Railway Age September 2018 Digital Edition

September 2018

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

Unplugging CN Adding Capacity; Building Resiliency

VIRTUAL RAILROADING Moving beyond analog and digital

BATTERY LOCOMOTIVES railwayage.com

How they stack up againstAugust CNG, LNG 2017 // Railway Age 1

HOW MUCH LIFE DO YOUR TIES HAVE LEFT? ONLY GREX KNOWS FOR SURE. Now you can take the guesswork out of your tie maintenance programs. Using patented machine vision technologies, GREX is able to monitor the health of ties throughout their entire life cycle– from the day they’re created to the day they’re singled out for replacement. We can even mark them for removal and streamline the placement of new ties for your tie gangs.

Visit us at AREMA booth #203 to see what our technology can do for your railroad.

Auora Xiv Aurora Xiv utilizes patented backscatter x-ray technology to see inside of individual wood ties, allowing you to find hollow spots and other flaws visual inspections might miss

A

COMPANY

+1 512.869.1542 www.georgetownrail.com G

E

O

R

G

E

T

O

W

N

R

A

I

L

E

Q

U

I

P

M

E

N

T

C

O

M

P

A

N

Y

AILWAY GE

JUNE 2018 2018 SEPTEMBER

20 FEATURES

20

Class I Focus: CN

28

Alternative Fuel

32 38 40

Returning to growth mode

Can batteries measure up?

Train Control: Going Virtual Moving beyond analog and digital

TTCI: Flange-bearing frogs Improving crossing performance

Book Review: Railroader E. Hunter Harrison – the lean, mean streetfighter

DEPARTMENTS 4 6 7 42 42 42 44 46 46 47

Industry Indicators Industry Outlook Market People 100 Years Ago Meetings Products Classified Professional Directory Advertising Index

NEWS/COLUMNS 2 8 16 18 48

From the Editor Update Watching Washington Short Line Perspective Financial Edge

On the Cover: After retrenching, CN is upgrading its network.

Photo: William Beecher

Railway Age, USPS 449-130, is published monthly by the Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation, 55 Broad St., 26th Fl., New York, NY 10004. Tel. (212) 620-7200; FAX (212) 633-1863. Vol. 219, No. 9. 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© 2016 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: 212-2219195. 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, P.O. Box 3135 Northbrook, IL. 600653135, Or call toll free (800) 895-4389, or (402) 346-4740. Printed at Cummings Printing, Hooksett, N.H. ISSN 0033-8826 (print); 2161-511X (digital).

railwayage.com

September 2018 // Railway Age 1

FROM THE EDITOR

AILWAY GE Subscriptions: 800-895-4389

Why the Silence, Mr. Anderson?

F

rom my perspective as a trade journalist, one of the worst things any company CEO can do is stonewall the media. Spin is one thing—and I’ve seen plenty of it and after more than 26 years here am reasonably competent at recognizing it. But silence, refusing to have an honest, open discussion, a dialogue, whether in person, via phone or video chat or email, is undeniably disingenuous. Making an excuse that you’re “unavailable,” in this age of instant information and unlimited connectivity, doesn’t cut it, not by a long shot.

This is how Amtrak President and CEO Richard Anderson has chosen to deal with the trade press. It’s a complete reversal from what I and many of my colleagues experienced with chief executives like Wick Moorman (whose tenure was way too short), Joe Boardman, Dave Gunn, etc.

Anderson has instituted a lot of changes, in particular, ones that impact service, the “customer experience,” in today’s corporate-speak language. His actions have generated mostly hostility, some of which has been expressed in the Opinion section on Railway Age’s website, by folks with a lot of rail experience in their background.

The underlying question: What exactly are your intentions, Mr. Anderson?

Depending upon who’s expressing an opinion, Anderson is either (1) purposely and maliciously attempting to dismantle

Amtrak’s national network and get rid of all long-distance services, (2) simply following the letter of the law (PRIIA 2014), or (3) genuinely trying to create a new, more-viable business model based on short- to medium-distance “corridor” and state-supported services.

There’s only one person who can speak to the broader rail industry and tell those with legitimate questions what’s going on: Richard Anderson—and he ain’t talkin’.

We gave him an opportunity to discuss things in a friendly format: Our June Rail Insights conference. Both he and deputy Stephen Gardner refused, no explanation given except “they’re unavailable.” Yeah, right.

And it’s not just Railway Age that’s been stonewalled. Earlier this year, a producer at CBS’s vaunted 60 Minutes newsmagazine approached Anderson about participating in a report on passenger rail in the U.S. The producer was sent packing. 60 Minutes shelved the story. I’m not kidding.

Until Anderson decides to break his media silence, drop his guard, tell his side of the story and respond to his critics, he will be the subject of speculation and hostility—“just another airline executive who has no business running a passenger railroad,” as one observer put it to me.

So, what’s it going to be, Mr. Anderson?

You’ve got the ball. Will you run, pass or punt?

WILLIAM C. VANTUONO Editor-in-Chief

Railway Age, descended from the American Rail-Road Journal (1832) and the Western Railroad Gazette (1856) and published under its present name since 1876, is indexed by the Business Periodicals Index and the Engineering Index Service. Name registered in U.S. Patent Office and Trade Mark Office in Canada. Now indexed in ABI/Inform.

Change of address should reach us six weeks in advance of next issue date. Send both old and new addresses with address label to Subscription Department, Railway Age, PO Box 3135, Northbrook, IL 60062-2620, or call toll free (800) 895-4389, or (402) 346-4740. Post Office will not forward copies unless you provide extra postage.

Photocopy rights: Where necessary, permission is granted by the copyright owner for the libraries and others registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) to photocopy articles herein for the flat fee of $2.00 per copy of each article. Payment should be sent directly to CCC. Copying for other than personal or internal reference use without the express permission of Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp. is prohibited. Address requests for permission on bulk orders to the Circulation Director.

Railway Age welcomes the submission of unsolicited manuscripts and photographs. However, the publishers will not be responsible for safekeeping or return of such material.

Member of:

SBP 2 Railway Age // September 2018

Editorial and Executive Offices Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp.

55 Broad Street, 26th Fl. New York, NY 10004 212-620-7200; Fax: 212-633-1863 Website: www.railwayage.com ARTHUR J. McGINNIS, Jr. President and Chairman JONATHAN CHALON Publisher jchalon@sbpub.com WILLIAM C. VANTUONO Editor-in-Chief wvantuono@sbpub.com STUART CHIRLS Senior Editor schirls@sbpub.com Contributing Editors: Roy H. Blanchard, Jim Blaze, Alfred E. Fazio, Bruce E. Kelly, Ron Lindsey, Ryan McWilliams, David Nahass, Jason H. Seidl, David Thomas, John Thompson, Frank N. Wilner Art Director: Nicole Cassano Graphic Designer: Aleza Leinwand Corporate Production Director: Mary Conyers Digital Ad Operations Associate: Kevin Fuhrmann Production Director: Eduardo Castaner Marketing Director: Erica Hayes Conference Director: Michelle Zolkos Circulation Director: Maureen Cooney Western Offices 20 South Clark Street, Suite 1910, Chicago, IL 60603 312-683-0130; Fax: 312-683-0131 Engineering Editor: Mischa Wanek-Libman mischa@sbpub.com Assistant Editor: Kyra Senese ksenese@sbpub.com International Offices 46 Killigrew Street, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 3PP, United Kingdom Telephone: 011-44-1326-313945 Fax: 011-44-1326-211576 International Editors: David Briginshaw, db@railjournal.co.uk Keith Barrow, kb@railjournal.co.uk Kevin Smith, ks@railjournal.co.uk David Burroughs, dburroughs@railjournal.co.uk Customer Service: 800-895-4389 Reprints: PARS International Corp.

253 West 35th Street 7th Floor New York, NY 10001 212-221-9595; fax 212-221-9195 curt.ciesinski@parsintl.com

SIMMONS-BOARDMAN PUBLISHING CORPORATION

railwayage.com

Gulf Inland Logistics Park Âą1,230-Acre Rail-Served Development Opportunity

Sealed Bid Sale Offers Due: 11-16-2018

No asking price, sale price determined by offer through sealed bid process

Cushman & Wakefield of Texas, Inc. is pleased to offer for sale by sealed bid this strategic rail-served development opportunity in the Texas Gulf Coast Market, northeast of Houston. Project includes several user sales within the development, and is one of only four dual class-I rail-served industrial parks in the Houston MSA. Construction of First Phase infrastructure is scheduled to commence in November 2018.

Planned storage for over 2,000 railcars may be a significant driver for a purchaser. Experienced rail and project manager may be available.

For additional information, please request a confidentiality agreement and contact:

B. Kelley Parker III, SIOR - (713) 963 2896 Kelley.Parker@cushwake.com John F. Littman, SIOR - (713) 963 2862 John.Littman@cushwake.com Coe Parker, SIOR - (713) 963 2825 Coe.Parker@cushwake.com

Cushman & Wakefield of Texas, Inc. 1330 Post Oak Boulevard Suite 2700 Houston, TX 77056-3054

Industry Indicators Freight Highballs, But Watch For Signals Commodity shipments on Class I railroads in July continued to feed the engine driving growth across the U.S economy, as increased GDP topped 4% in the second quarter, likely to hold as the best quarter since 2014, with falling unemployment, and consumer spending that continues apace ahead of seemingly boundless consumer confidence. Grain, petroleum and motor vehicles were substantially ahead year-on-year.

But more recent data reveals housing starts in June had their first y-o-y decline of the year, and sales of new autos slipped to their slowest pace in nearly a year.

Railroad employment, Class I linehaul carriers, JULY 2018 (% change from JULY 2017)

TRAFFIC ORIGINATED CARLOADS

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity

Total employees: 147,426 % change from JULY 2017: -0.08%

Transportation (train and engine) 61,787 (2.81%)

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

Executives, Officials, and Staff Assistants 8,422 (-2.95%)

CANADIAN RAILROADS

Professional and Administrative 12,004 (-5.05%)

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Maintenance-of-Way and Structures 32,617 (-3.64%) Maintenance of Equipment and Stores 26,801 (-0.87%) Transportation (other than train & engine) 5,691 (-1.71%) Source: Surface Transportation Board

EMPLOYMENT A STEADY GREEN While changes in Class I jobs continue to appear drastic compared to year-ago figures in some categories, hiring throughout the national rail network has more than stabilized overall, dipping only by a miniscule 0.08%. Professional and Administrative took the largest hit in the current July-to-July period, followed by all the other categories except Transportation (train & engine), where employment grew by 2.81% from the prioryear month.

4 Railway Age // September 2018

FOUR WEEKS ENDING JULY 28, 2018

total carloads

Intermodal

JULY ’18

JULY’17

% CHANGE

94,092 2,928 38,375 22,747 127,747 45,451 334,699 4,356 13,961 23,929 25,185 17,651 38,979 15,133 56,250 99,928 15,833 32,978 15,294 22,777

82,026 2,723 35,750 22,124 122,098 35,790 344,012 4,398 13,016 22,854 25,777 17,820 34,607 13,581 50,970 98,147 18,750 31,228 15,046 22,368

14.7% 7.5% 7.3% 2.8% 4.6% 27.0% -2.7% -1.0% 7.3% 4.7% -2.3% -0.9% 12.6% 11.4% 10.4% 1.8% -15.6% 5.6% 1.6% 1.8%

1,048,293

1,013,085

3.5%

321,731

299,369

7.5%

1,370,024

1,312,454

4.4%

FOUR WEEKS ENDING JULY 28, 2018

MAJOR U.S. RAILROADS

by Commodity

JULY ’18

JULY’17

% CHANGE

98,325 1,009,817 1,108,142

79,238 957,122 1,036,360

24.1% 5.5% 6.9%

0 273,480 273,480

4,084 264,167 268,251

-100% 3.5% 1.9%

Trailers Containers

98,325 1,283,297

83,322 1,221,289

18.0% 5.1%

TOTAL COMBINED UNITS

2,381,622

2,304,611

5.9%

Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

CANADIAN RAILROADS Trailers Containers TOTAL UNITS

COMBINED U.S./CANADA RR

Source: Monthly Railroad Traffic, Association of American Railroads

railwayage.com

TOTAL U.S./CANADIAN CARLOADS, JULY 2018 VS. JULY 2017

1,370,024 JULY 2018

AILWAY GE

1,312,454 JULY 2017

Short Line And Regional Traffic Index CARLOADS

by Commodity

ORIGINATED JULY ’18

ORIGINATED JULY ’17

% CHANGE

50,799 22,457 31,861 10,353 25,063 6,499 10,189 3,102 20,102 10,508 1,989 2,287 19,296 14,462 47,639 10,896 85,132

45,557 25,985 28,785 10,421 25,297 6,513 9,520 2,985 16,397 10,031 1,925 2,039 17,452 12,905 44,106 9,900 83,705

11.5% -13.6% 10.7% -0.7% -0.9% 0.2% 7.0% 3.9% 22.6% 4.8% 3.3% 12.2% 10.6% 12.1% 8.0% 10.1% 1.7%

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

Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved.

average weekly U.S. Rail Carloads: all commodities (not seasonally adjusted) 280,000 2018

270,000 260,000

ARE YOU A RAILROAD OR SUPPLIER SEARCHING FOR JOB CANDIDATES?

250,000 2017

240,000

2016

230,000 220,000

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

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

railwayage.com

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

September 2018 // Railway Age 5 RA_JobBoard_1/3Vertical.indd 1

8/17/17 10:59 AM

Industry Outlook

CP: Got Grain? We’ll Move It Canadian Pacific moved 25.8 million metric tons (MMT) of western Canadian grain and grain products, soybeans and other non-regulated principal field crops during the 2017-2018 crop year and “stands ready to again safely and efficiently deliver during the 2018-19 crop year.”

CP’s 2017-18 figures were up 1% over the 2016-17 crop-year and 1% above its threeyear average. September 2017 was CP’s biggest-ever month for moving Canadian grain. “On balance, the past year was a success, achieved by working closely with and listening to customers and supplychain partners” CP said.

CP’s current estimate of the western Canadian crop size, based on Statistics Canada data, is 70.8 MMT (million metric tons). When adding potential carry-in into the 2018-19 crop year production, the total crop to move is estimated to be 83.4 MMT, 5% larger than the previous fiveyear average.

