel in Germany— starting in third-quarter 2022. “This train was designed to fit into smallest tunnel clearance envelopes and to provide efficient and reliable rail milling technology tailored for the needs of urban networks,” Stock says.

Plasser customers are looking for more “eco friendly” equipment, Stock tells Railway Age. “Consequently, our milling machine includes a hybrid-drive system that allows for a total of three hours of pure electric battery operation. … To operate beyond [that], the machine is equipped with a Tier

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14:31:02 May 2022 22/04/2022 // Railway Age 37

tech focus – M/W: grinding, milling, welding

A thermite weld can last anywhere from one year up to 20 years in track, depending on traffic level, track subgrade and current rail life, according to Pandrol Manager of ATW Dave Manoleff.

4 final diesel engine range extender that also provides quick charging capability. Of course, the machine can also be recharged through an external power source.”

PROGRESS RAIL, A CATERPILLAR COMPANY Progress Rail operates two flash-butt welding plants in North America and

supplies mobile welding equipment to contractors, railroads and transit customers worldwide. “Demand for fixed-plant welding has been consistent so far in 2022,” the company reports. “The international requirement for flash-butt welding equipment has also been stable this year, with large railway expansion and rehabilitation projects contributing to demand.”

This includes All Terrain Mobile Welders (ATMW) and fully containerized welding systems equipped with de-stressing weldheads with integrated shears or the K1045 narrow head for welding turnouts.

“Working with strategic suppliers, Progress Rail has developed a narrow-head welder for our mobile units,” the company says. “This head can be used with extended boom trucks or ATMWs when welding turnouts and in tight confines. The Narrow-Head Flash Butt Welder is tall and narrow, requiring only 8.5 inches of clearance from the adjacent rail or fixed object. This allows for completing a flash-butt weld inside a turnout in transit areas, where flash-butt welds were

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tech focus – M/W: grinding, milling, welding impossible in the past, and even thermite welds were difficult. Progress Rail has also been rehabilitating several ATMWs that will support contractors working in Australia.”

On the R&D side, the company is exploring “automating historically manual processes related to flash-butt welding and increasing welder uptime by using remote diagnostics to optimize safety, quality and efficiency.”

RAILWORKS MAINTENANCE OF WAY RailWorks customers are looking for turnkey projects, says Vice President R.T. Swindall. “That’s one of the reasons we bought our flash-butt welding business so we could come in and do an entire project from start to finish. Flash-butt welding fits perfectly into our portfolio of service offerings as we look to continue strengthening our customer partnerships.”

Among the company’s current projects are maintenance grinding—including preand post-grinding inspections—and joint elimination for a large transit company and a freight railroad, respectively.

A growing number of request for proposals are for undercutting to improve the subgrade, Swindall adds. “Over the past five years, undercutting had slowed down, but more recently we’ve seen a 50%-75% increase for it as well as for our switch and crossing grinding operations,” he says.

VOSSLOH RAIL SERVICES NORTH AMERICA Customers are moving from a corrective to preventative maintenance approach to minimize life-cycle costs, according to Director of Operations Tobias Guenther. Vossloh Rail Services North America’s VTMcompact milling machine, for instance, “can preserve rails with deep cracks/defects or severe cross-profile changes, instead of having to replace them far too early and at significantly higher cost,” he says. “Removing up to 2 mm of material per pass with no fire or dust hazard at all, the machine is ideal for fire-restricted areas.”

Guenther tells Railway Age that the company’s high-speed grinding technology can eliminate rolling contact fatigue at an early stage at operating speeds of more than 40 mph—without closing or preparing the track, which is an advantage with track time tightening. Equipped with the railwayage.com

company’s newest “SMART technology,” it measures the longitudinal and cross profile and allows customers to plan maintenance and move toward a predictive maintenance approach, he says.

Since turnouts are “among our customers’ most expensive assets, Vossloh has brought the Flexis system to North America,” Guenther says. “Flexis combines

highly accurate measuring techniques with technically versatile hand-guided machines, which allows rail maintenance of complete turnouts and common crossing assemblies, including the frog and switch blade.

