By Jeff Stagl, Managing Editor
What’s the best way to complete vital trackwork in a busy and big rail yard — big as in North America’s largest flat switching yard?
For Norfolk Southern Railway, the answer is: Do it during an operational outage lasting less than two days.
That’s how the Class I completed a series of track improvements in late August at Decatur Terminal, a 3.6-mile-long yard in Decatur, Illinois. The railroad paused train traffic at the facility for a 40-hour period on Aug. 23 and 24.
The work was performed on an 1,800-foot stretch of the yard’s track adjacent to an Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) plant. Decatur Terminal serves several major agricultural product customers, including ADM.
About 90 engineering craft employees and 16 supervisors worked in shifts to complete the work within the 40 hours. Using 11 excavators and other equipment, the workers installed 12 panel turnouts — situated in one series — and about 800 track feet of panels.
NS contracted R. J. Corman Railroad Group to complete the grading work, which required a small fleet of front-end loaders, bulldozers and compactors. The old track was removed and the soil was excavated deep below the bottom of the ties.
The project involved a lot of digging and excavating because the ballast was so fouled, says Dave Taylor, the division engineer for NS’ Midwest Division. Since the track is so heavily used by grain trains, the grain spills over many years caused thick mud to form, he says.
The project was carried out by 90 employees and 16 supervisors in the engineering department, who worked in shifts to complete the track repairs in a short time. Norfolk Southern Railway The project was carried out similar to a track maintenance blitz, concentrating a lot of workers and equipment in one work area under a tight timeframe.
“That way, we could target a big area and get more bang for the buck,” says Taylor. “Now we won’t have to readdress this area for many years.”
During the project, crew members were able to tolerate very hot weather, with the temperature at times hitting about 100 degrees F.
Completing the work in only 40 hours also helped minimize traffic disruptions to customers. The main customers impacted by the project were ADM and Stratas Foods, both of which were understanding about not receiving or moving any grain cars during the outage, says Taylor.
“We were asking the customers to give us the 40 hours, so we made sure everything was planned,” he says, adding that project planning began last year and panel turnout staging started in March.
Track measurements were taken several times and a completion time was estimated for each task prior to starting construction.
“We hit all the times,” says Taylor.
In addition, a lot of welding work was completed beforehand to form the panel turnouts.
Now, NS has marked a first: Replacing 12 turnouts in a row during one traffic outage, says Taylor.
The project is part of a five-year plan to modernize the Decatur Terminal’s track infrastructure. Future work also will be bundled and performed during a service outage. Plus, there will be more turnouts to replace at the facility — just not 12 at one time, says Taylor.
“We will probably do four here or five there,” he says.
NS already has selected capital projects for 2024. In addition to more turnout replacements at Decatur Terminal, up to four turnouts will be replaced at other facilities, as well. Some likely candidates are Reed Yard in Middletown, Ohio, and East Yard in Lafayette, Indiana.
“We are looking at other locations,” says Taylor. “But they won’t be as big of a project as the one at Decatur Terminal.”