At the beginning of each crop year, there is limited visibility on the true size of the upcoming crop, “which is truly a moving target,” CP said. “For example, the 2017-18 crop was originally forecast at approximately 65 MMT, but was actually closer to 71 MMT—a variation of nearly 10%.”

6 Railway Age // September 2018

Based on current forecasts, CP’s operating team “plans to consistently spot 5,500 hopper cars for Canadian grain weekly through the fall, until the closure of the Port of Thunder Bay on the St. Lawrence Seaway.

When the seaway closes, CP plans to supply approximately 4,000 cars per week. CP sizes its operating plan carefully to match supplychain capacity, and our plan assumes the supply chain will run at or near capacity throughout the season.”

CP continues to invest in resources to accommodate growing demand. It is investing $500 million in new high-capacity grain hoppers from National Steel Car to replace the aging low-capacity Government of Canada fleet. The railroad continues development of 8,500-foot trains that will be able to haul up to 20% more than the current 7,000-foot consist, and up to 44% more with the new hoppers.

A power-on model, where locomotives stay at a grain elevator while a train is loaded, will be used at selected locations.

CP’s Dedicated Train Program (DTP) allows customers to lock-in unit trains for the entire crop year. Its Open Distribution Program (ODP) is segmented to fulfill the shipping needs of less-than-unit-train customers.

The Greenbrier Cos. Inc. and Watco Cos. LLC will discontinue their GBW Railcar Services (GBW) railcar repair joint venture, formed in 2014 by combining their shops into a nationwide network. The repair shops and employees at each location will return to management by their previous operators.

“The plan enables Greenbrier and Watco to better capitalize on current trends in North America’s railcar repair market, meeting demand for repair services within their respective business models,” Greenbrier said. “The venture was intended to address booming demand for tank cars in crude by rail service, including tank car retrofits.

That market never fully materialized.”

Through dissolution, the assets and employees of 12 shops return to Greenbrier and those of 14 return to Watco. Four Greenbrier mobile shops will be transferred to Watco. Greenbrier Rail Services Senior Vice President Wheels & Parts Rick Turner will manage the shops returned to Greenbrier. Turner has been in the railcar aftermarket business for nearly 25 years, with primary responsibility for Greenbrier’s 12 wheel shops and parts businesses.

“A wholly owned and smaller network of railcar repair shops strengthens Greenbrier’s integrated business model, in which new railcar design, engineering, manufacturing, sales and leasing is supported by aftermarket products and services,” Greenbrier said.

“Greenbrier owns a railcar lease fleet of more than 8,500 railcars and provides fleet management services to owners of more than 368,000 railcars. Railcars in the owned and managed fleets receive approximately 175,000 repair and maintenance hours per year. With its return to sole ownership of its former repair shops, Greenbrier is positioned to offer strategic access to railcar repair and maintenance services to Greenbrier’s customers.” railwayage.com

William Beecher

Greenbrier, Watco Dissolve GBW Railcar

Market Hyundai Rotem Vacates Philly Hyundai Rotem wrote the final chapter of an unhappy Philadelphia story when it closed its railcar plant late in July.

The company vacated its factory on Weccacoe Avenue in South Philadelphia, where it had been for 10 years and employed as many as 300 workers.

Starting in 2009, Hyundai built 120 Silverliner V EMU commuter cars for SEPTA, and later performed car refurbishments for the agency through 2016. The Silverliners were plagued by faulty welds requiring repairs, leading to operations problems for SEPTA. China’s CRRC Corp. recently won out over Hyundai for a $137.5 million SEPTA contract to build new bilevel cars.

NORTH AMERICA The Andersons Inc. on Aug. 1 signed a $2.2 million agreement to purchase FreightCar America Inc.’s Danville Railcar Facility, Danville, Ill. The company intends to turn the now-closed freight car manufacturing plant into a full-service freight and tank railcar repair shop. The 308,000-square-foot Danville facility, situated on a CSX Transportation main line, can store up to 400 railcars. From the facility, The Andersons Rail Group will provide a wide range of services, including railcar repair, painting, blasting, cleaning, tank car

railwayage.com

certification and scrapping. Danville will be the Rail Group’s 21st shop in the U.S., strategically located in the high-volume Midwest rail transportation corridor. The Andersons expects the repair shop to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Houston, Tex.-based Stewart & Stevenson Manufacturing Technologies, a Kirby Corp. company, has entered into an agreement with Eastern Lift Truck Co., Inc. of Maple Shade, N.J. naming Eastern Lift as the sole authorized dealership to market, sell and service Rail King® railcar movers within the Mid-Atlantic region.

Stewart & Stevenson manufactures five Rail King® models that feature side-mount or full-width cabs with dual direction controls, road wheels and rail wheels for easy mobility on tracks and roadways, a patented cushion coupler system, and an enclosed, insulated cab with 360-degree visibility for operator safety and efficiency. The three side-mount cab models offer tractive effort ratings of up to 46,550 pounds; the two full-width cab models offer tractive effort ratings of up to 49,250 pounds The G6, Rail King’s newest unit, provides up to 50,000 pounds of tractive effort.

worldwide The Greenbrier Companies, Inc. has entered the growing freight rail market in Turkey with a majority stake in railcar manufacturer Rayvag Vagon Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Rayvag). Greenbrier believes there are growing opportunities for private operators to access freight rail in Turkey, as the country “offers a key rail transportation connection between Asia and Europe,” and “transcontinental rail shipments through Turkey create a need for European rail standards, favoring Greenbrier’s leadership in design and manufacturing.” Greenbrier on Aug. 8 completed an agreement between Rayvag and Greenbrier’s European subsidiary, Greenbrier-AstraRail, to take an approximately 68% ownership stake in the Turkish company, a railcar manufacturer and provider of railcar repair and parts services based in Adana, Turkey.

Rayvag also provides maintenance services for railcars and manufactures trucks and spare parts for railcars in the region. Rayvag was founded in 2007 by Asim Suzen, who retains a 32% equity interest in the business.

Suzen continues to serve Rayvag as its Managing Director.

September 2018 // Railway Age 7

Update

Congress looks

to Ban Chinese railcars

T

he U.S. Senate and House of Representatives have each passed versions of a U.S. Department of Transportation 2019 appropria-

tions bill that would impose a one-year ban on new procurements of transit railcars or buses from companies owned or subsidized by the Chinese government (namely, CRRC, China Railway Rolling Stock Corp.), if the procurement uses any Federal Transit Administration formula or bus funding, according to an Aug. 1 Eno Center for Transportation report written by Jeff Davis, Senior Fellow and Editor of Eno Transportation Weekly.

“A modified version of an amendment by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) was adopted by voice vote as part of a bipartisan ‘manager’s package’ of 40-odd amendments to the fourbill ‘minibus’ appropriations measure for fiscal 2019 (H.R. 6147), which includes the annual Transportation-HUD appropriations bill,” Davis wrote. “The Senate language is a more refined and precise version of language that is already included in the version of the legislation reported in the House of Representatives (H.R. 6072).

Section 165 of the House bill prevents any fiscal 2019 FTA funding from being used to procure any rail or transit asset from an

8 Railway Age // September 2018

entity owned, directed or subsidized by a country that is not spelled out by name in the section but is clearly the People’s Republic of China.”

The Senate language “narrows and clarifies the House language significantly,” Davis said. “The Senate prohibition only applies to funding from the urbanized area formula (§5307), rural area formula (§5311), stateof-good-repair formula (§5337) and bus and bus facility grant (§5339) programs (formula and discretionary), not other FTA programs. Notably, this leaves open the possibility that Capital Investment Grant program (§5309) money for future newstarts, small-starts, or core capacity projects could be used for Chinese rolling stock or buses (If the Trump Administration ever agrees to sign any new funding agreements for such projects, that is).

“The Senate prohibition only applies to rolling stock (rail cars and buses), not any other kind of procurement. It ‘shall be applied in a manner consistent with the obligations of the United States under international agreements.’ (However, Annex 2 of the Government Procurement Agreement of the World Trade Organization specifically says in Note 5 (at the end) that the WTO rules ‘shall not apply to restrictions attached

New CRRC MBTA Orange Line car undergoing testing in China.

to Federal funds for mass transit and highway projects.’)

“The Senate prohibition only applies to contracts executed after the date of enactment of the Act (which is on pace for late September or early October), not to any contracts executed prior to the date of enactment. The House language appears to be retroactive. But the Senate prohibition also prevents the expansion of existing contracts executed prior to the date of enactment to include any more rolling stock vehicles or railcars than were in the contract already (including all options).”

It now appears to be a given that some

The Senate bill is a more-precise, refined version of the house bill.” railwayage.com

HIGH CAPACITY I PRECISION I RELIABILITY

Your partner for life The Plasser GRM3000T is a heavy-duty, high performance switch and production tamping machine. It is a multi-function tamping machine and has fully automatic track lifting, lining, and cross-leveling capabilities. The machine’s compact design and weight allow for flexibility when transporting with flat cars or road trucks. The machine is constructed for ease of operation and maintenance. The optional GRM2X Tamping Trailer is an integrated, independently working tamping trailer that can be connected to the GRM3000T via TampLink® to increase productivity levels.

Plasser American – Your partner for life.

® www.plasseramerican.com “Plasser & Theurer”, “Plasser” and “P&T” are internationally registered trademarks

Update Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) introduced an amendment to a transportation appropriations bill banning Chinese imports for one year.

version of the ban will be enacted into law in the final 2019 USDOT appropriations bill, since both the House and Senate language contain a ban on Chinese imports. The final language “will probably be closer to the Senate version, since the House language came out of nowhere and many of the changes in the Senate version reflect the input of USDOT, the U.S. Trade Representative, transit stakeholders and others on how to make the language work better,” Davis wrote.

Davis went on to link the proposed ban to activity within the U.S. freight car manufacturing sector. In his opinion, “The impetus behind this provision appears to come from the U.S. freight rail car manufacturers

10 Railway Age // September 2018

(Trinity, Greenbrier, etc.). They have seen how successful CRRC, Chinese state-owned rail company, has been at taking freight railcar market share in other countries, and want to head things off in the U.S. as early as possible. They have apparently decided that the best way to go about this is to prevent CRRC from establishing a beachhead in the U.S. in the transit railcar sector so CRRC can’t build large factories that could then be used to assemble Chinese-manufactured freight railcars as well. CRRC has indeed been building a foothold in the transit sector through its ability to drastically underbid other manufacturers, which may have something to do with the subsidies received from the Chinese government allowing them to

sell at below their (already low) cost.”

But CRRC, over the past four years, has indeed already “established a beachhead” in the U.S. transit railcar market, winning lowest-bidder contracts in Boston (MBTA, $567 million, a new plant in Springfield, Mass.); Chicago (CTA, $1.3 billion, a new plant in Chicago); Los Angeles (L.A. Metro, $647 million), and Philadelphia (SEPTA, $137 million).

Davis added that Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) was trying to stop the Cornyn amendment, as it could impact CRRC’s under-construction Chicago assembly plant. “But, in retrospect, Durbin’s fight was doomed from the beginning—most Democrats have spent decades arguing that Buy America requirements should be strengthened generally, and two of the Senate’s most prominent Democrats on the Buy America issue, Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) and Gary Peters (D-Mich.), were co-sponsors of the Cornyn amendment.

“Add to that the fact that legislators from both parties have been beating up the Trump Administration for months over its flip-flop on the potential national security threat posed by purchases of Chinese-made computer and telecommunications equipment from manufacturers like ZTE and Huawei (including anti-China language in the pending appropriations bill), and the fact that Congress [was to] send to the President a mammoth defense authorization bill that includes a requirement that the Secretary of Homeland Security study the national security implications of Chinesemade rolling stock in particular, and it was just too powerful to stop.”

railwayage.com

Update Lou Gambaccini, May 6, 1931 – Aug. 19, 2018 Louis J. Gambaccini, New Jersey Transit’s founding Chairman, died at his home in Skillman, N.J., on Aug. 19. He was 87.

Gambaccini “helped shape transportation policy and initiated innovative solutions for transit issues during a career that lasted more than five decades,” NJ Transit noted in a statement marking his death. “His long and distinguished career in transportation included tenure in senior management positions in transportation management at several key area agencies.”

In 1978, New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne selected Gambaccini to serve as Commissioner of Transportation, where he spearheaded the creation of NJ Transit. The agency was established on July 17, 1979.

Gambaccini served as Commissioner from 1978-81 and was NJT Board Chairman from 1979-81.

Gambaccini’s transportation career included the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) in Philadelphia, where he spent more than eight years as General Manager. Prior to SEPTA, he served 32 years with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with 20 years as Vice President and General Manager and other senior positions overseeing the Port Authority Trans-Hudson Corp.

(PATH) rapid transit system.

In 1997, Rutgers University recruited Gambaccini to administer the federally

railwayage.com

funded National Transit Institute at the university’s Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy. Gambaccini established the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center.

Gambaccini chaired a number of professional organizations, including The Transportation Research Board (TRB) Executive Committee, American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the former Tri-State Regional Planning Committee. In 1983, he founded and served as first chairman of the Council for Excellence in Government, a national advocacy organization.

Gambaccini received numerous awards and honors and was inducted into the APTA Hall of Fame and NJ Transit Hall of Fame. In 2011, the Louis J. Gambaccini Civic Engagement Series was established at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. Through the support of friends, colleagues and family, the Series honors Gambaccini’s “legacy in public service and his lifelong dedication to upholding the highest standards of civic responsibility.”

Gambaccini earned a bachelor of science degree from the University of Connecticut and a Master’s in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University.

Many of Gambaccini’s colleagues and

friends took note of his “tireless work ethic and reputation for inspiring others.”

“Lou Gambaccini set the standard of excellence in his extraordinarily productive tenure as New Jersey’s Commissioner of Transportation,’’ said Martin Robins, director emeritus of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University.

“He inspired a generation of public servants in the state’s transportation community.

Lou’s competence and integrity were essential in 1979 to his and Governor Brendan T. Byrne’s success in overcoming legislative reluctance to the creation of NJ Transit. His campaign on behalf of the 1979 Transportation Bond issue was a model in public education and engagement.’’

“Lou was the consummate professional in everything he did. He excelled in everything he did, and, most important of all, he was a nice man,” said former New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio.

September 2018 // Railway Age 11

Update

LA Metro, TSA Partner on High-Tech Security The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) have joined forces to deploy “a new advanced portable passenger screening technology that will help detect weapon and explosive device security threats.”

Metro said it is “the first surface transportation agency in the U.S. to purchase such an advanced, high-tech security device.”