“In addition, Vossloh offers further measurement services to ensure that our customers are offered the tool that is best suited to their specific problems.”

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TIMEOUT FOR TECH Figure 1. A person trying to lift an object is a familiar example of a system at risk of failing. (Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)

UNDERSTANDING FAILURE RISK What methods can be used to quantify it?

W

BY GARY T. FRY, PH.D., P.E., VICE PRESIDENT, FRY TECHNICAL SERVICES, INC.

elcome to “Timeout for Tech with Gary T. Fry, Ph.D., P.E.” Each month, we examine a technology topic that professionals in the railway industry have asked to learn more about.

This month, we discuss risk of failure and methods we can use to quantify this risk.

Even after expending our best efforts, in most human endeavors, there is no such thing as “zero probability of failure.”

40 Railway Age // May 2022

Engineered systems are not exceptions to the rule. Consequently, assessing risk of failure is an essential part of planning, designing, building, operating and maintaining these systems. In particular, the concepts of capacity and demand and their relative magnitudes are the most important objectives to control, especially in the context of ensuring safety. We begin with a familiar example that illustrates the essential features of a typical risk of failure assessment problem.

Figure 1 (above) is a photograph of a person trying to lift a pumpkin. What is the risk that this effort will fail? To answer the question, we need to know this person’s maximal lifting capacity and the weight of the pumpkin. If the weight of the pumpkin exceeds the person’s maximal lifting capacity, we might reasonably conclude that there is a risk of failure approaching 100%.

Conversely, if the person’s maximal lifting capacity exceeds the weight of the pumpkin, we assess a risk of failure close to 0%. railwayage.com

TIMEOUT FOR TECH Let’s extend this analysis a little by considering two scenarios. First, imagine that one person, who happens to possess a lifting capacity of 25 pounds, enters a yard filled with 10,000 assorted pumpkins that vary in weight. Once inside the yard, he tries to lift one of the pumpkins selected at random. What is the risk of failure?

To perform this risk assessment, we need some data regarding the weights of pumpkins in the yard. Figure 2 (right) is a histogram representing the distribution of weights of the 10,000 pumpkins. All we need to do is determine the number of pumpkins that weigh more than 25 pounds (this person’s lifting capacity) and divide by the total number of pumpkins in the yard. In this case, it turns out that there are 472 pumpkins that weigh more than 25 pounds. The result of the calculation gives a risk of failure of 4.7%.

For the second scenario, imagine that a very large group of people, who possess varying lifting capacities, enters the yard.

A person selected at random tries to lift one of the pumpkins also selected at random.

What is the risk of failure?

This scenario is more complicated than the first, but it is closely related to the types of risk assessments we perform on engineered systems. The large group of people is analogous to a large population of similar engineered systems, such as railway wheels, that because of wear and tear possess varying capacity. The pumpkins are analogous to the varying demand placed on the population of systems, such as the amount and type of material that might be loaded into a railcar.

To continue with our risk assessment, we need more data. For example, Figure 3 (right) is a histogram representing the lifting capacity of 10,000 different people. Note that we now have data on 10,000 people and 10,000 pumpkins—one pumpkin for each person.

There are a few ways that we can proceed from here that are equally acceptable. Let’s focus on one approach. Select at random, from each of these two data sets, a person’s lifting capacity and a pumpkin weight.

Subtract the pumpkin weight from the lifting capacity. The resulting difference is a new data sample to be included in a new data set. Continue this process, without reusing any of the data, until no data pairs remain. railwayage.com

Figure 2. Histogram representing the weights of 10,000 pumpkins.

(Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)

Figure 3. Histogram representing the lifting capacities of 10,000 people—men and women. (Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)

Figure 4 (p. 42) is a histogram that represents a result from applying this algorithm.

The differences calculated between 10,000 random pairs resulted in 75 failures that are visible as red-shaded bars plotted left of zero on the horizontal axis. Hence the risk of failure is 0.75%. This process should be repeated, each time randomly selecting one element from each data set to create a random pairing. Each effort will provide a different estimate for risk of failure, and the set of those results will comprise a representative failure statistic. For example,

after 10 repetitions, the average risk of failure was 0.85%, which is a little larger than the single initial calculation of 0.75%.

