Railway Track & Structures - August 2008 - (Page 3)

ON TRACK Vol. 104, No. 8 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 On change George S. Sokulski/Associate Publisher Tom Judge/Editor, tjudge@sbpubchicago.com Wanda Welty/Managing Editor Mischa Wanek-Libman/Assistant Editor, mischa@sbpub-chicago.com Susan Taylor/Editorial Assistant N 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 Summons-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 2008. 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. obody likes change, except maybe babies who need a fresh diaper. But, as we all learn sooner or later, change is inevitable. Only the speed of change varies, and it seems to me that change has found a fifth gear and is roaring along at a breakneck pace. While it’s hard for anyone to adjust to rapid change, for those of us who are now eligible for senior discounts, it seems like the whole world is rapidly spinning out of control and we have to work incredibly hard just to hang on. Within our industry, change is happening at least as quickly as everywhere else in the world of the early 21st Century. Look around at the philosophical shift in m/w alone. It seems like yesterday, although it was three decades or so ago, that the buzzword was deferred maintenance. In other words, engineers could do whatever they wanted on their territories as long as they didn’t spend any money. The zillions of dollars invested by railroad predecessors when they had a monopoly on transportation were still paying off in the 1970s and 1980s. Inventions such as cwr and mechanized m/w gangs stretched the limited dollars in engineering budgets. Track held up, barely, and trains moved, slowly. Line abandonments were a survival tool for many a beleaguered Class 1 railroad, especially granger roads saddled with too much track producing far too little revenue. In my days at C&NW, I recall the figure that 40 percent of the railroad’s track produced only four percent of the total revenue. An aggressive abandonment program kept the railroad alive until it achieved a more rational track network. Those were the days of a five-man crew pushing an empty boxcar or two at five-to-10 mph up a branch line for hours, then coming back in a day or two to pick up the loads. It’s a wonder any of the granger roads survived, and a lot of them didn’t. Today, the situation has been turned on its head. Traffic is out there, bringing in revenue dollars to pay for maintenance and upgrades. In fact, there’s too much traffic for the system to handle. Congestion is everywhere and it’s getting worse. Railroads are spending billions to deal with congestion and upgrade the system, but they can’t work fast enough. Even when the dollars are there, getting time on the tracks to do the work is the biggest challenge facing m/w departments. More than one railroad wishes it could restore abandoned lines or torn-out double-track. But where do we go from here? There are changes out there today’s railroaders find difficult to imagine. A whole new work force will be in place in the blink of an eye. Will they have the training to do the job? Will they adopt the bad habits of their predecessors—I’m talking both management and contract employees—or will they bring new ideas and new energy to an often hidebound industry? I’m convinced that inventions and new processes must revolutionize the industry. Are we doing enough research to think up needed advances, and are railroads willing to try them? I say, stay tuned, it’s getting interesting. What do you think? Tom Judge, Editor A SIMMONS-BOARDMAN RAIL GROUP PUBLICATION www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures August 2008 3 http://www.rtands.com http://www.rtands.com http://www.rtands.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Railway Track & Structures - August 2008

Railway Track & Structures - August 2008 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Wish List: What Chief Engineers Really Want in M/W Machinery Keeping Ballast in Shape Amtrak Turns to Sophisticated System to Manage NEC Assets Supplier Profiles Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Website Directory Advertisers Index Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - August 2008

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