Railway Track & Structures - January 2009 - (Page 30)

Clearing the WAY and safely with less down time. “Plant species resistance to certain herbicides and the effect on the environment has become more and more of a major concern that has demanded a lot of attention,” said Vinnie Vaccarello, copresident at ARS CORP “Understanding herbicide formulations and alternating herbicides of similar action modes will greatly assist in the reduction of this problem, but will not completely eliminate it at this point. Manufacturers are working hard on new technology and compounds to address these concerns. Vaccarello continued, “ARS CORP continually looks for ways to create a savings for our customers to make it possible to plan additional projects keeping within the boundaries of their current budgets.” Asplundh Railroad Division provides all aspects of vegetation management, including weed spraying and brush cutting, mowing, as well as pole line removal, ﬁre suppression services, dust control, land clearing and herbicide sales to the North American railroad industry. “The problem of weed resistance to current herbicides continues to challenge the industry,” said Tom Mayer, vice president at Asplundh. “This is an industrywide problem and the number of resistant weed species is growing at an alarming rate. The long-term solution will involve the development of new herbicides, with new modes of action, to ﬁght this problem.” The company has a continuing program to seek out new methods of weed control from other countries and other agchem industries. Asplundh is currently exploring the computer-based weed recognition system, developed in Europe, that will increase accuracy and reduce herbicide usage. The company is also involved in a program using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) that can help manage vegetation control programs along rights-of-way. “Our customers continue to request programs that combine chemical and mechanical methods of vegetation management, especially at grade-crossing areas,” said Mayer. MERCIER’S Inc. is a right-of-way maintenance company involved in chemical and mechanical vegetation control and is focusing its efforts on building more productive equipment and using better chemicals. “The railroads are paying particular attention to road crossing sight safety programs,” said Craig Mercier, president of MERCIER’S. “I think they’ve all bent over backwards to cut and spray all their crossings and now most of them are on a spraying/maintenance program.” Mercier continued, “I don’t see a drop [in demand] because of the economy, I do see a demand for better quality of work and in order to do that we need to put down more chemicals and better chemicals.” Mercier says the company is having great success controlling problematic weeds, such as marestail and kochia, spraying Payload. MERCIER’S only uses chemicals that are non-restrictive and designed to be used in lesser volumes. “We’ve been doing a lot of brush spraying for major railroads. It’s a perfect program,” said Mercier. “We’ve been spraying brush every three years and we spray 12 feet from center, out to 28 feet, and 22 feet high in the air, which has reduced any overhanging brush or side encroaching vegetation.” The company also began using concealed spray trucks that Mercier says have greatly reduced complaints from the public because the vehicles do not look like weed spray trucks. Kershaw Manufacturing, a division of Progress Rail Services Corp., designs and manufactures maintenance-of-way and vegetation-control equipment for railroads and electric utility companies worldwide. In 2002, Kershaw introduced the Sky Trim telescoping tree trimmer to the U.S. electric utility market. The Sky Trim utilizes an electrically-insulated, telescoping ﬁberglass boom and can trim tree limbs up to 75 feet from the ground. The machine is available in a rubber-tired version and a recently-introduced crawler-tracked version to tackle the most demanding of terrain. According the company, the Sky Trim has become the most successful and widely-used tree trimmer with utility companies throughout North America. Recently, the Sky Trim design was placed on hydraulically-controlled hirails, enabling the machine to be used on rails, allowing the railroads to tackle highlevel vegetation problems. The result is a Equipment 30 Railway Track & Structures January 2009 www.rtands.com http://www.rtands.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Railway Track & Structures - January 2009

Railway Track & Structures - January 2009 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Railroads Continue to Budget Major Capital Projects Battling Brush and other Vegetation Steel Mills Increasing Metallurgical Quality of Rail Steels Products and Literature People Calendar Advertisers Index Sales Representatives Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - January 2009

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