The results are different each time because with each new analysis a given capacity might be paired with a different demand since the pairings are done at random. It is often desirable to perform the assessment this way, as we gain some additional insight into the variability present in the problem. Again, there are several ways to approach the problem; each has its merits.

From the previous example, we see that May 2022 // Railway Age 41

TIMEOUT FOR TECH

Figure 4. Histogram representing arithmetic differences between randomly selected pairs of lifting capacities and pumpkin weights. (Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)

To understand the risk of failure of an engineered system, it is necessary, at a minimum, to understand the statistical distributions of the system’s capacity and demand variables. Following that, to mitigate risk of failure, it is not enough to simply control and separate the average values of capacity and demand. It is also necessary to control the upper reaches of demand and the lower reaches of capacity.

The objectives are to establish by design and then maintain during operation, an “acceptably low” risk of system failure.

Defining an acceptably low risk of failure for a given system is usually very challenging, especially in situations involving life safety. Instinctively, we all want the risk to be zero. In theory, however, a nonzero probability of failure will always exist.

Dr. Fry is the Vice President of Fry Technical Services, Inc. (https://www.frytechservices.com/). He has 30 years of experience in research and consulting on the fatigue and fracture behavior of structural metals and weldments. His research results have been incorporated into international codes of practice used in the design of structural components and systems including structural welds, railway and highway bridges, and high-rise commercial buildings in seismic risk zones. He has extensive experience performing in situ testing of railway bridges under live loading of trains, including highspeed passenger trains and heavy-axle-load freight trains. His research, publications and consulting have advanced the state of the art in structural health monitoring and structural impairment detection.

Figure 5. Plot of functions representing the distributions of capacity and demand for an engineered system. (Courtesy of Gary T. Fry.)

an assessment of failure risk is a problem in statistics. And from the unique perspective of statistics, we can gain insight into the characteristics of a system that give rise to its risk of failing. From that insight, we can develop effective mitigation strategies that control the risk of failure.

Consider Figure 5 (above), which illustrates on a single plot an engineered system’s frequency distributions for capacity (blue curve) and demand (orange curve). We see that the average values of capacity and demand are well separated—by a factor of 42 Railway Age // May 2022

two. The average value for capacity is 150 tons and the average value for demand is 75 tons. Despite this appreciable separation of average values, however, we also see that the two curves overlap. Hence the magnitudes of some occurrences of demand can be expected to exceed the magnitudes of some occurrences of capacity, which will cause failure of the system. Applying the same algorithm used to solve the second scenario above, the probability of failure of the system represented in Figure 5 is roughly 5%.

Gary T. Fry railwayage.com

MxV mxv rail R&D

LO N G -TR AVE L

DRAFT SYSTEM IMPACT TESTING

TTCI

U

BY MITCH MILLER, SENIOR ENGINEER, AND ADAM KLOPP, PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR II, MXV RAIL (FORMERLY TTCI)

nder the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Strategic Research Initiatives (SRI) program, MxV Rail (formerly TTCI) is conducting research to characterize, evaluate and improve the performance of long-travel draft systems. Draft systems protect railcars as coupler forces are transmitted through a train by controlling relative motion between coupled cars and absorbing energy during impacts. These systems are typically evaluated using drop hammer tests or impact tests based on the AAR Manual of Standards and Recommended Practices (MSRP). These types of tests show how draft systems absorb energy in car-to-car impact events, and they can be used to derive draft system performance characteristics that can be used to model in-train operating scenarios. Four types of draft systems were evaluated under the SRI program: 1) a standard hydraulic, 15-inch, end-of-car railwayage.com

cushioning (EOCC) unit; 2) a 15-inch EOCC unit with active draft; 3) a friction draft gear; and 4) a non-hydraulic, long-travel unit.

