Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 10, 1995 TAG: 9511100072
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
As a hedge against rising timber prices, Norfolk Southern Corp. has begun experimenting with both steel and reinforced concrete crossties as alternatives to the treated wooden ties that now support most of the company's 23,000 miles of track.
Last year, Norfolk Southern formed an employee team to look at alternatives to wooden crossties. The issue has been under study even longer, since 1980, according to Preston Painter, an NS engineer in Atlanta.
The railroad considers wood to be the best choice now but has been studying steel and concrete alternatives in case wood becomes too expensive, Painter said. The company has a five-mile test stretch of concrete ties installed near Panther, W.Va., and is experimenting with steel ties in its Chattanooga, Tenn., yard, he said.
Another small quantity of the alternative crossties are to be installed for more tests in Norfolk and Knoxville, Tenn., and possibly in Roanoke, Painter said.
Norfolk Southern is the major crosstie customer of Koppers Industries Inc.'s wood-treating plant in Salem. Ninety-five percent of everything Koppers treats in Salem is for Norfolk Southern, said the company's business manager Tom Niederberger in Pittsburgh.
Koppers has 15 plants across the United States, producing more than 5 million wooden crossties a year for several railroads. The company, Niederberger said, also owns 50 percent of a joint venture in Portsmouth, Ohio, that makes concrete crossties.
The wooden crosstie business is a small part of the national hardwood lumber market, and Koppers and other producers say they are at the mercy of price fluctuations related to changing demand for hardwood in the furniture industry and export market. Prices for wood ties go through periodic peaks, the last in 1992. Treated ties currently sell for around $25 and untreated ties for $15, Niederberger said.
Norfolk Southern buys between 1.5 million and 1.8 million crossties a year, Painter said. Each mile of track requires 3,200 ties, meaning NS uses 74 million of them across its 20-state system. At current prices, that represents an investment of over $1.8 billion.
Wooden crossties typically are 7 by 9 inches and 81/2 feet long. Wooden ties weigh 200 pounds and the concrete versions up to 700 pounds for roughly the same size. The average life of a wooden crosstie ranges from 30 to 35 years. Concrete or steel replacements would have to last at least as long to be a viable alternative, Painter said. NS is studying whether alternative ties can give the track the same stability as wood, he said.
Burlington Northern Railroad is the nation's largest user of concrete crossties, and the Illinois Central probably uses the most steel ties, said Rich Reiff, a civil engineer at the Association of American Railroads' Transportation Test Center near Pueblo, Colo. Concrete ties have been popular in some places because there is a perception they hold the distance between rails better. Steel ties, because of their lower profile, are used in places where extra clearance is desirable, such as in tunnels, Reiff said.
Still, 98 percent of the ties used in the United States are made from wood, with concrete the second most popular, Reiff said. Other materials such as recycled tires, plastics and composites are being tested but are not in use. A problem with recycled materials, though, is that there is no guarantee of the consistency in the raw material, Reiff said.
NS has looked at ties made of other materials, although it has not yet tried any of them, Painter said. One type of tie is made from recycled plastic milk bottles, he said.
"We're looking at anything and everything," he said. "So far, nothing is as good a buy as wood."
by CNB