Following a series of tests during the past year of TSA-vetted and approved security technologies, Metro has purchased several Thruvision TAC-TS4 portable terahertz

millimeter wave passenger screening devices.

The units can be placed at locations throughout the Metro system and are equipped with software that “quickly and unobtrusively” screens individuals for concealed threats.

The units can identify metallic and nonmetallic objects.

Thruvision’s technology was tested extensively by TSA. Metro tested it at its 7th Street/ Metro Center Station. The devices identify objects that block the naturally occurring waves produced by a person’s body. When an object is hidden in clothing or strapped to a person, these waves are blocked and detected by the system’s software. The software generates generic avatars and creates either a black spot on the area of the body where the item is concealed or overlays a color indicator. The technology does not emit radiation of any kind and no anatomical details are displayed.

The device allows law enforcement agents and Metro Security to screen rail and bus patrons without disrupting foot traffic and to take decisive, pre-emptive action if suspicious items are found.

New More Efficient 5hp HIGH/LOW

HAB SWITCH HEATERS More powerful 5hp blower improves switch clearance

5hp high pressure blower distributes hot air throughout the switch area High velocity, high volume air output keeps switch area open and operative in the most difficult applications User adjustable High/Low BTU output reduces fuel usage Variable timer based Hi/Lo flame control is adjustable for your application Snow detector, dispatcher or manual operation Provides the power to protect single or multi-track installations Maplewood, NJ 07040 Phone: (800) 21RAILS Email: gburwell@railsco.com Web: www.railsco.com

12 Railway Age // September 2018 RailCo_QuarterPage.indd 1

railwayage.com 12/21/15 2:11 PM

Update DOT-117Rs Spilled Crude in Iowa Accident: NTSB A June derailment that spilled crude oil in Iowa involved older tank cars retrofitted to newer safety standards, federal investigators found.

The preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board cited 10 of 33 derailed tanks cars bound for Houston in a BNSF train were breached in the June 22 incident at Doon, Iowa, spilling 230,000 gallons of Canadian crude oil and forcing a small-scale evacuation.

The derailed tanks cars were type DOT-117R, rebuilt from CPC-1232 cars, the NTSB said, by replacing the bottom outlet valve operating handle with a disengaging mechanism designed to prevent unintended opening in accidents. Each of the 29,000-gallon-capacity cars also was equipped with a jacket, insulation, and fullheight head shields.

The train carrying more than 2.4 million gallons of crude was being operated in a distributed power configuration with two

head-end locomotives, two head-end buffer cars, 98 tank cars, one rear-end buffer car, and one trailing distributed power locomotive.

The NTSB did not report a cause of the derailment: “The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) determined the train speed was about 48 mph when the train encountered the emergency brake application. A total of 10 tank cars were breached, releasing about 230,000 gallons of crude oil.

The area received five to seven inches of rain during the 48 hours prior to the accident, washing out track and flooding a tributary of the Little Rock River and farm fields adjacent to the derailment location.

“Released crude oil reached the Little Rock River and prompted the evacuation of 18 to 20 people. No injuries were reported. A unified command consisting of BNSF, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Iowa Department of Natural Resources, and Lyon County, Iowa, was established to mitigate and recover the released crude oil.”

ConocoPhillips Canada Marketing & Trading ULC originated the shipment from the Hardesty Terminal at Rosyth, Alberta, Canada, and its destination was the ConocoPhillips Company in Houston, Texas.

The report said ConocoPhillips classified the material as Hazard Class 3, Packing Group I (highest degree of danger).

Investigators completed the on-site work July 10. Additional investigative work to examine parts removed from one of the tank cars is planned at the NTSB laboratories in Washington, D.C.

Balfour Beatty provides railroad inspection and maintenance services • Trackbed inspection and condition-based work recommendations • Autonomous track geometry and rail profile measurement and defect reporting • Automated vision-based track inspection • Geospatial mapping of assets for planning, design, survey and inspection • Software tools for signal sighting, work site planning, clearance management and asset management, maintenance planning and optimization Visit us at booth 1326 at the AREMA Conference and Exposition Sept. 16-19 in Chicago, IL to learn more.

1845 Town Center Boulevard, Suite 200, Fleming Island, FL 32003 | www.balfourbeattyus.com

railwayage.com

September 2018 // Railway Age 13

Everything we do is From our control valve that preserves 85% of the brake force lost to brake cylinder leakage and keeps cars running longer; to our Electronic Brake Valve, that’s installed on over 95% of heavy-haul locomotives and sets the standard for reliability; to our train handling system that reduces fuel consumption by up to 16% and runs longer trains; to an air compressor that lasts 8 years without overhauls and uses no oil…

New York Air Brake has a proven track record of innovating train control solutions that help heavy-haul railroads run smarter, safer and more profitably.

Products (clockwise from top left): Oil-Free Compressor, LEADER® Train Handling System, Electronic Brake Valve / CCB II, DB-60 II™ Control Valve with BCM™

Engineered to Outperform.

To calculate our total value is to also account for countless intangible benefits we deliver to our customers. Whether it’s the responsiveness and knowledge of our field service experts. Speedy shipments and a vast inventory of the parts you need at our centrally located Kansas service center. Or the reliability and operational excellence of our precision manufacturing and lean logistics systems.

Looking to align your operation with a train control company that delivers industry-leading technology and support?

Talk to us. We’ll listen. 315.786.5200 or www.nyab.com

E₂O : Engineered to Outperform

Watching Washington

Amtrak Denied Precision Scheduling

I

f two congressional directives are not aptly labeled “Cheech and Chong Provisions,” why is their sum “420” and their consequence a seeming hallucinatory decade-long cavort through the federal court system whose clashing opinions have pinged and ponged as if a Super Mario arcade game?

Welcome to an interminable legal donnybrook—a hereditary emolument for involved attorneys—featuring Amtrak and freight railroads over whose privately owned track Amtrak trains operate with diminutive hint of scheduled precision.

The current fisticuffs began in 2008 upon enactment of the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act (PRIIA), whose Sections 207 and 213 aimed to improve an abysmal 42% on-time performance (OTP) for long-distance passenger trains.

Ten years later, Amtrak’s OTP remains dreadful, the PRIIA’s Sections 207 and 213 are on ice, anticipated new court actions could extend for years the status quo, and a legion of lawyers is eyeing 20-year pins.

Roots of this raw saga extend to 1970, when Amtrak was created to relieve privately owned railroads of an unfunded mandate to operate intercity passenger trains whose current-dollar $6 billion annual loss was an intolerable burden on stockholders and freight shippers.

The congressionally brokered deal gave Amtrak access to the freight rail network at a regulated fee the freights bemoan as woefully inadequate.

In 1973, with tribalism affecting Amtrak OTP, Congress ordered that freights

in 2008 the pRIIA aimed

to improve

42%

on-time performance

16 Railway Age // September 2018

provide undefined priority handling of passenger trains—a mandate freights allege inconveniences time-sensitive freight fully paying its way. In 2008, with Amtrak’s OTP perennially appalling amidst accusations of discriminatory dispatching, Congress pounced.

PRIIA Section 207 empowered Amtrak and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) jointly to establish minimum metrics and standards (M&S) to assess OTP of intercity passenger trains hosted by freight railroads. Section 213 allows the Surface Transportation Board (STB) to investigate poor Amtrak OTP and prescribe damages for delays attributable to host railroads.

When Amtrak and the FRA finalized M&S in 2010, freight railroads went to court, asserting that the transfer of regulatory power by Congress to a private entity—Amtrak, which competes with freight railroads for scarce track space— violated the Constitution’s “non-delegation” doctrine and its Due Process Clause.

Following lower court schisms, the Supreme Court answered the delegation of powers question by ruling that Amtrak, although created by Congress as a “for-profit corporation” (even though it has never turned a profit) is, for purposes of the PRIIA, an arm of the federal government.

On remand, a circuit court of appeals was left to decide the Due Process Clause issue—whether Amtrak’s self-interest in the outcome could be kept “in check” by a disinterested FRA. The court answered in the negative, because were there an “intractable disagreement” between Amtrak and the FRA in writing M&S, the PRIIA problematically provides for binding arbitration by an STB appointed arbitrator.

As binding arbitration would be a “final agency action” by an individual neither appointed by the President of the United States nor whose decisions are reviewable

by Presidentially nominated members of the STB, the court saw a violation of the Constitution’s Appointments Clause.

Although railroads argue there “is nothing in the [PRIIA] grant of regulatory power to Amtrak that can be salvaged,”

welcome to an interminable legal donnybrook involving OTP.” the appellate court, in a split decision, disagreed—ruling that the severing from the statute of the binding arbitration provision cures all remaining constitutional problems, as no M&S will go into effect without approval of a disinterested (in the outcome) FRA. In a dissent, Judge David S. Tatel said there remains a Due Process Clause violation as Amtrak is “an economically selfinterested actor,” and the FRA is not a disinterested party.

Railroads likely will mount another appeal, convinced that if the PRIIA sections stand, Amtrak, with assent from a politicized FRA, will have unconstitutional power to commandeer the assets of privately owned freight railroads.

Of note, the Senate voted 99-0 in July to instruct Amtrak’s inspector general to update OTP performance.

Also, a federal court struck down an attempt by the STB to promulgate its own version of M&S, ruling the STB acted beyond its statutory authority.

FRANK N. WILNER Contributing Editor

railwayage.com

Discover all the pieces it takes to make the world's most trusted components.

Packed deep inside every Miner railcar component are engineering know-how and innovative thinking 125 years in the making: A legacy of leadership, invention, disciplined manufacturing and quality controls. Every day we are innovating new ways to accelerate your business and keep you rolling for a million miles or more. Our dedicated sales, customer service and product development teams work in partnership with you to determine your needs and are inspired by the desire to exceed expectations. We want to make sure you get as much out of your critical components as we put into them.

Perfecting Railcar Performance

minerent.com

Perspective: Short Line & Regional

SLSI Adds Hazmat Instructor Training

T

he Short Line Safety Institute was formed in 2015 with the goal of assisting short line railroads with achieving an ever-higher level of safety. Funded by a Congressional grant managed by the Federal Railroad Administration, the SLSI initially was focused on railroads carrying hazardous materials. That target was expanded to all short line railroads for the FY18 grant.

The SLSI is focused on safety culture, rather than compliance, and has hosted a variety of training sessions and Safety Culture Assessments at railroads, focused on the people side of the safety equation.

Does the company have a strong safety culture? That’s the question the SLSI is out to answer. To frame the question specifically, does staff at all levels prioritize safety over other operational pressures?

The SLSI has now conducted more than 50 Safety Culture Assessments on railroads across the country. From the analysis of all results, high-performance railroads engage in five key practices: Top management visibly supports safety: This may be illustrated by participation in Safety Briefings; putting safety first in such documents as mission and vision statements; hosting sessions with staff on a particular aspect of safety; and making business decisions that are consistently in line with safety.

Training is continuous: With changes in operations practices, staff changes, or new business being developed by the railroads, continuous training should be the practice.

Training can be delivered in a variety of

SAFETY has priority over dollars and cents

18 Railway Age // September 2018

formats, including face-to-face, webinars and conferences.

Employees are empowered to act safely: They have training and support from management to act when they become aware of something that may have a negative effect on safety. This can take the form of a reporting structure for escalating safety concerns or a simple reminder to a fellow employee.

Employees feel empowered to self-manage and step in when they are concerned.

No safety shortcuts are allowed: Despite the daily challenges of operations, safety takes priority over dollars and cents under pressure. Top to bottom, all are committed to everyone working safely, and having a workplace that is free from accidents.

The Safety Culture Assessments have also provided valuable information regarding training and information gaps. For instance, many small railroads identified hazmat training as an area where additional resources would add value. Smaller railroads may not always have the manpower, or the expertise available, to develop new programs as their businesses change and grow.

In April, the SLSI announced launch of a new program for short lines and regionals: Hazardous Materials Instructor Training (HMIT). This program complements the training currently being offered by railroads to their employees. We are offering this at no charge to Class II and III railroads.

The first program was conducted in June at two locations along the Iowa Northern Railway Co. (IRC) in Waterloo and Manly, Iowa. The program trained 28 representatives from seven railroads and generated a lot of positive media attention.

“Providing solid training on hazardous materials movement is critical for the safety our communities, our customers and our employees. We were pleased to be able to host representatives from short lines around the region so that they could also take advantage of the training,” said Brad Sabin, Director of Hazmat, INRC. Participating short line railroads also included Iowa Interstate Railroad Ltd., Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway Co., Montana Railink, Inc., Progressive Rail Inc., Dakota & Iowa Railroad, and the Red River Valley & Western Railroad Co.

the program is cost-effective for class II and Class III railroads.”

The short line HMIT program will be deployed under a $500,000 Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) grant. The curriculum was designed with input from rail hazmat transportation subject matter experts with combined experience of more than 500 years.

Program implementation is cost-effective for small railroads as it is easy for a participant to share these materials with fellow employees. The program can be modified for a railroad to meet its unique needs.

The Short Line Safety Institute also launched an all-new website last month, www.shortlinesafety.org, providing resource materials and online training.

Since the launch, more than 100 railroads have signed up to receive information on webinars, resources and events, including the Safety Tip Tuesday program from the SLSI. In addition, railroads have requested HMIT sessions and information on Safety Culture Assessments for their railroads.

We look forward to serving the entire short line industry in some way, via Assessments, the HMIT program or a webinar. To schedule Hazmat Training or an Assessment, contact Michele Malski, Program Manager, SLSI, at (202)-567-2820.

Tom Murta Executive Director Short Line Safety Institute railwayage.com

CN

I

n 2016, when CN’s traffic volume dipped 5%, the railroad reacted according to the credo of “precision railroading.”

Long-term capital investment was curtailed, crew hiring stopped and existing track and rolling stock were worked to their limits.

Sure enough, the lean, mean management model introduced by the late Hunter Harrison (p. 40) kept the financial statements looking good as tight scheduling, 20 Railway Age // September 2018

short-staffing and hard-laboring locomotives wrung value from tiring assets.

Then, in 2017, with Harrison long gone— first to rival Canadian Pacific and then to struggling CSX—Harrison’s precision railroading playbook suddenly failed.

Railway Age’s twice-honored Railroader of the Year had risen from summer-job car knocker on Illinois Central to top brass on three Class I’s, in an era when the future of steel wheels on steel rails looked static or,

worse, in decline.