EOCC units are a type of draft system that absorbs energy from applied coupler loads over a long displacement stroke. Due to their long displacement stroke, these units provide excellent impact protection for cars and lading in high-force, high-acceleration yard environments, but they can cause slack action issues during over-the-road (OTR) train operations.

In contrast with standard EOCC units, EOCC units with active draft have slightly reduced buff travel and provide additional draft protection from the neutral position to potentially improve in-train performance. Friction draft gears use a combination of spring and friction elements to both control the relative motion between cars and absorb energy. These gears do not provide the same level of impact protection as EOCC units, but, due in part to a shorter displacement stroke, these gears

typically provide better control of in-train forces and slack action during normal OTR operations. The non-hydraulic long-travel unit tested in this program provides improved energy absorption capacity over a standard draft gear using a shorter displacement stroke than a typical EOCC unit.

MxV Rail conducted impact tests according to the M-921B standard from the AAR’s MSRP. Figure 1 (p. 44) shows selected results from these impact tests. The impact results showed that the standard 15-inch EOCC unit provided the lowest forces and accelerations in the tests because it was able to absorb more energy over its long displacement stroke.

The 15-inch EOCC unit with active draft provided a similar level of impact protection as the standard EOCC unit despite a slightly decreased displacement stroke. The results of the friction draft gear impact test showed a decrease in impact performance compared with the EOCC units, including higher forces May 2022 // Railway Age 43

mxv rail R&D

Figure 1: Maximum coupler forces (left) and displacements (right) measured during impact tests.

and accelerations, due to its smaller displacement stroke and limited energy absorption capacity. The non-hydraulic long-travel unit provided more impact protection than the friction draft gear, and this system nearly met the M-921B impact performance for evaluating hydraulic EOCC units.

Impact and drop hammer tests are necessary

to evaluate the performance of draft systems because these tests show how draft systems absorb energy in car-to-car impact scenarios.

However, these tests do not provide much insight into how the systems will perform in OTR environments where train action issues can occur. To address this challenge, MxV Rail is using a combination of physical impact

tests and simulations to evaluate the energy management and slack control ability of different draft systems. Data from car-to-car impact tests are being used to develop the draft systems models that will be used to simulate challenging operating scenarios and provide a more complete picture of the draft system performance.

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HIGH PROFILE: Richard Andreski, a public transportation veteran with 23 years of experience and more than 10 years of executive leadership, has been selected as the next President and CEO of Trinity Metro, Fort Worth, Tex. He assumes his new post June 20. Trinity Metro, the regional public transportation system serving Tarrant County, Tex., operates buses, TEXRail, ACCESS paratransit, ZIPZONEs, Fort Worth Bike Sharing, vanpools and Trinity Railway Express (TRE). Andreski previously served as Bureau Chief for Public Transportation for the Connecticut Department of Transportation (ConnDOT) since 2015, where he oversaw public transportation in Connecticut and had an operating budget of $850 million and a team of 110 planners, engineers and rail and transit professionals. ConnDOT includes 22 transit providers that serve 80 million people annually. His responsibilities included CTfastrak BRT (bus rapid transit), and the MetroNorth/Amtrak New Haven Line, part of the Northeast Corridor, the nation’s busiest passenger rail line. He was accountable for capital programs to maintain and improve more than $5 billion in capital assets, including BRT and rail infrastructure, rail and bus fleets, bus depots and fare systems. From 1999 to 2015, Andreski held several positions at NJ Transit, starting as a bus service planner and moving up through the ranks to Manager of Capital Planning and Programs Support, Director of Operations Coordination and Policy, Rail Operations Chief of Staff and Director of Trans-Hudson Planning, a predecessor program of today’s Gateway Program.

I

ron Horse RR Investments, LLC (IHRR) is a recently created Florida LLC comprised of seven members, each with years of executive-level experience with financial institutions, management, marketing, accounting and railroad supply, and a combined 200-plus years of experience in the railroad industry.

