Ties Weekly Update #5

13 May , 2004

 

 

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE

 

As of 13 May, we have installed over 50,000 of the 182,000 ties scheduled to be installed by November 24th 2004.  

 

 

¨       All crews are on or ahead of schedule

¨       As of 13 May, 136,000 ties have been delivered.

¨       The remaining 46,000 ties are scheduled to be here by July 30, 2004, although there is still concerns over the availability of gondolas for delivery

¨       DME tie gang in the Lake Preston (Wes Risseuw, foreman) area has completed over 6.0 miles of ties and ballasting.  Surfacing will begin soon behind this crew to remove a 10 MPH slow order.  This was not scheduled to be done until August, but was moved ahead in the schedule to improve train speeds in the area for the transportation department.

¨       The LA Colo tie gang completed the tie installation on the Owatonna sub on Saturday the 1st of May. They started installing ties on the DM&E between Owatonna and Mankato on May 4th. There are approximately 20,000 ties to install in this location and we expect this to be completed by the 21st of May. Some of these ties were originally scheduled to be installed east of Owatonna and south of Waseca but were reallocated to this location due to the added traffic that has been using the Owatonna interchange.

¨       Owatonna sub was removed from FRA “excepted” track status on Thursday the 13th for the first time in recent memory. This will be raised to FRA class 2 as ballasting and surfacing are completed

¨       The DME West tie gang (Jim Nemec, foreman) continues to improve on their production numbers and will be installing ties just south of Rapid City for the next several weeks

¨       The IC&E tie crew, under new tie gang foreman Steve Koser, started at Plymouth and are now just south of Austin. We expect this crew to complete the Owatonna sub around the end of May, and then travel to the Calmar area.