CN acquired Harrison with its 1998 takeover of Illinois Central, which realigned its network from a more-or-less horizontal east-west axis, to a T, with a long vertical stem reaching deeply south to the Gulf of Mexico. His gruff American manner somehow appealed to the demure Canadian ex-bureaucrats who had successfully weaned CN from government ownership to privatized public company. Then-CEO railwayage.com

David Duffin

Emerging From a Deep Freeze

CN

The lowest operating ratio among North America’s Big 7 left CN short of track, power and crews.

But brighter days are ahead.

By DAVID THOMAS, CANADIAN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Paul Tellier and his CFO Michael Sabia (now boss of Quebec’s powerhouse public pension fund and enthusiastic rail investor Caisse de dépôt et placement ) gave Harrison the job of chief operating officer, with a free hand to test and refine his precision railroading concept. Harrison ultimately succeeded Tellier in 2003 and firmly established CN as the industry’s efficiency leader by the time of his his first, premature retirement in 2010. railwayage.com

Precision railroading at CN survived Harrison’s re-emergence in 2012 to propagate his credo to rival Canadian Pacific and later, not so successfully, to CSX. Reverently referred to as the “model,” precision railroading survived two top leadership changes at CN, which continues to be its most fervent apostle.

CN describes precision railroading as ‘‘a business model that allows us to use fewer railcars and locomotives to ship

more freight in a tight, reliable and efficient operation.” In practice, that means running trains to schedule, longer trains with fewer personnel, and optimized asset utilization by reducing locomotive and car fleets, such as CN’s parking of 1,200 grain cars in May to temporarily remove excess capacity and increase network fluidity.

But even before Harrison’s death in December 2017, the model was coming unglued. Canada’s economy was booming.

September 2018 // Railway Age 21

OKONITE The Premier Manufacturer of Vital Circuit Signal Cables

For 140 years, Okonite had been the leader in the production and design of vital circuit signal cables. Signal cables are an essential component of the uncompromising safety, security and integrity of a railroad’s signal system and, therefore, must meet the highest performance and quality standards.

Over the years others have tried to match Okonite’s trusted reliability, but only Okonite signal cables can meet the most discriminating and essential test requirements — the tests of long-term and trouble-free time and service in railroad cable installations of all types.

Okonite’s dedicated commitment is to re-invest in our business, provide the highest and most advanced facilities, keeping us at the forefront in cable product and manufacturing superiority.

Only Okonite has demonstrated the expertise to provide concurrently the necessary response and capacity to effectively process high levels of cable requirements associated with other important railroad programs such as Positive Train Control.

Only Okonite — Proven Experience, Proven Reliability and Proven Quality and Service.

THE OKONITE COMPANY

Okonite Cables...A higher Standard!

102 Hilltop Road, Ramsey, NJ 07446 201.825.0300 Fax: 201.825.9026 www.okonite.com

CN

David Duffin

“We are at a new point in precision railroading, and we want to make sure we exploit the volume potential.”

Farmers, frackers and fellers demanded cars to ship their grain, sand and lumber, but none were available; precision railroading had effectively wrung operational slack and flexibility out of the network.

CN had lost two crude oil trains in 2015 to track defects in northern Ontario, and its hosting of VIA Rail’s Canadian was disastrous, sometimes forcing the stainless-steel, transcontinental passenger train to back up for miles along the main line, in order to find a passing siding.

The federal government demanded that CN fix its track; banks refused growers crop financing because much of the previous year’s harvest remained unsold in elevators, and oilfield services giant Halliburton complained that CN was hurting its business by failing to deliver fracking sand.

It was CN’s short-tenured CEO Luc Jobin who took the hit in March of this year for overzealous enforcement of precision railroading’s pennywise dictums. CN directors elevated marketing chief Jean-Jacques Ruest to acting CEO. In his first conference call with financial analysts July 24, the day his appointment was confirmed as permanent, the courtly Ruest announced impressive financial stats, but conceded that they were due largely to CN’s ability to increase rates because of its own lagging capacity.

“Unlike some of our peers, we do have strong demand, and some of that demand was definitely not met. We are in catchup mode and building resiliency for the winter,” said Ruest. railwayage.com

CN led Class I’s with a 58.2% operating ratio in 2018’s second quarter. However, that measure of success ignores the costs of revenue lost to excessive efficiency.

“We are in a phase where we have good operating costs, and now, for us to exploit the franchise, we need to deploy additional capacity from Chicago west,” Ruest said.

“We are at a new point in the evolution of precision railroading, and we want to make sure we exploit the volume potential.”

CN is determined to stick with the best of precision railroading’s efficiencies, but no longer at the cost of turning away longstanding customers. Other railroads suffering from self-inflicted service problems might take note of chief operating officer Mike Cory’s lament that the 2016 downturn spooked CN into investment anorexia.

“In the two years since, infrastructure had changed little, especially in the highgrowth areas of Western Canada and our Southern (U.S) region,” Cory acknowledged. “With the completion of our capacity projects in Q4, we will see the resiliency we have not had in the near past.”

It would have been worse, had CN pandered to investors who wanted the company to cut regular maintenance at the depth of the downturn. “We got caught with a lot of volume coming at us in 2017, and we are catching up on capacity, not basic maintenance,” said Chief Financial officer Ghislain Houle. “You’ll remember that in 2016, when volume was down 5%, some of you financial analysts wanted us to

reduce basic maintenance; but we didn’t do it, and that was a good decision.”

But, after swallowing precision railroading’s prescription for sloughing off reserve motive power and idle cars, and reducing crew recruitment and training, CN had to turn away business, Western crude oil in particular.

The first 16 of 200 new Evolution locomotives are expected imminently from GE Transportation’s Fort Worth plant—the biggest order of new motive power by any railroad since 2014. The balance of the order is to be delivered over the next two years. By then, CN hopes, it will have enough trained recruits to run them.

Confoundingly, the rush to replace retired and furloughed conductors has slowed some operations by increasing CN’s accident rate, particularly in yards where the new workers are first deployed. “These new employees have had an impact on our safety performance,” Cory conceded. Some 350 newly qualified conductors came on board in the second quarter, with another 900 recruits in training.

CN’s total 2018 capital budget is C$3.5 billion, including $2.1 billion on maintenance, and $400 million on PTC implementation for its U.S. trackage. Of CN’s $1 billion spending on new capacity, $400 million will be spent in its Western Region on double track and sidings.

“I am hoping to see most of Edmonton to Winnipeg double-tracked before I leave this earth,” said Winnipeg-born Cory. “It’s our major commodity bridge and has the September 2018 // Railway Age 23

SPEcial Advertising Section Greenbrier Sees An Opportunity In Turkey

Turkey, an intercontinental peninsula, has long been a critical link in the ancient Silk Road trade route connecting East and West, first on foot and, later, by rail.

Today, U.S. railcar builder and lessor The Greenbrier Companies sees Turkey much the same way as ancient tradespeople did – a place of fertile opportunity to establish connections and continue to expand its business throughout the world.

In August, Greenbrier completed an agreement between Rayvag of Turkey and Greenbrier Europe to take an ownership stake in the Turkish company, a railcar manufacturer and provider of repair and parts services based in the southern city of Adana.

Rayvag also provides maintenance services for railcars and manufactures bogies and spare parts for railcars in the region.

“We have been planning to enter the Turkish market for a few years and have gained a better understanding of possibilities and opportunities here,” says Jim Cowan, President, Greenbrier International.

He describes Rayvag as a long-term play, much the way Greenbrier did in Europe when it acquired Poland’s 24 Railway Age // September 2018

Wagony Świdnica two decades ago.

Today only about 5% of freight in Turkey moves by rail, but volume grew 10% to a record 28.5 million tons in 2017, indicating a tremendous upside for growth fueled by two-way trade with the European Union. Of the 20,000 freight railcars in the country, 15,979 are operated by

The market will demand greater innovation, with different and specialized car designs.

TCDD Tasimicilik, the state-owned railway, and 75% of that fleet is 20 years old or older. This indicates a substantial potential demand for new cars in the coming years.

Greenbrier sees synergies for an increasingly efficient Turkish rail network, consistent with Turkey’s Vision 2023 plan. “One of the

advantages of being an American company is that we operate in the most efficient rail market in the world,” says Cowan. “This gives us a tremendous opportunity to work with our global customers in new growth markets to introduce products and services that draw upon our decades of experiences and capabilities in the North American market.”

Greenbrier operates an integrated business model in North America that combines freight car manufacturing, wheel services, freight car repair, refurbishment, retrofitting, component parts, leasing and fleet management services.

“We see the same potential in Turkey – our goal is to introduce new products and services that will increase asset utilization resulting in increased tonnage transported, improved quality and lower life cycle costs.”

In Turkey, private ownership of freight cars has been on the rise, and one-third of traffic rides in private cars. Investment in rolling stock by private entities is expected to continue as Turkey’s rail liberalization measures take root.

The market will demand greater innovation, with different and specialized car designs due to continued economic expansion. Greenbrier has more than 100 unique car designs, with proven quality and reliability across its global manufacturing base.

It also offers an expanded suite of aftermarket solutions for repair and maintenance services, parts and components, and major refurbishments that position Greenbrier as a premier supplier of rail freight services through the entire life cycle of a car.

“Turkey sits at a critical junction between China, Central Asia and Europe,” Cowan says. “Its role as a bridge between East and West makes it an interesting location in which to do business.” railwayage.com

THE WORLD’S PREMIER INTEGRATED RAILWAY SUPPLIER

Integrated Railcar Solutions for all your transportation needs.

At Greenbrier, our business revolves around a proven system of tightly integrated services. Last year's merger with AstraRail has further increased our capabilities, providing customers with better service for the life of their wagons.

Our recent entry into Turkey with the acquisition of Rayvag opens Greenbrier to new markets, delivering expertly designed wagons to new customers.

FREIGHT RAIL WAGON MANUFACTURING

REPAIR, WHEELS & PARTS SERVICES

FULL-SERVICE TERM LEASING

FLEET MANAGEMENT SERVICES

www.gbrx.com marketing.info@gbrx.com

toughest weather of any Class I railway.

These are 100-year investments we are making through there.”

Of CN’s 800-mile Winnipeg-Edmonton main line, only the first 100 miles west of Winnipeg were ever double-tracked. “For some reason, in the 1970s, we stopped.

Every year we will go back and do some more,” Cory said.

Western Region This year’s double-tracking and yard expansions includes: • A dozen new tracks in Winnipeg’s Symington Yard, the primary hub for CN’s transcontinental traffic, including trains to and from Chicago.

• 10 miles of double track east of Melville, Sask., and expansion of Melville Yard.

• Seven miles of double track west of the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border.

• 11 miles of double track near the AlbertaSaskatchewan border.

• 1 2 miles of double track west of Edmonton.

• Seven miles of double track near Wainwright, east of Edmonton.

• Seven miles of double track near Tofield, east of Edmonton.

• 11 miles of double track near the AlbertaSaskatchewan border.

• Expansion of Walker, Scotford and Swan Landing yards in Alberta.

• 1 1 new or extended passing sidings between Prince Rupert, B.C., and Jasper, Alberta.

26 Railway Age // September 2018

•A siding extension north of Kamloops on CN’s Vancouver to Edmonton corridor.

Eastern Region There’s still nothing to revive the Newfie Bullet. Despite Canada’s promise to Newfoundland that it would keep its narrow-gauge railway running in perpetuity had the former British island colony chose to join Canada in a 1949 referendum, rail service in the province ended in 1988.

CNR’s last upgrade was the 1951 purchase of three narrow-gauge road diesel locomotives to replace steam on the premier passenger train, which scheduled 23 hours for the 900-miles run across the island.

Also, no new track is slated for the lowgrowth provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where CN’s last major railway construction was a causeway across the Straight of Canso to Cape Breton Island in 1954.

The only big capacity projects for the region are: •E xpansion of Brampton Intermodal Terminal near Toronto to serve CN’s growing refrigerated container service.

•A new passing siding east of Sioux Lookout (which should help The Canadian squirm past westbound freights).

Southern Region CN’s biggest spend on the U.S. spoke of its tri-coastal network is $400,000 to deploy

the PTC. If PTC does live up to its promise of permitting more trains with shorter headways, it will effectively increase CN’s track capacity without the addition of track.

Significantly, southbound crude-by-rail is at the bottom of CN’s capacity priorities, because the company anticipates that pipelines will eventually suck away demand. In the meantime, CN will slot CBR into situational surpluses of track time—but not at the expense of long-term business.

“If we are able to generate enough capacity on our network from Edmonton east and south, in a way that we do not short-change the grain, potash, lumber and all the other industries that use the network, then we will deploy incremental capacity to move more crude to the U.S.,” said Ruest. “As an industry, we need to be more nimble in using capacity windows when they open. We are looking at our long-term book of business to make sure that we satisfy demand, and we will move a quantity of crude based on how much capacity is left. We don’t want to take capacity from those who will be growing grain for the next 50 years, and put that in the short-term crude business.”

CN is acquiring new grain and lumber cars. With the national fleet of grain cars reaching end-of-life, CN is buying 1,000 new hoppers from National Steel Car. To mollify lumber producers, CN has ordered 350 NSC centerbeam cars. Even the lowly boxcar is back in style, with the railway adding 350 new 50-foot, plug-door models from Greenbrier for paper and metal products.

So, is this the end of precision railroading by its own progenitor, or just an extra notch of throttle on the spending side to recover lost opportunities?

“We are adapting our scheduled operating plan to meet the changing demand,” said COO Cory. This will ensure that our precision railroading model continues to lead the industry in operating ratio and service offering. We will show our precision railroading model works through high-volume growth as well as low-volume growth or decline. How we work is not going to change: Precision railroading is our gold standard.”

CEO Ruest concluded that CN and its precision railroading model are fit: “Demand is strong, pricing is good, morale is high, the team is energized and we are optimistic about the future.” railwayage.com

CN

CN

The Smart Rail Track by Vossloh.

The Smart Rail Track by Vossloh.

Digital technologies are key to maximising track availability and planning forward-looking maintenance. The ability to check the line at any time thanks to networked data capture in real time with innovative products, reliable materials and optimised maintenance concepts for every aspect of rail infrastructure. That’s what we mean by “The Smart Rail Track by Vossloh”.

Visit us at AREMA, September 16 – 19, Chicago, Booth 1426.