“IHRR was established with a three-pillar investment strategy of acquiring, enhancing and managing the growth of maintenance-of-way as well as railcar and locomotive component shops nationwide, in addition to acquiring freight railcars for our fleet,” say principals John Cira, John Hilton, Jim Kellog, Bill Kiefer, Mike Powers, Rich Regan and Rick Turner. “We’ve begun identifying a diverse group of companies in each of the pillars, starting with our acquisition of Superior Sales and Service.”

Rick Turner serves as President of IHRR. He had a 27-year career in the rail services industry until retirement in December 2021. Since 1995, he served in executive roles with ABC Rail Services and Meridian Rail Services, and for the past 15 years was president of various Greenbrier Companies rail services subsidiaries. ABC Rail, which supplied railcar railwayage.com

components, was purchased by private equity in 2001. Turner served as CEO of Meridian, a freight car wheel and axle supplier, under two different private equity groups until the company was purchased in 2014 by Greenbrier, from which he retired in 2021.

Since 1980, Jim Kellog has held executive positions in the steel fabrication, vacuum furnac, and thermal processing industries. In 2006, he joined Rick Turner at Meridian Rail, where he served as Vice President of Strategic Development. In 2014, following Greenbrier’s acquisition of Meridian, Kellog and Turner became executives at Greenbrier Rail Services, where Kellog was Vice President of Operational Development. He retired from the freight railcar industry in 2020.

John Hilton retired as President of Standard Steel in June 2021. He started at Standard Steel out of college in 1979 and worked his way up through the organization in various roles including: shift foreman, sales representative, marketing manager, Vice President and then Senior Vice President of Sales, Engineering, Technical and Production Planning, and Executive Vice President. In 2016, he was promoted to President of Standard Steel.

Standard Steel, a $250 million manufacturing company, in business since 1795, is the only fully integrated supplier of forged railroad wheels and axles to the North America freight, passenger and locomotive markets.

Rich Regan has more than 40 years’ experience in the railroad industry. Since 1993, he has held executive positions with Conrail, CSX and Genesee & Wyoming.

At CSX, Regan managed an annual capex budget of $1 billion and more than 6,000 freight car and locomotive employees. At G&W, the world’s largest Class II and III railroad holding company, he was responsible for more than 25,000 freight cars and 1,200 locomotives on 120-plus railroads globally. Regan retired from G&W at the end of 2020 as Senior Vice President Mechanical.

Mike Powers is an attorney and serves as General Counsel and Secretary for IHRR. He was a litigator at a major law firm in Baltimore prior to starting a banking career in 1997. For the past 22 years, Powers served in various executive positions for bank-owned equipment/specialty finance subsidiaries. He served as General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer for SunTrust Bank (now Trust Bank), Capital One Bank, BankUnited and, most recently, City National Bank of Florida.

Tom Cira is a CPA and serves as Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for IHRR. He has spent 36 years in the banking industry, and for the past 22 years, served in various executive positions for bankowned equipment/specialty finance subsidiaries. He spent 12 years at Sun Trust Equipment Finance and Leasing, and for the past 10 years has been Managing Director at Bridge Capital Leasing/United Capital Business Lending and President at Bci Capital, respectively.

Rail supply community stalwart Bill Kiefer retired as President and CEO of A. Stucki Company, a major provider of engineered components, systems and services for the railroad industry and other markets, in March 2021. Kiefer founded Independent Draft Gear in Farrell, Pa., in 1997, selling reconditioned draft gears to Class I railroads and other railcar users. In 2002, Stucki acquired IDG, and in 2003 Kiefer became President and CEO. He orchestrated 11 acquisitions that expanded Stucki’s capabilities May 2022 // Railway Age 45

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46 Railway Age // May 2022

railwayage.com

Ad Index COMPANY AMTRAK CANADIAN PACIFIC CN

PHONE #

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800-USA-RAIL

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15

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C2 37

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.

AILWAY GE railwayage.com

May 2022 // Railway Age 47

Financial Edge

Unrehearsed, Unpolished, Inexperienced

S

ports journalists say they don’t root for teams; they root for stories. At “Financial Edge,” the circumstance is the same. There always needs to be something to write about. Nonetheless, at its heart, “Financial Edge” roots for the railroads. The North American rail system should be an unfailing anchor for the nation, for its survival, growth and economic stability. Unfortunately, Northern American rail continues to look like a first-time performer at “open mike” at the logistics theater: unrehearsed, unpolished and inexperienced.

