August 2015

August 2015
TODAY
A monthly newsletter for employees of
RailWorks Corporation and its subsidiaries
SPECIAL EDITION
It’s that time again for the annual RailWorks Today salute to our employees and their work for Class 1, short line and regional
railroads; transit and port authorities; industrial facilities and any other setting where rail is found. In this edition, you’ll
see examples of all types of track and transit construction and maintenance performed this summer throughout the United
States and Canada. We dedicate this special edition to all employees, and we extend a special thanks to those who submitted
the photos and background information for this issue.
PNR RailWorks
Canadian National Railway (CN)
Near Brandon, Manitoba
Track construction crews based in Cochrane, Alberta, have been out in force for CN this summer.
Read about their work on page 2.
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August 2015
PNR RailWorks
Canadian National Railway (CN)
Near Brandon, Manitoba
Crews who work out of the Cochrane, AB, office are constructing 8 miles of new track with concrete ties and installing eight
turnouts on CN’s main line on the Rivers Subdivision, between
Winnipeg and Melville, Manitoba. So far they’ve installed six of
the turnouts over three blocks, or outages, involving 30 track
workers, 10 operators, four foremen and three superintendents.
Three crews utilized seven back hoes on this installation in early
August to position a #20 turnout and five 39-foot track panels.
Under the direction of Project Manager Sushank Sharma, the
installations were well planned, organized and executed without
any delays or issues. Other project leaders include Project Engineer Teuta Berntson, Superintendents Gary Fahl, Troy Dunkin
and Pat Russet as well as Foreman George Dwernychuk,
Jose Andrade, Brenon DeRose and Bruce Barter. The project
concludes in the fall.
RailWorks Track Systems
BNSF Railway
Warm Springs, MT
RailWorks Track Systems’ Chehalis-based production gang worked for eight weeks this summer on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway in Big Sky Country (aka Montana).
Crews rehabilitated BNSF’s Copper City Subdivision, located between Butte and Garrison, changing out 53,000 ties, rebuilding 13 crossings and surfacing, lining and dressing more than
277,000 linear feet of track. Led by Project Manager Mark Hornby, the project kept up to 35 employees busy during this peak period in early July near Warm Springs. The tie gang and
following Quality Control crew worked in tandem while another crew upgraded a crossing. The large image of the tie gang working in the shadow of the Anaconda Mountain Range is one
we are featuring in a new ad in August trade publications to introduce our maintenance-of-way services.
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August 2015
RailWorks Track Systems
Seaport Steel
Airway Heights, WA
Not far from RailWorks Track Systems’ Spokane office, a crew led by Project Manager
Brian Wilson constructed a new rail spur connecting Seaport Steel’s new facility to Eastern
Washington Gateway Railroad (EWG). Here, Operator Mike Kober moves the loader to stage
concrete ties for the spur. Meanwhile, Foreman Casey Pardun maneuvers the excavator
to reposition the ties as Laborer Bill Thompson signals the proper position. The crew
constructed a total of 1837 feet of track – 500 in the facility and just over 1,300 to connect
with EWG.
L.K. Comstock National Transit
Sound Transit
SeaTac, WA
Foreman Laurel Vredenburg (l) and Steward Stephen Koreiva coordinate with
Crane Operator Neal Figgess (hidden by the pole) August 11 to set poles into position south of Seattle for the overhead catenary system (OCS) that will power Sound
Transit’s new light-rail extension. L.K. Comstock will continue this work throughout
August along the 1.6-mile elevated double-track guideway between the current SeaTac Airport station and South 200th Street. Project Manager Ben Neeley leads this
project with support from Construction Manager Mike Akin. Once revenue service
starts in 2016, L.K. Comstock will have completed installation of one 3 MW Modular
traction power substation, the OCS, train control, signal and communications systems, as well as the systems interface with the existing light-rail transit systems.
RailWorks Track Systems
Miami International Airport (MIA) Terminal E
Miami, FL
RailWorks Maintenance of Way
BNSF Railway (BNSF)
Broken Bow, NE
Grinding Supervisor Shea Swindall waters down the track where the grinder has
just passed to douse any sparks and safeguard against a potential fire. Meanwhile,
Operator Reymundo Moreno drives the grinder through this crossing on BNSF’s main
line, in about the center of Nebraska. RailWorks began grinding services on BNSF in
April and will continue working in Nebraska and Wyoming through the rest of the year.