888-490-1799 info@vossloh-north-america.com www.vossloh-north-america.com

203x276_Stadtmotiv_US_RT&S_ MH Arema.indd 1

01.08.2018 14:38:14

alternative fuel fuel

Batteries as an

alternative fuel?

Battery technology is improving. Does it measure up to CNG and LNG? uel is one of the largest costs for railroads, and for that matter, for the entire logistics industry. Oil prices have now recovered to more than 250% of their recent trough (Feb 11, 2016 WTI spot price was $26.19/bbl), and are now approximately at the 10-year average (8/2008 to 7/2018 WTI average was $45.81/bbl).

As such, the cost of diesel is on the mind of many executives, prompting reconsideration of alternatives. Additional factors include the continued push for improved emissions (California Air Resources Board request letter for Tier 5 emissions dated

28 Railway Age // September 2018

April 2017), truck efficiency improvements (platooning and aerodynamics) and a continued shift toward natural gas (CNG mostly, but also LNG).

In addition to CNG and LNG, there are alcohols (methanol and ethanol), hydrogen—and batteries. The latter, through science and commercial breakthroughs, has made significant advancements in performance and step-change reductions in costs, as shown in Figure 1 (opposite, top).

Driven in part by science but mostly by the commercial success of electric vehicles, the improvement and paradigm-changing impact of battery performance is nothing short of astonishing. More recently, some

claims of the ability for battery-powered Class 8 trucks for hauling cargo have been announced with much hype, and that naturally leads many to question the possibility of applying batteries as the main source of energy for a locomotive. This is where the paradigm change still falls short.

Since road locomotives consume more than 90% of the diesel fuel in North American railroading, let’s focus on that application. A modern diesel-electric road locomotive carries on average 5,000 diesel gallons (about 180,000 kilowatt hours, KWH) of fuel, and refuels every few days in normal operation. Fueling time for diesel is less than 30 minutes. These constraints have railwayage.com

Norfolk Southern

F

By Pedro Santos, CEO and Founder, NEARSHORE

alternative fuel guided the development of AAR M-1004, Specifications for Fuel Tenders. We will evaluate the prospect of a battery tender using similar performance requirements.

First, let’s establish a level-set on the state-of-the art of battery technology. A battery pack contains multiple cells, frames to protect and contain the cells, interconnections among the cells, and a cooling system. Batteries can have many different chemistries that optimize for energy (KWH) and power (kilowatts, KW), among other factors such as cycle life, density, and cost. A view from national laboratories benchmarking different battery technologies can be seen in Figure 2 (below).

Even long-term projections of the capacity of the chemistry using Lithium-Sulfur projects a performance well below 500 Wh/L (energy density, or volumetric energy density, reflecting volume in liters) and 500 Wh/kg (specific energy, or gravimetric energy density, reflecting battery capacity in weight) of useful capacity. Let’s use a longterm performance target for a battery pack of 500 Wh/L and 500 Wh/kg at a cost of $50/ kwh, which is beyond the projections that can be observed in recent literature. This would be a battery that is 4x the gravimetric density and 2.5x the volumetric density of a Tesla Model S pack, at less than 30% of the cost, as shown in Figure 3 (p. 30).

Fuel tenders require a significant amount of protective structure to survive accidents.

Whether this is to prevent a natural gas spill or battery incident (“battery fire”), much of the weight in a tender is dedicated to protecting its contents. Among some of the more severe requirements is the ability to resist a penetration test whereby a 286K GRL (gross rail load) freight car traveling at 25 mph with an impact surface of one square foot hits the weakest point of a tender while the tender is sitting against an abutment. The success measure is prevention of any content spillage.

A tender that meets M-1004 specifications requires a minimum of 130,000 LBM (pound mass) of tare weight including the frame, trucks and housing. That leaves a useful content of about 156,000 LBM available for the batteries. Assuming a six-axle configuration, you would observe about 300,000 LBM available. Volumetrically, assuming a configuration similar to a tank car, about 34,500 gallons of water volume railwayage.com

are available.

Translating these gravimetric and volumetric limits into battery alternatives and disregarding other system needs (such as cooling, voltage step-up transforming and other power electronics), picture a battery tender that has similar performance to the fuel quantities in a typical M-1004 tender of 9,000 diesel gallon equivalents (DGEs). We adjust this by the fact that a battery system

Consider that battery performance will decline over time, leading to early replacement. incurs a fraction of the losses for utilization that chemical fuels do when processed through an engine, and we arrive at about 5,500 DGEs of energy required for a battery tender. As noted before, this energy content was about 200,000 KWH. The theoretical results of our hypothetical battery tenders are as follows:

Once you get past the sticker shock (for reference, an M-1004 natural gas tender costs just under $2 million), consider that the battery performance will decline over time, leading to a replacement in roughly 10 years or 1,000 full cycles, well beyond the expected lifetime of current battery systems. These tenders would supply two locomotives that in turn consume 200,000 to 350,000 gallons of diesel fuel each per year, leading to a battery replacement cost of $10 million over 10 years in order to replace 4-7 million gallons. This leads to a cost of $6-$17 million, at diesel prices of $1.42 to $2.50 per gallon. With a rough estimate of average savings in fuel cost of about $11.5 million, considering battery replacement costs alone, there are barely any savings, compared to diesel.

Disregarding the cost to distribute and haul a large number of tenders and assuming an unlikely scenario where the batteries never require replacement, some will argue that the savings of using electricity could make up for the investment in the long term. Consider that the cost of a DGE of CNG loaded into a tender is about $0.60/ DGE in practically all of North America.

This is the equivalent of $0.016/kwh of energy, and if adjusted for the efficiency of the conversion to electricity, still results in less than $0.045/KWH, well below the cost of average wholesale electricity to a utility, much less delivered to a tender. Thus, for Figure 1

Figure 2

September 2018 // Railway Age 29

alternative fuel Figure 3

batteries, you can add zero savings on fuel in comparison to CNG. Taking this further, a tender with 200,000 KWH (200 megawatt hours, MWH) of energy that needs to be fully recharged in 30 minutes would be the equivalent of 400 MW of power that needs to be transferred

into the battery system. Without going into the technical detail of the voltages and wire thicknesses required for this, consider that the largest charger in development for electric trucks is 2 MW, which needs to be increased 200 times in size. Also consider that the average powerplant in the U.S. for

grid electricity is smaller than 800 MW (i.e. you’ll need a grid-sized powerplant per every station that can charge a pair of battery tender consists for a single train).

This is an unlikely scenario.

Altogether, it seems like battery tenders are going to be difficult to justify commercially or technically. They make about as much sense as electrification of the entire nationwide freight railroad network.

Comparing the energy storage density of different fuels (and treating batteries as a fuel), Figure 4 (p. 31) shows why diesel, barring environmental and fuel cost, has become the de-facto standard.

For those arguing that battery tenders are environmentally sound and that mitigating the cost of CO2 emissions to the environment is worth the investment and costs, consider the fact that the average electricity unit in most states in the U.S. (with rare exceptions such as California) have a higher CO2 footprint than diesel fuel, mostly a result of coal consumption for producing grid electricity. In the short

PRIDE IN EVERYTHING WE DO. Over four decades of renting quality trucks, construction equipment, and hi-rail units

RENTAL SYSTEMS, INC. PHILADELPHIA 800.969.6200 | DENVER 800.713.2677 | DANELLA.COM/RENTALS 30 Railway Age // September 2018

railwayage.com

alternative fuel Figure 4

term, adding battery tenders will add to the railroad CO2 footprint.

Long-term abatement of the CO2 footprint can begin with natural gas, which produces 30% lower CO2 emissions than diesel when burned, and can eventually shift to a carbon mitigation/offset/sequestration scheme with a fraction of the savings received vs. implementing battery tenders.

Other alternatives for CO2 footprint neutralization include hydrogen, which is still a multiple of density and fraction of the cost of battery tenders.

In conclusion, road locomotive power will not likely be supplied from battery tenders. The enormous investment, impracticality of hauling too many tenders around, the high cost of maintenance and the lack of savings in fuel create a commercial barrier that is difficult to overcome. On the environmental side, there aren’t any clear benefits in the short term, and there are better alternatives for the long term.

There may be a few niche applications for batteries in yard and local operations,

railwayage.com

but battery-based tenders for road locomotives are a technology of the future and will be so beyond the foreseeable timeframes.

If you’re interested in saving money and improving your environmental footprint, consider that CNG will be in commercial demonstration by the end of this year.

Pedro Santos is CEO and Founder of Houston, Tex.-based NEARSHORE, a private equity-backed gas to power project development company focused on developments with proprietary technology and/or business models in Africa and the Caribbean.

September 2018 // Railway Age 31

train control

GOING VIRTUal What railroads need to move beyond existing analog and digital technologies.

ince the first quarter of the 20th century, U.S. freight railroad operations and infrastructure consisted of an extensive mixture of track circuits, control points, signals, pole lines, block operators, vital back office dispatching centers, wayside telephone, wireless voice networks, and various types of grade crossing protection. The railroads now have the opportunity to implement the advances in the core technologies required to operate railroads to make the transition from the analog and digital ages to the “virtual” era to pursue Virtual Railroading (VR), and shed a tremendous amount of infrastructure.

With the approaching 21st century, the transition from the analog to the digital world was under way with two of the four core technologies required for railroad operations: communications and positioning.

• Communications: The PTC mandate forced the major freight railroads to implement a wireless data network that was to that point only under serious consideration by a few Class I’s.

• Positioning: As with wireless data, GPS was forced on many railroads by the PTC mandate. However, the true value of this transition has yet to be understood by many railroad and supplier executives as to advancing asset management and operations efficiency.

The third core technology, IT processing, was introduced in the 1960s with back office mainframes complemented a decade or so later with distributed systems connected via telecommunications. Fortunately, when I was charged by CSX to design the first overlay PTC system (the basis for that being implemented to meet the federal mandate), the timing was right to introduce mobile processing via a locomotive-centric 32 Railway Age // September 2018

solution. This was done partially to eliminate concern over the questionable reliability of wireless data at that time to support office-centric PTC functionality as introduced earlier with BNSF’s ARES system.

The fourth core technology, IT architecture (systems/data flow), has yet to be advanced across the global rail industry.

The ideal shift required is from a silo-based IT architecture, where individual railroad departments have their isolated management systems, to that of an Enterprise IT Architecture (EITA). EITA eliminates the duplication in the generation, storage, processing, and distribution of critical data (as has been done by major passenger airlines). This will improve the efficiency and safety of rail operations.

My consultancy, Strategic Rail LLC (SR), designed the first generic EITA concept for the rail industry for Kazakhstan’s railroad, KTZ. EITA would be a major step forward for U.S. freight railroads, both individually and as an industry. However, it will require a serious amount of upper management insight and resources that isn’t readily apparent at U.S. freight railroads at this point. (For further detail, see “The Market for EITA,” Aug. 21, 2016, on www.strategicrailroading.com.)

NGTC The transition to VR includes and extends beyond Next Generation Train Control (NGTC) by encompassing traffic management, scheduled operations, asset management and train crew requirements.

Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) continues to be the NGTC in the U.S for other than freight railroads. CBTC is a train control platform that makes sense for urban passenger rail , but not for freight due to the extensive wayside infrastructure

required for a U.S. freight network exceeding 138,000 miles. Additionally, CBTC’s throughput capabilities of moving-block far exceed the requirements for most freight railroad operations.

Outside of the U.S., the European Train Control System (ETCS) designed for interoperability across participating European railroads is not appropriate for U.S. freight railroads due to the cost of the infrastructure. ETCS Level 2 is a proven system, whereas the most complex version of ETCS, Level 3, again moving-block, has yet to be successfully deployed.

For example, five years ago when SR was designing an advanced train control railwayage.com

Rio Tinto

S

By RON LINDSEY, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

train control

Rio Tinto’s autonomous-train control center in Australia.

system, Virtual CTC (VCTC), for KTZ, a major supplier had been contracted to implement ETCS-3 on a new cross-country corridor. It was obvious to SR, and subsequently to KTZ, that the railroad had been sold a “paper tiger” that misledit as to what actually existed. In fact, the supplier was apparently planning to use the installation as a test corridor to develop ETCS-3. The contract was cancelled.

Following a similar project SR performed for Egypt’s railroad, ENR, the design of VCTC for KTZ’s management was eyeopening for them. especially in light of the ETCS-3 failure. It only took two words on my part for KTZ’s Chief Engineer, who railwayage.com

spoke no English, to approve SR to proceed with designing VCTC: “Nyet balises.”

VCTC uses virtual positioning—the use of augmented GPS and possibly endof-train positioning (depending upon the complexity of the rail network) to determine occupancy as well as train integrity, thereby eliminating nearly all of the wayside infrastructure associated with ETCS-2 and CBTC. VCTC can operate in either fixed- or virtual-block mode. For broken rail detection, KTZ has the options to ignore it (as is true for several European railroads), downgrade its track circuits, and/or implement proven fiber-optic sensing technologies.

There are at least two known suppliers

of VCTC-type systems that are deployed in revenue service, but not in the U.S. The question at this point would be: “Why is VCTC not being pursued by the U.S. freight railroads if it can provide for reasonable throughput, incorporate PTC functionality, provide for train integrity, and be implemented with very little capital expenditure and nearly zero on-going maintenance, given its lack of wayside infrastructure? The answer is several-fold.

First, with little to no maintenance, rail labor is going to have a major issue, as it does for one-person crews and driverless operations. Second, traditional manufacturers don’t want to provide systems September 2018 // Railway Age 33

train control that greatly reduced revenue from capital expenditures and on-going maintenance.

Third, U.S. freight railroad technicians are not technologists that apply the business case for technological alternatives. Fourth, railroad upper management is not being presented, and/or don’t involve themselves, with designing a strategic technology plan in sync with a strategic marketing plan.

Scheduled Operations As proven by passenger airlines whose customers demand reliable schedules, operating to schedule minimizes the requirement for “slack resources” held in reserve to compensate for schedule disruptions . For railroads, those resources are locomotives, cars, crews and track time. Additionally, operating to a true schedule at the enterprise level that integrates management of primary assets with train schedules, as well as maintenance and marketing activities, optimizes the efficiency of those assets and personnel.

Establishing an enterprise-based schedule is extremely complex, and can change at least

monthly, as with the airlines that do so, having made the transition to EITA. Arguably, as difficult as the development of an enterprise schedule may be, the true test of management is maintaining the schedule without resorting to the normal practice of “crisis management” that again results in a much higher level of slack resources and less efficiency in asset and personnel management.

