Railway Track & Structures - December 2008 - (Page 41)

R TA 2 0 0 8 C O N F E R E N C E R E P O R T RTA Conference 90th variety of backgrounds, including associations, trade journals, sawmills and academia. The word is the industry is changing rapidly with some customers moving overseas. The competition for logs could lead to a price increase across the board for all wood products. At lunch, John Gray of the Association of American Railroads and Jalene Forbis of the California Short Line Association spoke about the current railroad economic environment and issues for 2009. Following a report on the Greening of the Railroads, the railroad engineering session featured BNSF’s Bob Boileau, current president of AREMA, and representatives from Union Pacific, CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, CN and Canadian Pacific Railway. The next morning, experts provided an update on compliance issues, including the latest EPA efforts on creosote. Michael Sanders of Mississippi State University described the RTA’s efforts on wood preservative research. The final panel featured purchasing staff from BNSF, UP, CSXT, NS, CN and CPR. They talked about the craziness of the tie market in 2008 and gave an preview of what tie purchases would look like on their railroads in 2009. For the first time, RTA set up a round table discussion with the railroad purchasing people. Each railroad staffed a table where attendees could talk one-to-one about issues. Janet Seaman of Seaman Timber Co. chaired the conference. She handed over her gavel to incoming president Gary Williams of Koppers Inc. RTA will hold its 91st Annual Conference October 14-15, 2009 in Baltimore, Md. Turnout, speakers, networking, historic setting add up to top-notch gathering. T he Railway Tie Association 90th Annual Conference October 29-31 was definitely a treat, not a trick from the solid attendance to the informative speakers to the historic setting in the centuries-old city of Savannah, Ga., at the Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort and Spa. Dr. Allen Zarembski of ZETATECH Associates, Inc., led off the program discussing three tie-life research initiatives. One involved tie requirements as a function of inspection techniques,including GRMS. The second involved distribution of tie failure around average tie life and the third involved an assessment of the feasibility of developing a tiecondition-based risk assessment. The Hardwood Industry Session included a panel of seven experts with a www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures December 2008 41 http://www.rtands.com

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

Railway Track & Structures - December 2008 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Hand-Held Tools Continue Big Role in Railroad Engineering AREMA C&S Moving Ahead Optimizing Winter Speed Restrictions RTA 2008 Conference Makes Splash in Savannah, Ga. Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Advertisers Index Website Directory Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - December 2008

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.