Surfacing
Weekly Update #8
3 June 2004
CONTINUING ON SCHEDULE
As of 3 June, we have surfaced over 170 of
the 800 pass miles to be surfaced in 2004, scheduled to be completed by November
24th. As of now, it appears we will
meet that schedule.
¨
All
of the 53 new Ballast cars that were leased for 2 years have arrived on line
and are in service. The general consensus of the engineering forces is that
these cars are an excellent investment and allow increased efficiency of the
ballast unloading process.
¨
The
Brandt truck, operated by Ernie Lehmkuhl has been very instrumental in the
ballast unloading operation. This truck can pull up to 20 cars of ballast or
other material for MOW crews to unload saving on work train requirements and
increasing the flexibility of the MOW forces.
¨
Surfacing
continues at a very strong pace with over 25 miles completed last week and
averaging over 20 miles per week. We
have eight surfacing crews operating on the two properties this year; seven are
our own employees and one a contractor, ARB out of Northwood, Iowa. The
surfacing crew foremen are Mike Cherne at Chillicothe, Jason Teynor at
Marquette, Remington Hill at Mason City, Kent Maxon at Waseca, Earl Ruchdaschel
at Huron, Jared Hook at Philip and Bob Tech at Belle Fourche.
¨
As
of the 3rd of June 2004, over 65,000 tons (over 860 car loads) of
ballast has been delivered. This is
over 33% of the 200,000 tons expected to be delivered this year.
¨
The
Transportation Department continues to do an excellent job moving the loads and
empties to the needed locations and have dedicated power and a 60 car train to
run from Brookings to Owatonna for the next few weeks to allow the ballasting
operation to get further ahead of our surfacing crews.