There are two perspectives of VR relative to maintaining schedules: intra-railroad, and inter-railroad. From an intra-railroad perspective, CSX’s shift to Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR) in 2017 was a brave and bold undertaking that had an abundance of difficulties at first. I can only speculate on the complexities of designing and committing to an actual schedule for the first time, and then with on-going commitment to maintain the schedule.

The VR opportunity here, regardless of the reliability of operating to schedule, is the deployment of what I call Proactive Traffic Management (PTM). Initially, PTM

was quite difficult to promote because it meant that a railroad would need a wireless data path to deliver GPS-based position and speed of trains to back-office traffic management platforms that could use mathematical models to advise the dispatcher as how to handle conflicts with train movements.

Norfolk Southern at that time did take that step of providing a wireless data path, with GE providing the back-office systems. The other Class I’s have not yet done the same with the availability of the PTC on-board platform that can deliver the data.

From an inter-railroad perspective, the challenge can be described as “How can a railroad’s schedule be effectively maintained if the roads with which it interchanges are not operating with the same level of schedule integrity?” It would be beneficial if each railroad’s management incentives were determined partially by interchange reliability. This is an industry discussion for which there is no strategic pursuit, yet alone actual planning at this point, to my knowledge. In sync with

Shaping Connected Mobility The world of mobility is experiencing revolutionary advancements. The driving force behind these modernizing technologies is the ever-increasing digitalization all around us.

At Siemens Mobility, we aspire to influence this revolution by being at the forefront to supply new forms of data-supported transportation planning and control. We are your partner that actively shares a passion to shape the world of intelligent mobility for a progressively efficient future.

usa.siemens.com/rail-automation

34 Railway Age // September 2018

railwayage.com

train control such a possibility is the development of an industry-based IT architecture for effective interchange data that is ideally linked with individual railroads’ EITAs. 2-1-0 Given the hype regarding driverless vehicles, it is seemingly logical to non-railroaders that the same can be applied to passenger as well as freight operators. That is true for the former, given the multitude of transit and passenger operations, as well as for the latter, as evidenced by Rio Tinto in Australia. But, those with a moderate knowledge of U.S freight railroad operations understand there are freight railroads that are closed systems not subjected to vehicular/ pedestrian traffic. However, the challenge with the majority of U.S. freight operations is that they interact with roughly 500,000 public and private crossings. The physics of stopping a freight train work against providing cost-effective grade crossing scenarios that vehicle drivers will respect and is not overly burdensome to train operations.

To get to driverless trains, U.S. freight railroads first have to be given the opportunity to go to one-person crews. FRA, in its mantra of “zero tolerance” for unsafe operations, has been unrealistic by proposing a rulemaking requiring a two-person crew.

In the early days of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) on PTC, the concept of “introducing no additional risk” was adopted. This meant that things could be done and/or eliminated, as long as there was no increase in risk. It remains the situation with one-person crews and PTC deployment. It eliminates the last, most critical issue of human errors relative to train operations.

For those seeking to identify some type of PTC business benefits, the move to oneperson crews is what PTC functionality can provide indirectly, as well as directly by eliminating traffic disruptions due to accidents. To be clear, PTC functionality provides no other business benefits, e.g., increased throughput. It can’t, because it has no role in efficient generation of movement authorities that determine throughput.

Rather, it is the PTC mandate itself that provides for an on-board intelligence and wireless data network, with timely updating of information to the back-office management systems—train position and speed— that can deliver business benefits.

As to driverless trains, regardless of the technologies developed and deployed, the issue is that of dealing with labor.

The bottom line is that VCTC can be the NGTC at a significant number of freight railroads. However, it will require upper management and suppliers to demand sound, financially responsible analyses of the use of technologies. This is not the responsibility of their technicians, but rather technologists that can make the business cases.

To pursue Virtual Railroading, I offer a one-day Executive Briefing and a two-day Management/Technologists Work Session designed for suppliers and railroads. These courses will qualify for continuance education credits for Professional Engineers in most states. A course brochure is available by request to comarch@aol.com.

GET THE INSIDE SCOOP ON & OFF THE TRACK

RAIL BRIEF

The Weekly RT&S Email Newsletter Subscribe at: www.rtands.com/RailBrief

September 2018 // Railway Age 35

railwayage.com RTS_RailBriefAd_QuarterPage_Final.indd 1

1/9/18 12:20 PM

R AILWAY AGE AND PARSONS PRESENT

GEN

TRAIN CONTROL

CBTC & PTC:

Tomorrow’s technology for today’s railways

OCTOBER 18 & 19, 2018

The International Conference on Next-Gen Train Control features in-depth technical sessions and comprehensive project updates on CBTC for rail transit, PTC for main line railways, and emerging technologies for both – all presented by leading experts from around the world.

Now in its third decade, it’s the rail industry’s single-most important gathering of communications and signaling professionals from around the globe.

LE MÉRIDIEN PHILADELPHIA Philadelphia, PA

AILWAY GE

SPONSORSHIPS & EXHIBITS Jonathan Chalon • (212) 620-7224 • jchalon@sbpub.com

PLATINUM SPONSOR

GOLD SPONSORS

SUPPORTING ORGANIZATIONS

ANDY BYFORD

TOM W. SCHNAUTZ

CHRIS MATTHEWS

SARA WOITEL

MTA New York City Transit

Norfolk Southern

BNSF Railway

Metrom Rail

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS • Artificial Intelligence • IoT, Big Data & Train Control • Ultra Wide Band Technology • Federal Railroad Administration Testing Requirements • Domestic and International CBTC Projects • Class I PTC Deployment • PTC “2.0”: Moving Toward Real Business Benefits • Interoperability Issues • “Greenfield” vs. “Brownfield” Implementation • Supplier Roundtable Agenda subject to change.

HOTEL BLOCK Book your room at Le Méridien Philadelphia by Sept. 26 for $269/night.

Call (215) 422-8200.

REGISTER TODAY

www.railwayage.com/nextgen

Class 1 Focus: CN TTCI

The Promise of

Flange-bearing Frogs

F

lange-bearing frog crossing diamonds were introduced into the freight railroad industry in the late 1990s. Through ongoing research, TTCI has learned much about performance limitations and means of improving performance by reducing dynamic loads. Research continues with an aim to further reducing the dynamic response of the flange-bearing diamond under loading, along with evaluating modifications to the entry/exit ramp geometry. The objective of this research is to help flange-bearing crossings perform more effectively in a dynamic environment while minimizing the maintenance required to 38 Railway Age // September 2018

keep them in a good state of repair.

Flange-bearing frog crossing diamond technology was developed as an alternative to conventional crossing diamonds for heavy axle load service. Flange-bearing frogs support wheels through the point of the frog on their flanges, typically using a raised flangeway floor. Conventional highangle frogs may leave the wheel unsupported across flangeways. This can result in high dynamic loads for all vehicles negotiating the frog.

TTCI established a section of track at its Pueblo, Colo., test facility for the primary focus of studying flange-bearing frog materials, track surface and component shapes.

This section of track (above) is located on the High Tonnage Loop (HTL) at the Facility for Accelerated Service Testing (FAST).

The HTL is used primarily for testing under heavy axle loads. The train used for testing purposes is made up of approximately 110 open-top aluminum gondola cars loaded to 315,000 pounds. This test train operates at 40 mph and accumulates more than 120 MGT annually. The HTL simulates the harsh environment of revenue service operations and provides a method for studying component and materials wear at an accelerated pace.

Work performed by TTCI investigated the relationships among dynamic wheel loads, railwayage.com

TTCI

By Benjamin D. Bakkum, P.E.; David D. Davis, P.E.; Duane Otter, Ph.D., P.E.; and Stephen Wilk, Ph.D.; Transportation Technology Center, Inc.

ttci

Figure 1: Running surface ramp shape relative to top-of-rail elevation

Improving the performance of this alternative to conventional crossing diamonds.

Figure 2: Cross-sectional profile of ramp with conformal groove (initial surface in red).

ramp rates and vehicle speed for heavyaxle-load freight equipment. Through a combination of modeling and field testing at FAST using the test panel, the following observations were made: • L ower slope angles generally reduce wear. Guidance on ramp rates to achieve dynamic performance levels was provided in Implementation Guidelines for Flange Bearing Frogs.

• R amps with a vertical curve design see lower initial wear rates compared to other designs.

• A vertical curve (Figure 1) provides a better transition at grade changes (i.e., the top of the ramps), which will reduce railwayage.com

variations in dynamic loading and wear in the frogs and tops of ramps. A vertical curve is currently used at lost grade changes in track. A four-foot-long vertical curve was evaluated in the current study.

The benefits of vertical curves increase with increased operating speed.

• Utilizing a conformal (to the wheel flanges) transverse profile for the ramps (Figure 2) decreases the initial wear rate substantially.

All of these improvements should lead to longer life cycles for flange-bearing diamond components, while also helping contribute to lower dynamic impacts at the diamond.

REFERENCES • David Davis, Xinggao Shu, Stephen Wilk, and William Zdinak. December 2017.

“Improved Ramp Designs for Flange Bearing Frog Crossing Diamonds.”

Technology Digest TD-17-038. Association of American Railroads/TTCI. • David Davis, Rafael Jimenez, and Semih Kalay. “Implementation Guidelines for Flange Bearing Frogs.” Technology Digest TD-11-018. AAR/TTCI. • David Davis, Rafael Jimenez, Duane Otter, and Huimin Wu. November 2016.

“Evaluation of Wheel-Rail Contact Stresses at Crossing Diamonds.” Technology Digest TD-16-054. AAR/TTCI. September 2018 // Railway Age 39

book review

EHH, A Lean, Mean Street Fighter

By Frank N. Wilner, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

I

f ever there were a human equivalent to liver and onions—hated or loved, but no in-between—it was the late Ewing Hunter Harrison III, a chief executive of four major North American railroads, personally synonymous with the term “Precision Scheduled Railroading,” and whose mention invokes often disquieting debate on theories of management and how best to deliver shareholder value in the short- and long-term.

Say “Hunter,” and contemporary railroaders know precisely of whom you

40 Railway Age // September 2018

speak—a most complex disrupter of the status quo, equally identifiable in his bold pinstriped suits and excessive displays of rock-star-like bling conceivably masking a personal insecurity or simply an extension of his childhood infatuation with sequinfestooned showman Elvis Presley.

In a new and engaging biography, entitled Railroader: The Unfiltered Genius and Controversy of Four-Time CEO Hunter Harrison, Canadian broadcast journalist Howard Green presents Harrison as an “unfiltered genius.” Beginning on page one,

there is validated a notion of Harrison as the embodiment of the Robert Louis Stevenson fictional character of dual personalities, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Former Canadian National (CN) chairman and Harrison overseer Paul Tellier years ago quipped to this reviewer, in more seriousness than frolic, that he struggled to keep Harrison separated from the railroad’s customers, chary of Harrison’s tendency to “bite them.” Harrison boasted to Green of once having angrily walked out of a negotiation with a shipper after telling the shipper he wouldn’t cut freight rates. “You’re not a customer anymore, so I don’t have time to fool with you,” Harrison claimed to have told the shipper before slamming the door behind him.

“Early on, Harrison developed the ability to use a powerful two-letter word: No,” writes Green. “He didn’t just use it with employees, but with customers, a counterintuitive approach in an industry that had always let the customer dictate railroad schedules.” Green writes that after Burlington Northern (BN) pasted stickers on office walls that “the customer is always right,” Harrison, then a vice president, ripped them down. “He’d come to the conclusion that if you said yes to everything the customer wanted, you wouldn’t make any money.”

Notwithstanding the bullying and boasting—perhaps because of it—Harrison is pronounced by Green as “an unsentimental efficiency wizard who’d risen to the top by lopping expenses, maximizing the use of assets, and creating enormous value for shareholders [by] making the trains run on time. Investors came first,” writes Green.

“For him, the game was capitalism, pure and simple.”

Indulgent investors—particularly hotmoney hedge funds with short-term financial objectives—so prized Harrison’s managerial talent that no personal compensation demand seemed too immense. Activist investors goaded the CSX board to place some $300 million on the come line—including some $150 million in direct compensation and stock options—to wrest Harrison out of retirement from CP and impose Precision Scheduled Railroading on CSX. Ignored was that train and engine workers in Harrison’s employ on CN had labeled the Tennessee native “the ugly American,” while epithets vocalized by many U.S.-based train railwayage.com

Book REview crews superintended by Harrison are mostly unprintable. In 2015, upon accepting from Railway Age his second Railroader of the Year award—this one at CP; the previous at CN—Harrison said employees “sometimes … need a kick in the ass.” Labor takes a reasonable position that while management is not a popularity contest, it shouldn’t be an unpopularity contest.

Customers of Harrison-run railroads assert a separate litany of grievances, primarily service-related, that they have marched with regularity before rail regulators.

No matter, because at the end of each fiscal quarter, managers dutifully report to shareholders, and few have done so with such aplomb as has Harrison. At Illinois Central (IC), CN and CP, he improved the profit margins from worst to among the best of Class I railroads. At CN, with no evidence of skimping on maintenance, Harrison shaved millions of dollars in costs. At CP, he handled more traffic while parking 600 locomotives, improving operating ratio from last place (77%) to second (61%) among Class I railroads.

In 2017, CSX wanted him, and wanted him badly, discounting his 73 years of age and predictions by skeptics that unlike IC, CN and CP, CSX’s spaghettilike network and greater diversity of traffic would be Harrison’s professional undoing. Yet upon his arrival, CSX stock seemed to levitate even as service unraveled, causing Harrison to pen an uncharacteristic apology to customers, although he placed blame on employees.

Nine months following his March 2017 arrival at CSX, Harrison died unexpectedly from a respiratory illness whose severity was kept under wraps—and the stock price impersonated a Bitcoin free fall. While Harrison’s preferred successor and Precision Scheduled Railroading devotee James M. Foote has righted the CSX ship—including decisions to reverse or retard some of Harrison’s initiatives—it may be years before accurate assessments are made of Harrison’s short tenure.

One need not spend scarce dollars on this book to learn of Harrison’s accomplishments, self-promotion and bank balances—all well documented on Railway Age’s website and in its print editions.

