Amtrak says it must spend tens of millions of dollars to replace defective railroad ties on the heavily traveled Northeast Corridor. “The problem could delay trains and cost Amtrak business if not addressed quickly”, the railroad warns in a letter to Congress.
Amtrak spokesman Cliff Black says the concrete ties were purchased beginning in the 1990s and have already begun to crack. Concrete ties normally last about 50 years.
The total cost of fixing the problem is still unclear. But in its annual funding request to Congress, Amtrak said it expects to spend at least 23.5 million dollars on it this year alone.
The ties are manufactured by the Rocla Concrete Tie company at a plant inside an Amtrak maintenance yard in Delaware.
Amtrak says that under the terms of the contract, the supplier must replace the defective ties for free, but won’t reimburse the railroad for the labor.
I don’t know where the concrete ties last fifty years statement came from but I don’t think they have been around that long to know. I think they originated in Europe where train weights are nowhere near ours nor are the size of the cars. Many many years ago the PRR bought a French De Glehn steam engine for testing. When the company rep. showed up to instruct the railroad about the engine he commented, “You don’t haul cars. you haul houses!”. I know the corridor doesn’t see much freight these days but does Amtrak have sufficient proof that the ties are at fault and not installation or maintenace practices? Over torquing bolts into the ties could possibly crack them and Amtrak could be at fault. Be interesting to see the outcome.
There’s more information at the Boston.com site below. Sounds like the manufacturer is sort of bellying up to the bar on the matter. I imagine they are checking things out very closly. This could be a huge problem. $25 million this year, but what next year?
It should be noted that Metro North Rail Road has also suffered the same problem with their ties from same manufacturer. And I believe the ties in question, at least on the New York Division, are on Tracks 1 and 4 which are the outside tracks. The express tracks where most Amtrak trains run are not affected since they were installed back in the 70’s.
You can do all the testing you want in a controlled environment. The real world is quite something else. (the flaw can be something as simple as the water used in the mix or a quirk in the local geology that affects the local cement supply)
BN not BNSF was usiing Concrete ties from a place named Concrete WA. As far as I know their has been no failures and they copied the ties built out of Sweden where some have now been in service sixty years. This is also the place where the concrete ties used in Wyoming coal lines came from.Seems to me another government agency (Amtrak and Metro North) got short shafted again.
Normal is no derailments, and proper attention paid to surfacing, alignment, tamping, and drainage. There have been significant issues in some tie designs and installations with rail-seat abrasion, shoulder fatigue, shoulder abrasion, and freeze-thaw resistance. “50 years” is a design life that should be achievable based on loading cycles and environment. Whether you’ll get it is a different matter. Derailments are often fatal to concrete ties whereas wood ties are more resistant to abuse.
A technical paper describing improvements in concrete tie design:
I am no engineer, but would expect concrete ties to have epoxy coated re-bar laid high on the outside and middle, and low under the rails. Anyone got spec drawings from the manufacturers?
There are a lot of variables in substrates, climates, traffic densities, etc.
As a layman, I would have thought the concrete tie would last as long as the Sphinx.
Epoxy-coated reinforcing steel is not required because there is no expectation for the tie to crack and admit water. Epoxy-coated reinforcing is generally not used in building foundations, drilled caissons, piers, and other concrete structures either, for the same reason. Epoxy-coated steel is used in roadways and bridge decks because there is expectation for the roadway and bridge deck to crack and admit water.
European railways have concrete sleepers in service that date to the 1960s. British Rail laid its first successful sleepers in 1942.
If you would like drawings, consult the manufacturers (e.g., Rocla and CXT) or AREMA.
Green bar is used extensively here in DC for sub-street level work. I can see why concrete sleepers would be cracked by heavily laden steel wheels.
The replacement costs must be enormous, but then they always were. Care to “slide” a wood crosstie out from under a rail plate’s dado-like imprint through the ballast? While machinery does this today, it’s still a task!
I just started thinking about a neo- WPA/CCC way to hire the unemployed. The trouble is no one seems to want to work and no one wants them in their neighborhoods.
We get this brighty whitey kid in here and after we fired him, his computer was wall-to wall “yourspace” and he seemed to be running a side business.
I work in concrete for a living. I wonder if the ties are too narrow. I doesn’t have any strength when it is 6’ long and only 6 inches wide. I do know with the concrete companys of today, they put all sorts of garbage in stead of cement onto theie product to save money. I figure if the ties are failing its because they are using fly ash ( a product of burnt coal ) in the mix. It does have cement properties but it has no strength! Are they putting rebarb in the ties? What about fiber mesh? I know fiber helps to keep concrete from cracking. Just my two cents!
concrete ties are using pre stressed wire cable instead of reinforcing bar steel (rebar) to help them where the concrete tie goes into tension (which is where it fails, and concrete tie are a little larger than 6 inches)…the steel chairs where the fasteners are connected are inspected beaucoup times before the high-early polymer concrete is poured.
The Amtrak ties are for the most part in FRA Class 5 or higher service which requires much higher tolerances. Coal trains in Class 4 and lower service will have a lot more forgiveness in those ties. With the constant repetitive surfacing that those Amtrak ties get, one has to wonder about surfacing machinery vibration and abrasion having somerthing to do with what ever is ailing some of these ties. Some of that mechanical energy having some unforseen adverse affect on the tie make-up.? (lack of surfacing or too much surfacing has long been known as a problem - and concrete ties and track sections are h*ll on the machinery and people that maintain them.) Would be interesting to see what a TRB level examination would say.
There is a laundry list of things that can go wrong with concrete in various types of service. Nothing has said what the issue(s) in this case is/are. Something from the list or something new?
Concrete ties are not the panacea that everyone might think they are. They ae not holding up as advertised for life as originally projected, whether it be passenger trains or coal trains. Most of the rail seat abrasion and tie plate issues have been solved, but mechanical wear with the ballast is causing many ties to literally crumble into dust on the bottom. This is causing loss of prestress, which is fatal for the tie. They are also kind of delicate to install. They need to be placed on a flat surface or they may break in two when first building track, and as said elsewhere, they are very prone to being broken by derailed cars when wheels run across them or if equipment is dragging on the cars.
The big reason they are so popular now is that in general, they now cost less than timber ties (when including all required track materials) and creosote has become an environmental issue to deal with. Another issue is that the concrete tie is placed at a wider spacing than timber ties, requiring it to support more load, and most concrete ties are smaller than a comparable timber tie. This has also lead to subgrade problems and bridge deck issues.