NS slates slightly more aggressive 2023 MOW program after an ambitious 2022 agenda

By Jeff Stagl, Managing Editor 

Maintenance-of-way (MOW) work accomplished in 2022 added up to a banner year for Norfolk Southern Railway’s engineering department. 

Crews replaced 2.16 million wood ties, surfaced 1,560 miles of track, completed 33,976 welds, and installed 518 turnouts and 20 grade crossing diamonds. In addition, five sidings were extended from 10,000 to 15,000 feet, while 37 bridges were replaced, 92 bridges were rehabbed and mechanical components were replaced at three movable bridges. 

However, the department’s biggest accomplishment was replacing 520.8 miles of rail — the most replaced since 1992, seven years prior to when NS acquired a portion of Conrail. 

The engineering department was able to take advantage of more track time generated by process and management changes, higher productivity, tailored machinery and recent technological improvements to replace so much rail and accomplish the other work, says NS Vice President of Engineering Ed Boyle. Department managers also worked closely with the network operations, marketing and customer service teams on planning and coordination efforts. 

Also on NS’ 2023 agenda: installing 2.25 million wood ties. The railroad installed 2.16 million wood ties last year. Norfolk Southern Railway

To boost productivity, NS employs the only rail laying process in the industry — involving specialty equipment built in house — that’s designed to replace both rails at the same time, says Boyle. 

“The benefit is we can replace a tremendous amount of rail with only one track outage,” he says. 

Now, the engineering department is planning an equally — if not slightly more — ambitious MOW program in 2023. The overall MOW budget is up a tad year over year, says Boyle. 

The railroad is poised to replace 8% more rail in 2023, yet with 30% less production teams, he adds. 

“Our goal is to provide a safe, fast and reliable infrastructure network at the lowest possible cost,” Boyle says. 

The department plans to replace 525 miles of rail and install 2.25 million wood ties. If the rail goal is reached, it will be the first time in many decades that NS has replaced more than 500 miles of rail in consecutive years, says Boyle. 

Crews also will surface about 2,000 miles of track (versus about 1,500 in 2022), install 425 panel turnouts and replace about 30,000 bridge ties. 

In 2022, crews replaced 475 panel turnouts across the network, including this one shown in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Norfolk Southern Railway

In addition, the 2023 program calls for a slight increase in overall bridge work — the Class I maintains 9,545 bridges. There are 41 bridge replacements and 79 bridge rehabs on the docket. 

The department’s challenges this year will be to continue coordinating work windows with the network operations department and finding ways to counter the higher prices and more limited availability of many materials, says Boyle. 

NS also needs to keep leveraging technology to help determine the top MOW needs and ensure that work is optimized. To that end, the railroad relies on predictive analytics when replacing rail, especially since rail wear varies widely. 

There are many factors to consider when analyzing rail wear, including the amount of tonnage transported over a specific track, the average train speed on a track, and if a track is straight or curved, says Boyle. 

Engineering department leaders worked with members of NS’ data science team to develop algorithms that can help determine how much rail will wear away over the next five to 10 years. Information is gathered from billions of data points generated by track geometry systems to identify when a specific rail will reach its wear limit and then trigger a replacement. 

“This game-changing, in-house technology gives us the confidence that we are efficiently replacing the right rail in the right place at the right time,” Boyle says. “We know when each track will reach a slower speed limit.” 

In addition, NS has developed its own locomotive-mounted autonomous track geometry system designed to pinpoint potential rail problems before they occur by more accurately measuring surface, line and gauge. The system can gather measurements while a train is hauling freight at normal track speeds, says Boyle. 

NS currently is employing five of the autonomous track geometry systems and expects to deploy up to 20 in about three years. 

The railroad also continues to use several track geometry systems mounted in box cars plus a couple of manned track geometry cars. On an annual basis, the five autonomous systems can inspect 400,000 miles of track compared with 50,000 miles typically logged by the railroad’s two manned track geometry cars, says Boyle.