What Green delivers in “Railroader” is insight into Hunter the man, and his railwayage.com

paradox, beginning with an unhappy childhood in Memphis, acting out as a juvenile delinquent, chumming around for a short time with an older Elvis Presley, two failed attempts to earn a college degree, entry-level work as a carman-oiler, lower- and midlevel managerial assignments tinged with interpersonal conflict, a divorce and a year later remarriage to the same woman. “Lean, mean street fighter,” wrote a psychologist whose notes on Harrison were shared with his BN supervisor.

Self-actualization is a psychological theory that drives many human beings toward fulfillment of their highest needs.

Surely Harrison could have retired before moving from CN to CP, and he had no financial reason to scrap subsequent retirement from CP for employment at CSX. “Between CN, CP and IC, he tabulated that he was paid approximately $500 million,” writes Green. “Had he lived to see CSX play out the way he expected, there was the possibility of another few hundred million.”

Harrison used some of that purchasing power for another manner of bling—three horse farms and three homes, including “a main home” of 15,000-square feet that Green describes as having an “indoor and outdoor kitchen, cinema room, golf simulator, a putting green, a trophy room and a wine cellar.” Yet Harrison spent much of his time on and about the “high iron”—much like a railfan, but with the significant difference he was barking orders rather than snapping photos.

Observing that Harrison “had few close

friends,” Green quotes Harrison’s sister, Mary, that he had “no life,” that it was “nothing for him [at a family gathering] to spend hours pacing on a conference call …

[T]here’s no day off. There’s no vacation.

There’s no downtime.”

It is not a risky suggestion that what consumed Harrison as he confronted his own mortality was that there was a final missing piece at the apex of his needs hierarchy—effectuating a merger to create the first truly U.S. transcontinental railroad.

Surely, he possessed the ego, perhaps fueled by sharing initials with one of history’s most notable railroad barons—Edward H. Harriman. That Excalibur of railroading remains for another visionary.

For sure, Howard Green has written a Jim-dandy of a book.

Frank N. Wilner is author of six books, including Amtrak: Past, Present, Future; Understanding the Railway Labor Act; and Railroad Mergers: History, Analysis, Insight, all published by Simmons-Boardman Books. Wilner earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in economics and labor relations from Virginia Tech.

He has been AVP Policy for the AAR; a White House appointed chief of staff at the STB, and director of public relations for the UTU. He is a past president of the Association of Transportation Law Professionals. Wilner drafted the railroad section of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Change (Volumes I and II), which were policy blueprints for the two Reagan Administrations.

In 2017, CSX wanted Hunter Harrison, badly, discounting his 73 years of age.

Nine months later, he died, unexpectedly.

September 2018 // Railway Age 41

People / 100 years / Events OCTOBER 9, 2018

TOM MURTA

Western Railway Club

Short Line Safety Institute High profile: Thomas “Tom” Murta was appointed Executive Director of the Short Line Safety Institute. He replaces Ron Hynes, who left SLSI in June. Murta most recently served as Assistant Vice President of Safety and Operations Compliance for CSX Transportation. He held a variety of positions at CSX spanning his 24 years with the railroad, including positions responsible for safety and compliance, hazardous materials systems, environmental compliance and infrastructure. Prior to CSX, Murta spent six years with the Kentucky Department of Natural Resources. He holds a B.S. in Geology & Environmental Science from Morehead University, and a Masters in Public Administration from Kentucky State University. Murta is also the recipient of several industry awards. The SLSI is a non-profit corporation that conducts safety culture assessments and is the education training source for short line and regional railroads concerning safety culture.

T

he California High-Speed Rail Authority appointed Boris Lipkin Northern California Regional Director.

Walead Atiyeh has joined HNTB Corp.’s National Rail Systems group as a project manager. He is based in the firm’s Santa Ana office and currently supports the Crenshaw/LAX Transit Project for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

Rescar Companies has appointed railcar repair industry veteran J. Andrew (Andy) Schaffer as President-Plant Division. Schaffer will oversee operations for Rescar’s six full-service plants at Channelview, Longview and Orange, Texas; Savanna, Ill.; Dubois, Pa., and Gordon, Ga. The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association Short Line Safety Institute has named Sam Cotton as Senior Manager, Safety and

Operations, replacing Mike Long, who recently accepted a position with the Federal Railroad Administration.

The National Association of Railroad Trial Counsel installed David A. Damico, of Pittsburgh-based Burns White LLC, as President during its annual conference in Chicago.

Nathan Neblett has been named Chief Executive Officer of CTC, Inc., the communications and signal systems services subsidiary of Rio Grande Pacific Corp.

The Southern California Regional Rail Authority (Metrolink) has named Kimberly Yu as Chief Operating Officer.

Yu has served as Deputy COO for Planning and Project Delivery since she joined Metrolink in September 2015.

Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc. named Luke Olson Vice President Marketing and Sales.

100 years ago in railway age gazette September 1918

Conveyor Scheme for Handling New York City’s Package Freight The construction of three tunnels under the Hudson River between the railway terminals in Jersey City and Manhattan Island for vehicular traffic with provisions for two conveyors on each side of each tube to transport l.c.l. freight is the latest solution proposed for the package freight handling problem of New York City. A freight subway could be built on West Street, fitted with conveyors to handle package freight.

42 Railway Age // September 2018

Union League Club Chicago, Ill. http://www.westernrailwayclub.org/ railway-meetings.htm

OCTOBER 15, 2018

Professional Development Seminar – Introduction to Rail Dynamics University of Nevada, Las Vegas – Main Campus, Stan Fulton Building Las Vegas, Nev. https://www.unlv.edu/news-story/ symposium-railroad-infrastructurediagnosis-and-prognosis-and-seminarrail-dynamics

OCTOBER 16-17, 2018

Symposium on Railroad Infrastructure Diagnosis and Prognosis University of Nevada, Las Vegas – Main Campus - Stan Fulton Building https://www.unlv.edu/news-story/ symposium-railroad-infrastructurediagnosis-and-prognosis-andseminar-rail-dynamics

OCTOBER 16-17, 2018

Advanced Track Geometry Workshop Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum Chattanooga, Tenn. http://ctr.utk.edu/CTRrailcourses/ railclass.php?id=513&loc=1

OCTOBER 18-19, 2018

railway age/parsons NextGeneration Train Control Conference 2018 Le Méridien Philadelphia Philadelphia, Penn. https://www.railwayage.com/nextgen

NOVEMBER 13, 2018

Western Railway Club Union League Club Chicago, Ill. http://www.westernrailwayclub.org/ railway-meetings.htm railwayage.com

THE NEWS DESTINATION FOR THE RAIL INDUSTRY

New Website Featuring: Breaking News Daily

Thousands of articles covering the rail industry

Mobile-friendly

Responsive across devices

Optimized Navigation

Easier to explore related content

Improved Search

Enhanced search capabilities

Industry Opinion & Resources

Expert analysis from industry leaders and vital rail resources

AILWAY GE

www.railwayage.com

Products Grab Hold With Enduralock Fasteners

E

Motorola Solutions PTT Radio For mobile workers, the new WAVE Two-Way Radio TLK 100 is Motorola Solutions’ first nationwide push-to-talk (PTT) commercial device powered by WAVE OnCloud, Motorola’s PTT subscription service. According to Motorola, the WAVE TLK 100 offers location tracking and Wi-Fi access to better connect teams of workers,

with a rugged but slim design and long battery life to ensure durability and reliability on the job. It’s ready to use right out of the box with the push of a button as the WAVE Two-Way Radio eliminates the barriers between different devices, networks and locations so mobile workers can all be part of the same conversation.

ThermOmegaTech Offers GURU Plug Rebuild Program ThermOmegaTech’s Railroad Division announces the company’s GURU® Rebuild Program. GURU® Plugs utilize self-actuating, thermostatic technology to automatically monitor the

44 Railway Age // September 2018

water temperature in a locomotive’s engine coolant and water storage tanks.

When the actuator senses that the temperature in the water-bearing system has reached the setpoint of the valve, the plug opens and drains the water from the tank before it can freeze. The plugs are completely mechanical and require no electrical or air connections to operate.

ThermOmegaTech recommends that GURU®s should be replaced every 18-24 months. The characteristic tendency of the GURU® Plug actuator is to lose some small amount of stroke as it ages. While this change is a ‘safe’ tendency relating to freeze protection, the upward creep could cause nuisance-dumping. The rebuild program returns the refurbished valves to the standards of a new plug, achieving peak performance.

nduralock offers a new type of high-vibration-resistant fastener that permanently locks, but is also easily reversible and reusable with a standard six-point socket. The reusability of the fastener is important when considering the life cycle of the product, and Enduralock says it has cycled the product’s application and removal 250 times. After the fasteners were fatigued with the vibration testing, they underwent tensile testing, with the fasteners satisfying the requirements for Type I bolts and Class II nuts. When a standard six-point socket is applied to Enduralock’s fastener, the nut (or bolt) is free spinning. An accurate preload can then be delivered, and when the socket is removed, the fastener mechanically locks. Traditional Huck bolts provide for about a 5% variance in preload for a given amount of torque, while prevailing torque fasteners have about a 30% variance in preload for a given amount of torque. Enduralock’s fasteners have a maximum preload variance of 5.6%. Enduralock’s fasteners also offer easy reversibility and reusability, which is essential for maintenance. In aerospace testing, the fastener surpassed the NASM 1312-7 standard for a self-locking nut of 30,000 cycles of vibration without loosening.

railwayage.com

The Railway Educational Bureau BOOKS - Railroad Resources -

My Life With Trains: Memoir of

Riding the Rails -

BKLIFE

$45.00*

!

John W. Barriger III - Railroad Legend

Inside the Business of America's Railroads

a Railroader

by Jim McClellan An iconic and innovative executive, Jim McClellan participated in the creation of both Amtrak and Conrail and worked for the Norfolk Southern, the New York Central, US Railway Association, and the Federal Railroad Administration. My Life with Trains combines a world-class photographer's love of railroading with the insights of a government and railroad official.

The book provides a short historical overview of the changes in the industry, recounts McClellan's experience at various railroads, and offers personal reflections on a lifetime of working with and chasing trains. Hard cover. 321. pages.

NEW

NEW

by Robert D Krebs Robert Krebs fell in love with the rugged, competitive business of railroads and was determined to overcome its resistance to change and put rail transportation back on track. Riding the Rails: Inside the Business of America's Railroads details Krebs's rise to a position of influence in the recovery of America's railroads and offers a unique insider's view into the boardrooms where executives and businessmen reimagined transportation in the United States. Hardcover, 246 pages.

BKRAILS

$45.00*

by H Roger Grant In John W. Barriger III: Railroad Legend, historian H. Roger Grant details the fascinating life and impact of a transportation tycoon and "doctor of sick railroads" and his impact was also felt far from the train tracks, as he successfully guided New Deal relief efforts for the Railroad Division of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation during the Depression and served in the Office of Defense Transportation during World War II. Featuring numerous personal photographs and interviews, this book is an intimate account of a railroad magnate and his role in transforming the transportation industry. Hard cover, 246 pages.

BKJOHN

$45.00*

General

Freight Car

Track

Guide to North American Diesel Locomotives • BKGNADL • $27.99*

The Double Stack Container Car Manual • BKDOUBLE • $19.50

Basic Principles of Track Maintenance • BKTMB • $140.00

Railway Age's Comprehensive Railroad Dictionary - Second Edition • BKRD • $35.95

Mechanical Department Regulations • (Parts 210, 215, 216, 217, 218, 221, 223, 225, 229, 231, & 232) • BKMFR • $29.95 Train Wreck: The Forensics of Rail Disasters • BKTW • $31.95* Chicago: America's Railroad Capital • BKCARC • $40.00* The Railroad: What It Is, What It Does 5th Edition • BKRRNN • $46.95 Emergency Responder's Guide to Railroad Incidents • BKERGRAIL • $33.00* The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, Third Edition • BKHIST • 24.99* Operations Managing Railroad Transportation • BKMRT • 39.95* Railway Operations and Control - Third Edition • BKROC • $39.95* Railroad Operations and Railway Signaling • BKRORS • $28.00 * No bookseller discounts available. **Maps shipped internationally will have additional charges.

The Basics of Railroad Wheels • BKWHEEL • $25.75 Guide to Freight Car Couplers and Draft Gear Systems • BKCDG • $67.75

Doorway to Safety With Boxcar Doors • BKBD • $23.50 Locomotive Guide to Locomotive Mechanical Maintenance - SD & GP Locomotives • BKGLMM • $37.50

Design and Construction of Modern Steel Railway Bridges, Second Edition • BKDMSRB2 • $169.95* Railway Geotechnics • BKGEOTECH• $195.00* Transit Elements of Planning, Engineering and Operating Light Rail with Applications in New Jersey • by Al Fazio • BKEPEO • $59.95

Guide Locomotive Electrical Maintenances • BKGLEM • $46.75 Fuel Saving Techniques for Railroads - The Railroader's Guide to Fuel Conservation • BKFUEL2 • $29.50 Maps 2014 Railroads of Continental United States Wall Map (laminated) • MPWML14 • $44.95* ** 2007 Edition Railroads of Canada Map (laminated) • MPRRCAN • $99.00* ** Training Videos (DVD) 26L Airbrake Pre-departure Test 49 CFR 229 (DVD format) • DV26L • $250.00*

Rear End Marking Devices 49 CFR 221 (DVD format) • DVEND • $180.00*

Additional new DVD’s available on our web site.

!

Shipping Rates:

Add the following shipping and handling if your merchandise subtotal is: UP TO $10.00 10.01 - 25.00 25.01 - 50.00 50.01 - 75.00 75.01 -100.00 100.01 - 150.00 150.01 - 200.00 200.01 - 300.00

U.S.A. $4.50 7.92 10.78 11.99 14.30 16.28 19.03 23.10

CAN $8.75 12.65 16.80 21.20 27.95 36.60 49.15 61.20

U.S.A. CAN 300.01 - 400.00 27.17 73.75 400.01 - 500.00 31.35 86.05 500.01 - 600.00 35.75 98.12 600.01 - 700.00 40.15 112.90 700.01 & up (Appropriate charges applied)

To order, call

1-800-228-9670 or visit www.transalert.com The Railway Educational Bureau 1809 Capitol Ave., Omaha NE, 68102 (800) 228-9670 I (402) 346-4300 www.RailwayEducationalBureau.com

equipment Sale/Leasing

RECRUITMENT

EDNA A. RICE, EXECUTIVE RECRUITER, INC EDNA A. RICE, EXECUTIVE RECRUITER, INC. The world’s most accomplished executive search firm specializing in the rail and transportation industries. With 31 years’ experience, we possess the industry-specific knowledge and expertise needed to consistently deliver the exceptional results one would expect for both our clients and our candidates.