Work for the day has just concluded on the
south guideway near the Terminal Station at
MIA. In April, RailWorks began constructing the
1230-foot steel running surface and supporting
posts for the new cable car system to carry
passengers at Terminal E, the international
terminal. The cable car vehicles will run on top
of the beam shown here on the east end of the
guideway with the control tower in the background. This new system will utilize the existing
substructure from an automated people mover
(APM) that had been operating on only one track
at MIA’s Terminal E for the past 10 years or so.
Scott Stark serves at project manager with
support from Superintendent T.J. McChristy,
Project Engineer Ben Bakkum and Quality
Control Manager Tomas Ramos. The project
wraps up at the end of the year.
PNR RailWorks
Canadian National Railway (CN)
Northern British Columbia
Nearly 1,800 km. (about 1,100 miles)
northeast of Vancouver, a Pacific-region crew is hard at work relaying rail
on CN’s Chetwynd Subdivision. Under
the direction of Project Manager Julie
Edgar, Superintendent Al Graham and
Foreman Kevin Douglas, the crew
has been working since June installing
approximately 200,000 feet of rail on
the CN main line. Using a Drapeau rail
heater, the crew de-stressed rail prior
to welding it together. The project wraps
up this fall.
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August 2015
RailWorks Maintenance of Way
Puget Sound and Pacific Railroad (PSAP)
Near Shelton, WA
RailWorks is testing track geometry on this Genesee & Wyoming
(G&W) short line this summer. It is one of more than 50 G&W
short lines RailWorks has tested since last fall. Here, Geometry
Operator Mark Wright drives a hi-rail vehicle equipped with
SolidTrack technology to generate a detailed profile of the track’s
conditions. Data is recorded in high resolution showing all urgent
and warning defects in real time. Using this service, railroads
are alerted to defects so they can be corrected immediately to
improve track safety.
RailWorks Track Services
Ameren Meramec Power Plant
St. Louis County, MO
RailWorks Track Systems
Canadian National Railway (CN)
Northwest of Cedar Falls, IA
In conjunction with the construction of a new highway interchange on U.S. Highway 218 (visible in the
distance), RailWorks is relocating a 7,000-foot portion of CN mainline track that runs parallel to the highway,
moving it about 1,000 feet further west. In this photo, Operator Kyle DeSantis lays continuous welded rail
as part of the track relocation. Crews are also removing the old mainline track. They began work June 1 and
anticipate finishing by September. Andrew Caulum is project engineer/estimator, and on-site superintendent
is Bill Kadrlik.
From left, Laborers A.J. Huett and Jordan Copeland; Operator
Shawn Iman; Laborers Cordero Taylor and Jeff Downey; and
Leadman Paul Shinabargar conduct a re-briefing after lunch at
the plant, where they changed out and gauged 180 cross ties.
The crew, under the direction of Project Manager Jerry Huffman
and Foreman Charlie King, handled the job over a four-day period. RailWorks also has performed work recently at other Ameren
coal plants in Franklin and Jefferson counties in Missouri.
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August 2015
L.K. Comstock & Co.
RailWorks Transit
Second Avenue Subway
Manhattan, NY
During a track invert concrete
pour in early July, RailWorks
employees constructing the
Second Avenue Subway work
together in rapid succession.
At street level above the tunnel,
multiple mixers send grout and
concrete through a slickline pipe
to a German-made Rhomberg
concrete hopper-finisher dispensing unit, used for disbursing
concrete to form the track invert.
The Rhomberg unit travels
in the tunnel on hi-rail gear
along skeletonized track, while
distributing concrete around and
underneath the ties. After a track
section of about 75 linear feet is
poured, workers then discontinue the concrete flow and
remove the corresponding pieces
of slickline piping. They then
reattach the Rhomberg unit to
the now-shorter slickline running
from the concrete mixer to pour
the next section. On this day,
the process was repeated until
concrete for approximately 600
feet of track invert was poured
out. The concrete pour was part
of the construction of the Second
Avenue Subway, an 8.5-mile
line between 105th Street and
an existing subway station at
63rd Street on Manhattan’s East
Side. Work on the project began
in January 2012 and has an advertised completion date of late
December 2016. Fred Haffner
is the project manager; Doug
Cullen is the general foreman.
RailWorks Track Systems
Metro Transit
Near Big Lake, MN
Along the Northstar commuter rail line
serving the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, RailWorks made winter walking
safer by adding ballast to extend a walkway.
