Railway Track & Structures - March 2009 - (Page 34)

Ballast’s big benefits ing drainage problems and has been used in coordination with tie gangs to increase the productivity of these gangs.” Diercks notes the railroads have been asking for help to address slow orders caused by mud spots that result from poor drainage conditions and points out the railroads are measuring and monitoring the effects of ballast maintenance in an effort to correlate the effects with reductions in slow orders and, consequently, improved velocity. The company has been performing more out-of-face undercutting, shoulder ballast cleaning and sledding to address large areas with severely fouled ballast. Concerning budgets, Diercks says that overall the trend is increasing, but some customers have made cuts in their ballast maintenance programs. “On a customer-to-customer basis we see changes often in lean and prosperous times. We are keeping a watchful eye on industry trends and understand 2009 will be a challenging year,” said Diercks. Miner Enterprises, Inc., offers the AggreGate™ ballast unloading system with an array of options from simple manual to fully-automated, remote-control and solar-charged systems. Richard Biehl, vice president of sales at Miner, says the AggreGate™ is the most widely-speciﬁed ballast unloading gate in the world because of it’s durability and ability to instantly stop or start the ﬂow of ballast, as well as its unique feature of being able to simultaneously unload inside and outside of the rail. Biehl notes that, from Miner’s point of view, there does seem to be a temporary slowdown in inquiries for ballast equipment in North America, but notes that Miner will be responsive to the changing market conditions to meet the needs of the railroads. One example of the company’s response to the market is its design and application of a new Ballast Plow to 150 Union Paciﬁc ballast cars. The Miner Plow clears the rail of ballast and levels the ballast between the rails. “It greatly enhances the safety of the ballast unloading process when compared to common practices such as dragging ties in front of the wheels. When combined with Miner’s fully-automated, remote-control, stand-alone AggreGate™ ballast unloading system, the plows are the ultimate in efﬁcient and safe ballast unloading,” said Biehl. Diercks, product development manager with Loram. “We are continuously investigating new ways of increasing the operating efﬁciencies of these products to enable our customers to appropriate the maximum value in the shortest amount of track occupancy. RAILVAC has proven to be very versatile in address- Miner Nordco 34 Railway Track & Structures March 2009 “The most signiﬁcant new developwww.rtands.com http://www.rtands.com

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

Railway Track & Structures - March 2009 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D NRC Smashes Attendance Bridge Inspection Battling Bugs Ballast Fundamentals Vital to Keeping Track in Shape Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Advertisers Index Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - March 2009

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