Geosynthetics February/March 2023 - 27

punched and drawn biaxial geogrid with
a high aperture stability modulus. It is
also one of the stiffest geogrids available
on the market and is routinely recommended
for sub-ballast reinforcement
in rail designs completed by Industrial
Fabrics's team of professional engineers.
Texas City Terminal Railway Company
and the Port of Texas City decided to
demo BaseLok BallastGuard on a problematic
section of track located along
a seawall within 150 feet of Galveston
Bay. This section of track required routine
maintenance approximately every 36
months due to significant ballast fouling.
" Common practice for most railroads
regarding the remediation of fouled ballast
within existing track structure has
been to repair or upgrade track side drainage,
undercut and crib out fouled ballast,
add clean aggregate and finally surface the
area via on-track equipment " (Brooks and
Steffer 2022). The fact that the BaseLok
BallastGuard is 100% manufactured in
the United States is important to Texas
City Terminal Railway Company. Since
Congress passed the Build America, Buy
America Act in 2022, this is even more
important. While there are other geosynthetics
products marketed to address
this application, none of them are manufactured
in the United States. As previously
mentioned, traditional nonwoven
geotextiles are not specifically designed to
address ballast fouling and are expected to
fail prematurely.
The test section at the Port of Texas
City has been in service since May 2021.
As of December 2022, no ballast fouling
has been observed. Steffer says, " We have
been incredibly pleased with Industrial
Fabrics's BallastGuard product. Areas
where this product has been installed show
no signs of fouled ballast nor any signs of
track geometry deflection typically caused
by underlying ground stabilization issues. "
The Port of Texas City plans to use this
technology moving forward, as well.
FIGURE 13 BaseLok® BallastGuard™ test section in service at the Port of Texas City - December 2022.
Conclusion
The ballast fouling phenomenon is a
difficult issue to address. Currently no
standard exists by which to measure the
severity of ballast fouling. Though several
studies have attempted to create some
metric for in situ evaluation of ballast
material, all methods require invasive
laboratory testing. The U.S. rail industry
does not indicate that any ballast fouling
standard will be adopted in the foreseeable
future. As such, addressing ballast
fouling is left to each individual railroad
or site manager.
References
Brooks, K., and Steffer, R. (2022, December 6). Ballast Fouling.
Bruzek, R., Stark, T. D., Wilk, S. T., Thompson, H. B., and
Sussmann, T. R. (2016). Fouled ballast definitions and
parameters. 2016 Joint Rail Conference. https://doi.
org/10.1115/jrc2016-5725.
Moore Memorial Public Library. (n.d.). " Port of Texas
City. " Retrieved December 6, 2022. https://library.
texascitytx.gov/356/Port-of-Texas-City.
Texas City Terminal Railway Company. (n.d.). " Port of Texas
City. " Retrieved December 6, 2022. https://tctrr.com/.
United States Department of Transportation (USDOT), Federal
Railroad Administration. 49 C.F.R. § 213.103 (2022). G
GeosyntheticsMagazine.com
27
>> For more, search ballast
at GeosyntheticsMagazine.com.

http://www.GeosyntheticsMagazine.com https://doi https://library http://www.texascitytx.gov/356/Port-of-Texas-City https://www.tctrr.com/ http://www.GeosyntheticsMagazine.com

Geosynthetics February/March 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Geosynthetics February/March 2023