The crew added ballast in a 1,200-foot area
along the track shoulder, creating a safer
winter pathway for railroad employees who
had been unexpectedly stepping off the
snow-covered shoulder. In this photo, Tamping Foreman Don Kilgore helps operator
Terry Lindner steer clear of signal boxes.
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August 2015
RailWorks Signals &
Communications
All Aboard Florida
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Under the direction of Managers
Timothy Woods and Jason Stingley,
a crew re-cables a newly installed
cantilever and crossing gate at West
Broward Boulevard. The work is being
performed for All Aboard Florida,
which is upgrading the track and signals on the Florida East Coast Railroad
in order to run high-speed commuter
trains in Florida between Miami,
Cocoa Beach and Orlando. RailWorks
has completed similar work on 10
crossings between Ft Lauderdale and
West Palm Beach over the past two
months and will be closing out this
phase of the project in August.
RailWorks Track Services
RailWorks Track Services
Adams Branch Railroad
North Adams, MA
Canadian Pacific Railway (CP)
Albany, NY
RailWorks is rehabilitating 4 miles of an industrial siding track that will become the track
for a tourist train through the Berkshire Hills/Hoosac Mountain Range in western Massachusetts. Here, the spiking and gauging crew is at work installing some of the 8,000
cross ties that are part of this project. Crews, led by Project Manager Scott Hoeffler and
Superintendent Rocky Bradway, also will install 292 switch timbers, more than 9,300
feet of rail, six crossings and ballast as well as anchor and surface 4 miles of track. The
rehab should wrap up this month for the Hoosac Valley Service, transporting passengers
on a 25-minute ride between the Adams, MA, Visitors Center and Western Gateway
Heritage State Park in North Adams.
A crew prepares to install a #11 turnout for CP in Albany, where they also are installing a
#9 turnout and a double-point, split-switch derail. They will finish installing 200 ties prior
to constructing 2,400 feet of track and surfacing the track and turnouts. Superintendent
is David Lafountain, and Scott Hoeffler is managing the project, with a target completion of mid-September. Phase 2 starts this month and calls for working in Kenwood Yard,
also in Albany. RailWorks will construct eight turnouts and 3,000 feet of track using steel
ties, as well as surfacing the track and turnouts.
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August 2015
RailWorks Track Services
L.K. Comstock National Transit
San Ysidro Freight Rail Yard
San Ysidro, CA
Laborer Juan Maldonado (left), and
Welder Julian Pinzon are in the process
of pre-heating the first of eight thermite
weld connections that will finalize the
construction of this right-hand #9 turnout.
RailWorks has been working off and
on for about nine months with general
contractor West Coast General Corporation
to expand and reconfigure this U.S.-Mexico
border yard for the San Diego Association
of Governments and the Genesee and
Wyoming Railroad. RailWorks’ scope of
work includes construction of two new
storage tracks, the reconfiguring of the
existing yard to accommodate movements
for these tracks and the demolition and
reconstruction of existing track to upgrade
the majority of the yard from 90-lb. to 115lb. rail. RailWorks also is adding a new #15
turnout, track and crossing upgrades in the
Metropolitan Transit System trolley line.
L.K. Comstock has performed overhead
catenary system upgrades and modifications to the existing light rail trolley system.
In the accompanying photo, an aerial fiber
optics cable bundle upgraded by L.K.
Comstock is visible above a manlift used
to support the splicing of the existing fiber
backbone cable. During weekend outages
in late-August, RailWorks, L.K. Comstock
and West Coast General are tying in the
main line to the yard and performing other
activities associated with the cutover.
Ralph Berg (RailWorks Track Services)
and Walt Stamirowski (L.K. Comstock
National Transit) are project managers,
Aaron Neeley is the construction manager, and Luis Branco is the onsite foreman.
The target for completion is by the end of
the year.
RailWorks Track Systems
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) Milling
Lincoln, NE
Two crews out of the Fremont office
are installing a new #9 crossover for
ADM Milling as part of a comprehensive,
three-year yard upgrade project at the
milling facility. RailWorks completed
Phase I last year. Now in Phase II, crews
are removing 85 lb. rail, ties, turnouts,
and other material, replacing a crossover and a turnout and adding about
1,000 feet of 133-lb. relay rail, new
ties and other material. Jerod Jobson,
shown here coordinating the removal
of a turnout, and Jesus Baeza were
foremen on the crossover installation
project. Supervisors include Project
Manager Ryan Karr, Project Engineer
Steven Salzwedel and Track Inspector
Gerald Boyer.