Railway Track & Structures - October 2008 - (Page 36)

CROSSTIE REPORT echoed in Thompson Industries teaming with L.B. Foster to set up a high-capacity crosstie boring and pre-plating operation at Thompson’s facility. Niederberger of Koppers believes the most important trend has been the longevity of solid demand for ties. He thinks the outlook will continue to be encouraging due to the continued strong ﬁnancial performance of the railroads and their need for consistent maintenance and new capacity programs, but notes that the tie market is feeling the impact of global demand issues. “While years ago, tie pricing was driven by primarily local or regional inﬂuences, tie costs for wood and preservatives are now impacted by national issues such as the ﬁnancial markets and by the global market for coal tar,” said Niederberger. Care for the environment is an issue shared by railroads and suppliers. Recycling wood ties for energy is being done by Tangent Rail. Rocla is working with BNSF to recycle its concrete ties by sorting and reloading used ties for placement in siding and yard tracks. NARSTCO points out its steel ties can be recycled as scrap and in some instances repaired and placed back into service with welding repairs. Finally, TieTek, with Union Paciﬁc, received an environmental award from The Society of Plastics Engineers for using its technology in an environmentally sustainable way. 2008 In March of last year, Chicago-based Steelhead Corporation purchased R-Mac Sales and Leasing, renaming the company Encore Rail Systems. Encore services its customers from its Denver location, as well as the Steelhead facility in Chicago. Encore says its primary focus has been, and continues to be, wood and concrete tie repair. At the request of its customers, the company has expanded its services to include track maintenance consulting, track inspection, track construction management and a wide variety of track-related training and certiﬁcation programs. “Encore is continually researching and developing new tie repair products and application equipment for both wood and concrete ties. Our latest products are thin and thick viscosity epoxies for concrete ties. The thin viscosity material can be used to pre-coat the ties during the manufacturing process or applied to ties that have light rail seat abrasion. The thick viscosity material can be used for repairing ties with rail seat abrasion over 3/16th of an inch. Both of these products cure to 80-85 ShoreD hardness while retaining ﬂexibility to prevent cracking and delaminating from the tie,” said John Coulam, vice president sales at Encore. The majority of Encore’s business Tie preservation is generated by Class 1 railroads. The company has been working with a new customer, Ferromex, in repairing both wood and concrete ties. Coulam reports that the number of regional and shortline railroad customers continues to grow as Encore makes chemical tie repair more affordable. Coulam notes that the common goal of all Encore customers is that they are looking for ways to cost-effectively improve their track. “The most prominent trend we see from our customers is the repair versus replacement of both wood and concrete crossties. Encore is continuing to see the trend of our customers incorporating tie repair in non-traditional applications such as tie gangs, switch gangs and bridge gangs,” said Coulam. Gross & Janes Co. is the authorized distributor for Tight Spike™, a complete polyurethane foam tie plugging system manufactured by Restoration Technology™, LLC. “The unique characteristics of Tight Spike, is that it can be applied to the spike holes on wood ties that are worn, elongated or decayed. Tight Spike expands and ﬁlls all voids inside a tie, including any natural decay voids,” said Billy Davis, director of sales for Gross & Janes for Tight Spike products. “Our product is formulated to displace water, which eliminates future moisture from entering the area of 36 Railway Track & Structures October 2008 www.rtands.com RTS1008 p27-37-crossties.indd 36 10/1/08 4:09:46 PM http://www.rtands.com

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Railway Track & Structures - October 2008 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Railroads Building Solid Foundation for More Capacity with Crossties Safety in High Density Areas M/W Challenges: CN Places New Bridge in Only Six Hours Products and Literature People Calendar Website Directory Advertisers Index Sales Representatives Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - October 2008

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