WE START IT ALL

6750 West Loop South St. 735, Bellaire, TX 77401

3324RR STARTS ENGINES UP TO 3500HP

(713) 667-0406 www.ednarice.com info@ednarice.com

PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY

214RR HEAVY USAGE STARTING

strAteGic PLANNiNG: • Commuter rail tranSitionS • fra ComplianCe programS • operationS auditing

3370RR STARTS ENGINES UP TO 6000HP FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT

M

E

R

IC

A

www.STARTPAC.com M

A

D

E

IN

A

OR CALL TOLL FREE 844.901.9987

Kansas City Office (913) 661-2424 oPerAtioNs trAiNiNG & coNsULtiNG: www.tcsrailservices.com • engineer training & CertifiCation other services: • exCellent HiStory witH fra, ntSB • Staffing • interim management • meCHaniCal & part 238(Qmp)

RAILWAY AGE (8.25x10.75in).indd 1

12/04/2018 09:03

RFP NOTICES

Available for Lease 3000 cu ft Covered Hopper Cars 4650 cu ft Covered Hopper Cars 4300 cu ft Aluminum Rotary Open Top Gons 65 ft, 100-ton log spine cars equipped with six (6) log bunks 60 ft, 100 ton Plate F box cars, cushioned underframe and 10 ft plug doors 50 ft, 100 ton Plate C box cars, cushioned underframe and 10 ft plug doors 26,671 Gallon, 263k GRL, NC/NI Tank Cars Contact: Tom Monroe: 415-616-3472 Email: tmonroe@atel.com

MARKETPLACE SALES Contact: Jeanine Acquart Ph: 212/620-7211 Fax: 212/633-1165 Email: jacquart@sbpub.com

Metro-North Railroad REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTERESTS (RFEI) MTA Metro-North (MNR) is requesting that qualified parties submit information outlining their interest, capacity, and ability to provide the following program. The information must be submitted on the forms included in MNR’s solicitation documents by the specified date and Time. These documents can be obtained by contacting, via e-mail, the individual mentioned below.

RFEI#: 191245 DUE DATE & TIME: February 10, 2018 at 3:00 PM EST DESCRIPTION: Injury and Illness Prevention Programs for Metro-North Railroad’s Personnel.

CONTACT: Edward Genao genao@mnr.org

RailwayAge.com

ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED 46 Railway Age // September 2018

The News Destination for the Rail Industry railwayage.com

Ad Index Company

Phone #

Fax #

URL/Email Address

Page #

Balfour Beatty

888-250-5746

904-378-7298

info@bbri.com

13

cn

888 888 5909

cn.ca

C4

713-331-1775

ken.schneider@cushwake.com

3

Cushman & wakefield danella rental systems

610-828-6200

610-828-2260

pbarents@danella.com

30

dixie precast

770-944-1930

770-944-9136

fbrown142@aol.com

12

georgetown rail equipment co

512-869-1542

512-863-0405

bachman@georgetownrail.com

C2

greenbrier companies the

800-343-7188

503-684-7553

gbrx.info@gbrx.com

24-25

ltk engineering

215-641-8826

215-542-7676

tfurmaniak@ltk.com

11

miner enterprises inc

630-232-3000

630-232-3055

sales@minerent.com

17

new york air brake

3156-786-5431

315-786-5676

Janice.Pfeil@nyab.com

14-15

ngtc

212-620-7208

conferences@sbpub.com

36-37

okonite company

201-825-0300

201-825-3524

info@okonite.com

22

plasser american

757-543-3526

757-494-7186

plasseramerican@plausa.com

9

railquip inc

770-458-4157

770-458-5365

sales@railquip.com

31

rails company

800-21-RAILS

973-763-2585

gburwell@railsco.com

12

402-346-4300

402-346-1783

bbrundige@sb-reb.com

45,C3

railway educational bureau subway

203-877-4281

Smethurst_l@subway.com

19

siemens rail automation

412-944-6533

amanda.weir@siemens.com

34

town & country crossing

636-227-8226

jnewman@tccortho.com

10

trainyard tech llc

724-443-8881

cra2@zooninternet.net

35

info@vossloh-north-america.com

27

vossloh na

732-981-1222

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

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

railwayage.com

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

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

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

AILWAY GE September 2018 // Railway Age 47

Financial Edge

Tank Railcar Market Continues to Evolve

A

ccording to the good people at Railinc (a perennial speaker at the annual Rail Equipment Finance Conference, www. railequipmentfinance.com), as of July 1, 2018, 12,581 tank railcars had been retrofit to the DOT117R standard. In the first seven months of 2018, 5,349 tank railcars were retrofit (an average of 764 per month). If retrofits continue at the same pace for the remainder of the year, the total number of retrofit cars completed in 2018 would be more than double the total number of retrofits completed by the end of 2017.

The total tank railcar retrofit number represents about 12% of the crude, ethanol and other flammables tank railcar market.

(There were approximately 103,000 flammables tank railcars in service in 2017.

That is about 16,000 less than the peak of 2015.)

Readers of August’s “Financial Edge” (https : //w w w.rai lwayage.com /reg u latory/tempest-in-a-tank-car/) are aware that DOT-117R retrofit tank railcars, approved for use in f lammable service, are coming under scrutiny as being unfit for their intended service. While the owners and operators of the f lammables f leet worry about the railcars that will be hauling their commodities, the market for tank railcars and the parties involved in it continue to evolve.

Two recent news items highlight the evolution of the market: First, The Greenbrier Companies (GBR) and Watco Companies LLC recently ended, after four years, a partnership in GBW Railcar Services (GBW) that began as a way of addressing a significant opportunity for the tank car retrofitting.

The partnership made complete sense at the outset: GBR is the second-largest railcar builder in North America, a builder of tank railcars, and a tank railcar repair shop owner. This would make Greenbrier a perfect counterparty for a retrofit business. A partnership with Watco, a logistics services provider and operator of terminals, short line railroads and railcar repair shops, would generate opportunities for business and create some vertical integration that should have allowed for

48 Railway Age // September 2018

consistent segment growth.

After four years, the parties divided the assets of GBW and went their separate ways (details, p. 6, “Industry Outlook”). Having lasted through one cyclical downturn, who can blame the principal owners for not wanting to be around for the real possibility of a second downturn in the retrofit market if the recent actions of the Class I’s take effect?

For context, in 2017, 75% of the tank cars in crude, ethanol and other flammables service (approximately 77,000 railcars) required retrofit to remain in service under the 2015 FAST Act requirements.

Not all those cars would qualify for retrofit. Additionally, recent activity regarding which tank railcars can and cannot be operated may decrease the momentum for these retrofit opportunities.

Second, on the flip side, GATX Corp., in two transactions, placed an order for more than 10,000 tank railcars from American Railcar Industries (ARI) and Trinity Industries. These cars are scheduled for delivery between 2019 and 2024. The deal allows for an additional 4,400 cars to be added to the order.

GATX is the second-largest tank railcar lessor in North America (and the largest lessor that does not manufacture its own cars) and continually needs to renew its fleet. These orders, placed in 2Q18, skewed the ARCI (RSI American Railway Car Institute) order number for the quarter to an unsustainable 23,000!

What does a large operating lessor continuing an organized pattern of fleet renewal and rehabilitation say about the railcar market?

Lessees and lessors have been watching the tank railcar market tighten over the past four to five months. The tightening began a few months before issues related to the movement of flammables in DOT117Rs surfaced.

By increasing the size of its potential “fleet rehabilitation” order to 14,000 tank railcars and by placing the order with ARI and Trinity, GATX positions itself to flex the capacity forward or backwards to adjust to a changing landscape that favors companies controlling well-timed, accessible

before placing orders, i strongly urge you to exercise caution ” manufacturing capacity. (This is a factor the OEMs have used strategically through the most recent cyclical market twists.)

Since they are not a railcar manufacturer, watching GATX play the market right now is watching an insider provide a public assessment of GATX’s perspective on short- and intermediate-term tank railcar demand.

After a serious period of overbuilding, followed by a period of “austerity,” GATX seems to be betting on a rebound in demand for the new tank railcar market.

That would be a good thing for all tank railcar investors as increases in demand for new cars usually also mean demand increases for used tanks.

From the GBW dissolution, the market for used tank railcars in f lammable service might be headed in a different direction.

The tank railcar market is evolving, even when it may not seem to be doing so. Before rushing off to place orders of your own, I strongly urge you to exercise caution. The smart money seems to have already placed the bets and left the table.

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

DAVID NAHASS President Railroad Financial Corp. railwayage.com

We’re current, are you? FRA Regulations Mechanical Department Regulations

FRA News:

A combined reprint of the Federal Regulations that apply specifically to the Mechanical Department. Spiral bound.

Part Title 210 Railroad Noise Emission Compliance Regulations 215 Freight Car Safety Standards Updated 4-3-17.

216 Emergency Order Procedures: Railroad Track, Locomotive and Equipment Updated 4-3-17.

217 Railroad Operating Rules Updated 4-3-17.

218 Railroad Operating Practices - Blue Flag Rule Updated 4-3-17.

221 Rear End Marking Device-passenger, commuter/freight trains

There are no new proposals or final rules to report for this issue. Be sure to check back next month to see if there are any changes to FRA regulations.

Part 229: Locomotive Safety Standards The Locomotive Safety Standards cover the laws governing inspections and tests, brake system, draft system, suspension, electrical, cabs and cab equipment plus more! Softcover. Spiral bound. 130 pages.

Updated 4-3-17.

Safety Glazing Standards Updated 4-3-17.

Railroad Accidents/Incidents Updated 3-5-18.

Locomotive Safety Standards Updated 4-3-17.

Safety Appliance Standards Updated 4-3-17.

Brake System Safety Standards Updated 4-3-17.

223 225 229 231 232

Mech. Dept. Regs.

BKMFR

Order 25 or more and pay only $26.96 each

BKLSS

$29.95

Use of Locomotive Horns at Public Highway-Rail Grade Crossings

Current FRA Regulations Item Code

FRA Part #

209 211 BKTSSAF 213 BKTSSG 213 BKWRK 214 BKFSS 215 BKROR 217 218 BKRRC 220 BKEND 221 BKSEP

Update effective

4-3-17 7-20-09 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17

BKHORN 222 4-3-17 BKRFRS 224 4-3-17 BKHS BKLSS BKSLI BKSAS BKBRIDGE BKLER

228 229 230 231 237 240

4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17

BKCONDC 242 4-3-17

232 4-3-17

BKBSS

BKCAD

FRA Part #

BKSTC

BKPSS

40 219

233 234 235 236 238 239

Each

RR Safety Enforcement Procedures & Rules of Practice Track Safety Standards (Subpart A-F) Track Safety Standards (Subpart G) RR Workplace Safety RR Freight Car Safety Standards RR Operating Rules and Practices RR Communications Rear End Marking Device, Passenger, Commuter & Freight Trains Use of Locomotive Horns Reflectorization of Rail Freight Rolling Stock Hours of Service Locomotive Safety Standards Steam Locomotive Inspection RR Safety Appliance Standards Bridge Safety Standards Qualification and Certification of Locomotive Conductor Certification

Brake System Safety Standards

27.45

10.95 10.00 10.50 8.50 10.50

9.86 9.00 9.45 7.65 9.45

6.75 6.25

6.10 5.60

14.75

13.25

7.95 12.50 12.50 25.95 10.50 7.95 14.25

7.15 11.25 11.25 23.35 9.45 7.15 12.85

12.50

11.25

Each

25 or more

16.50

14.85

Combined FRA Regulations Each

25 or more

1-1-18 Drug and Alcohol Regulations in 6-12-17 the Workplace

38.95

35.00

4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17 4-3-17

21.50

19.35

Update effective

Signal and Train Control Systems

BKTM

BKHORN

Use of Loco. Horns at Public Hwy-Rail Grade Crossings

$14.75

Order 50 or more and pay only $13.25 each

Part 220: Railroad Communications 49 CFR 220. Prescribes minimum requirements governing the use of wireless communications in connection with railroad operations. 23 pages. Softcover.

$6.75

BKRRC RR Communications Order 50 or more and pay only $6.10 each

Part 233, 234, 235, 236–Rules & Regulations Governing Railroad Signal and Train Control Systems 49 CFR 233, 234, 235, and 236. Requirements for signal system reporting; maintenance standards; grade crossing signal system safety. Includes material modification of a signal system or relief from requirements plus instructions, standards, and rules governing the installation, inspection, maintenance, and repair of signal and train control systems. Spiral-bound. Softcover, 225 pages.

BKSTC Regs Governing RR Signal & Train Control Sys.

Order 25 or more and pay only $19.35 each

$21.50

800-228-9670 www.transalert.com

Passenger Safety Standards

25.50

22.95

Compliance Manuals BKINFRA18

49 CFR 222. This regulation provides for safety at public highway-rail grade crossings by requiring locomotive horn use at public highway-rail grade crossings except in quiet zones established and maintained in accordance with this part. 172 pages. Softcover, spiral bound. Updated 4-3-17

50 or more

30.50

$12.50

Locomotive Safety Standards Order 50 or more and pay only $11.25 each

Track and Rail and Infrastructure Integrity Compliance Manual - Volume II, Track Safety Standards - Part 213 Technical Manual for Signal and Train Control Rules. - Includes Part 233, 234, 235, 236

38.00 49.95

Updates from the Federal Register may be supplied in supplement form.

34.00 44.95

The Railway Educational Bureau 1809 Capitol Ave., Omaha NE, 68102 I (800) 228-9670 I (402) 346-4300 www.RailwayEducationalBureau.com

Add Shipping & Handling if your merchandise subtotal is: U.S.A. CAN U.S.A. CAN UP TO $10.00 $4.50 $8.75 25.01 - 50.00 10.78 16.80 10.01 - 25.00 7.92 12.65 50.01 - 75.00 11.99 21.20

Orders over $75, call for shipping

*Prices subject to change. Revision dates subject to change in accordance with laws published by the FRA. 9/18

FORWARD THINKING. FARTHER REACHING.

CN is a leading North American transportation and logistics company with a global supply chain focus. We are investing millions of dollars in people, technologies, infrastructure and equipment paving the way for a future ready to handle growth. Giving you, our customers and partners, a true supply chain advantage.

cn.ca