Recent announcements by Union Pacific continue to shine the wrong kind of light on North American rail. This is a topic previously covered in this space. To set the table, a little rumination on AAR rule OT-57, “Rules Governing Registration of Private Cars,” which replaced OT-5 in 2020.

Succinctly, OT-57 is the loading authority granted to a private car by a carrying railroad. Generally, railroads do not deny the right to bring cars on line except for reasons of safety, mechanical factors or inadequate storage space. OT-57 allows the railroad to increase or decrease car supply on its lines; it is a bedrock of interchange rules.

Since the railroad controls (via OT-57) cars on line, it was surprising to see UP announce on April 11, 2022 that it has asked shippers to be prepared to reduce the number of cars on line to increase fluidity in the UP network. Specifically, UP noted, “We are now asking for your help to further reduce the number of active railcars on our network. We have already identified and notified those customers who can help us manage the current congestion by reducing their railcar inventories.”

OOOFFF! Industry veterans will point out that collaring traffic volumes is not new. Ask anyone who has shipped coal by rail: Railroad management of coal inventories and railcar utilization is strategically applied by all Class I railroads (UP included). It goes back at least to the 1970s, when railroads used reductions in “mine rating” to limit offtake based on resource availability.

The context and timing of UP‘s ask from its customers resonates like a sad trombone.

48 Railway Age // May 2022

To run it down: 1. On April 11, 2022, UP, which has granted customers the right to bring cars on line, asks to lay them down.

2. Ten days later, UP reports increased 1Q2022 revenues because UP “charged more.”

3. This most recent announcement of struggles with network fluidity follows a similar shutdown of UP’s service at west coast ports in July 2021.

4. In its year-end 2021 earnings presentation, UP acknowledged problems in network fluidity while mentioning it had brought on assets to help improve operations.

In the April note to customers, UP acknowledges difficulties in hiring. The Great Reshuffling (heir to the Great Resignation) has made hiring difficult for companies across all industries, so in April 2022, UP needed to do better. (For now, we can ignore UP highlighting pulling 150 locomotives into service in an operating fleet of more than 6,000.)

The unanswered questions for UP are, when will things get better and for how long will the collaring of traffic last? UP’s handling of this issue is a huge problem.

There is plenty of ink being spilled about North American rail’s need to pivot to growth. UP needs to demonstrate to all stakeholders that they are prepared to engage, and more important, succeed addressing and overcoming these problems.

UP’s letter, shadowed by the cheekily named “Marty Party,” looked like a cagily

staged public relations stunt to project an appearance of forward customer engagement before heading to the STB’s woodshed.

As Tony Hatch said at the recent NEARS conference, “Railroads need to learn to read the room.” This isn’t it.

Larger issue? UP is not giving its customers confidence in handling a crisis, and others are taking note. UBS and BOA have both downgraded UNP stock over concerns about growth. These concerns mixed with system fluidity problems that have lasted longer than a year project a hard road for UP. What could be worse is if the analyst community sees a reckoning ahead for all of the Class I railroads. “We’re not performing at expectation,” starts to sound like “Our house is not in order.” No matter how you slice it, it’s a bad look. When you say it twice, it starts to become a legacy.

Unfortunately, there is no need to “root for the story.” Instead, it feels like wristband day at the fair—the ride keeps running; no additional tickets necessary.

North American rail needs to solve that problem, right now.

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

DAVID NAHASS President Railroad Financial Corp. railwayage.com

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217 Railroad Operating Rules Updated 3-21-22.

218 Railroad Operating Practices - Blue Flag Rule Updated 3-21-22.

221 Rear End Marking Device-passenger, commuter/freight trains Updated 3-21-22.

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224 Reflectorization of Rail Freight Rolling Stock Updated 3-21-22.

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231 Safety Appliance Standards Updated 3-21-22.

232 Brake System Safety Standards Updated 3-21-22.

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