Railway Track & Structures - February 2009 - (Page 3)

ON TRACK Vol. 105, No. 2 USPS # 860-560 ISSN # 00339016 EDITORIAL OFFICES 20 South Clark Street, Suite 2450 Chicago, Ill. 60603 Telephone (312) 683-0130 Fax (312) 683-0131 Website www.rtands.com Modifying friction George S. Sokulski/Associate Publisher Tom Judge/Editor, tjudge@sbpubchicago.com Mischa Wanek-Libman/Managing Editor, mischa@sbpub-chicago.com Wanda Welty/Copy Editor Susan Taylor/Editorial Assistant T CORPORATE OFFICES 345 Hudson Street New York, N.Y. 10014 Telephone (212) 620-7200 Fax (212) 633-1165 Arthur J. McGinnis, Jr./ President and Chairman Robert P. DeMarco/Publisher Mary Conyers-Brown/Production Director Barbara DiGirolamo/Production Manager Maureen Cooney/Circulation Director Jane Poterala/Conference Director Robert G. Lewis/Director of Special Projects For reprint information, contact: PARS International Corp. 212-221-9595; Fax 212-221-9195 RT&S, Railway Track and Structures is published monthly by Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corp., 345 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014. ISSN: 0033-8916. Canada Post Cust.#7204564; Agreement #41094515. Bleuchip Int'l, PO Box 25542, London, ON N6C 6B2. Periodical Class postage paid at New York, N.Y., and additional mailing offices. Subscription price to railroad employees only in U.S. possessions, Canada and Mexico, Print or Digital version: $16 one year; $30 two years (all others $39.50 one year; $73 two years). All other countries, $68 one year ($168 for air mail); $120 two years ($320 for air mail). Both Print and Digital versions: $24 one year; $45 two years (all others $60 one year; $110 two years). All other countries, $102 one year ($202 for air mail); $180 two years ($380 for air mail). Single copies $8.50. Track Buyer’s Guide $21. All rates are payable in advance. The publisher reserves the right to increase subscription rates without notice. Call toll-free 1-800-895-4389 (or 402-346-4740) Mon.-Fri., 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Central Time to place an order. Copyright 2009. Customer Service: Address all correspondence to: Subscription Department, RT&S, P.O. Box 10, Omaha, NE 68101-0010. Changes of address should reach us three weeks in advance of the next issue date. Send old address with new, enclosing, if possible, your address label. The Post Office will not forward copies unless you provide extra postage. Duplicate copies cannot be sent. POSTMASTER: Send change of address forms to RT&S, Railway Track and Structures, P.O. Box 10, Omaha, NE 68101-0010. he squeaky wheel gets the grease, they say. In our industry, it’s the squeaky rail that gets the friction modifier, which sounds much more classy. Rail lubrication is one of those areas that the general public just doesn’t know about. They don’t care, either, but that’s another story. Even the most-hard-core railfans, those who can tell you the schedule of every passenger train in the nation and the location of the last set of wig-wag crossing warning systems in the world, rarely have the art and practicality of rail lubrication on their radar screens. Rail lubrication is much more than putting some slippery/sticky fluid on the tracks and hoping for the best. It’s one of many very-high-tech fields in our industry, with Ph.D eggheads providing lots of skull sweat to come up with the best material for a friction modifier or the most advantageous placement for rail lubricators. And the debate about whether to lubricate the rail from a wayside system, a hi-rail vehicle or a piece of rolling stock is ongoing. Elsewhere in this issue you can read about the latest products and services offered by lubrication suppliers. Of course they have an easy job. They just make the rail smooth enough to reduce the drag, but not slippery enough to cause wheel slippage. If you think that’s easy, your mama didn’t feed you enough conundrums when you were growing up. Rail lubrication is still in its early days compared to other technologies in use on railroads. You can use a liquid sprayed from a hi-rail truck, a solid stick on a piece of rolling stock or a fluid fed from a wayside applicator. Any one of these will give you better fuel economy, longer service life for both wheels and rail and a generally-more-efficient operation. The variety reflects the variety of uses in different climates or conditons. A transit system with complaining customers might emphasize noise reduction in its tunnels. A heavy-haul railroad wants to move its trains as efficiently and economically as possible. And both have safety as the Number One priority. What’s the best lubricant? You could ask seven people that question today and get at least 14 different answers. We’ve seen petroleum-based products, graphitebased products, soybean oil-based products, and so on. And we’ll see many more as this field continues to grow in service to the railroad industry. When I hear railroads being denigrated as dinosaurs stumbling their way to extinction with 19th-Century technology, I think of the many super-sophisticated facets of our industry such as rail lubriation. From electronically-controlled brakes to communications-based train control, there are many other high-tech facets of our industry people simply don’t know about. In the early days of the 20th Century, railroads were the technology leaders in this nation. Tight budgets and reduced staffs preclude a return to those days of glory, but our industry is much more high tech than people give it credit for. Tom Judge, Editor A SIMMONS-BOARDMAN RAIL GROUP PUBLICATION www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures February 2009 3 http://www.rtands.com http://www.rtands.com

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

Railway Track and Structures - February 2009 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Railroads Stepping Up Use of Technology to Locate Rail Flaws Rail Lubrication Realizing Great Potential M/W Challenges: Track Settlement at Bridge Approaches Supplier Profiles Products and Literature People Calendar Advertisers Index Sales Representatives Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - February 2009

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