Railway Track & Structures - February 2008 - (Page 10) AREMA NEWS President’s Column his month, Mike Garcia, vice president of the Engineering Services Functional Group, will report on the activities of his group. Mike is chief engineer, rail engineering for the Illinois Department of Transportation. He is assisted by Directors Melvin Burda, director environmental operations for BNSF and Nigel Peters, assistant chief engineer bridges and structures for CN. Here is Mike’s report. Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing me to let the readers know what is going on with the Engineering Services Functional Group of AREMA. Briefly, the ESFG is made up of the following committees: Committee 2 - Track Measuring Systems, T Engineering Services Functional Group report Committee 13 - Environmental, Committee 14 Yards & Terminals, Committee 16 – Economics of Railway Engineering & Operations, Committee 18 Light Density & Short Line Railways, and Committee 24 - Education & Training. Committee 2 just had a very informative and wellattended tour of the Holland plant in Crete, Ill., in conjunction with their fall meeting. Thanks to Holland for the hospitality and the lesson in corporate finance. This committee has been very active in bringing the GIS, GPS and CAD platforms of track measuring into a useful standard. This is cutting edge technology at its best - well done Committee 2. Committee 13, in conjunction with the Association of American Railroads, the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association, the American Railway Development Association and the Railway Association of Canada, sponsored an outstanding 2007 Railroad Environmental Conference at the University of Illinois at the Urbana Champaign campus. This conference just keeps getting bigger and better. More than 400 environmental consultants, academics, contractors and railroad officials from throughout the world attended. Larry Etherton AREMA® President 2007-2008 More than 40 papers were presented. Presentation topics included: pollution prevention; energy, emissions and air quality; noise and vibration; environmental management systems; compliance; risk and liability management; remediation and training. Please mark November 4-6 on your calendars so you don’t miss the 2008 Railroad Environmental Conference. Also, Committee 13 is just beginning to compile a new chapter for the Manual for Railway Engineering, so if you are interested in being a part of environmental railroad history, sign-up for Committee 13. A joint meeting of Committee 14 and Committee 6 is tentatively set for April 7-8, in Memphis, Tenn., to tour the new CN Johnson Intermodal yard. This is continuing on last year’s theme, which toured the BSNF Railway Hobson Yard in Lincoln, Neb. The big issue is yard security; TSA is providing some guidelines. Past Chairman Dale Harrison has recently retired from HDR and we wish him all the best. Thanks for all your hard work, Dale. Committee 16 just passed a Public Projects Guideline for the Manual, which will be useful for all the public/private partnership projects going on around the country. Also, they are working diligently trying to compile guidelines for rail design in ethanol and biofuel plants. If this is of interest to you, please contact Chairman Robert Penhallegon for information on joining this committee. Committee 18 is planning their spring 2008 meeting around an inspection of the Winchester and Western Railroad’s New Jersey division. We would like to increase the participation of shortlines on this committee, so your voice is heard while writing Manual revisions. Committees 18 and 4 are finishing up a Second-Hand Rail Specification, so look for that soon. And lastly, Committee 24 has been very busy with review and recommendation of the foundation scholarships, the mentoring program, student chapters and Introduction to Practical Railway Engineering seminars. A very successful meeting was held in Anchorage, Alas., last year, and the Jacksonville, Fla., meeting to be held February 23-25, will be just as great. They also have an excellent program set up for the 2008 Engineers Week activities. That’s all for now. Have a great 2008 and stay safe. Thanks, Mike, for the informative update. If you are not already on an AREMA 10 Railway Track & Structures February 2008 www.rtands.com http://www.arema.org http://www.rtands.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.