Well, I just made it past another hurdle in getting a new job with the Mass Bay Transportation Authority! Wish me luck! [:D] Anyway, I was perusing the MBTA web sites projects page and it appears that all the old concrete ties are failing and will soon be replaced with wood. The project starts this month at the Plymouth end of the Old Colony line. Evidently AMTRAC was experiencing the same issue on the NEC. The original product was inferior. They were manufactured by an Austrailian Co. “ROCLA”. (BUY AMERICAN!) This would be a good time to fix that track youve been thinking about.[^o)]
We had that here in Germany some time ago. The newly refurbished high speed line from Hamburg to Berlin had to be closed down, as those concrete ties they used were of inferior quality and started to break. The line was closed completely and the trains had to take a detour, adding about two hours to the journey. So much for “high speed” [:$]