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UP: "Long-Rail" Is a Game Changer


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 20 April 2015 - 07:20 PM

UP "Community Ties" web page, 3/27:

 

Long Rail is a Game Changer

 

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Cranes load 480-foot sections of high-strength, head-hardened continuous cast rail from a ship at the Port of Stockton to shuttle cars.

 

 

A dream more than a decade in the making is now reality. Union Pacific is the rail industry's first to import long rail from Japan to its custom facility at the Port of Stockton, California, setting a new standard for rail reliability.

 

Full appreciation of the milestone requires a historical perspective. America’s first railroads were constructed by bolting together 16-foot-long sections of steel rail. The bolted areas were structurally the weakest, having the potential to break and cause a derailment. By the 1940s, steel companies began manufacturing longer sections, fused together in welding plants to create quarter-mile-length segments. A great advancement over bolted rail, the welds strengthened the track structure.

 

By the 1980s, head-hardened rail was developed, cooling steel at a rate that provided additional strength. The new standard section became 80 feet, requiring 17 welds to create a quarter-mile length. Longer rail sections continued to be developed, but weren't as strong.

 

During this time, Union Pacific, Nippon Steel of Japan and Sumitomo Metal Corp. began discussing a revolutionary idea – manufacturing and shipping high-strength, head-hardened continuous-cast rail in 480-foot-long sections.  With access to long rail, only two welds are needed to create quarter-mile lengths, representing an 88 percent reduction in the number of welds.

 

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#2 CNJRoss

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Posted 29 June 2015 - 07:11 PM

World-Herald, Omaha, NE, 6/29:
 

To boost safety, Union Pacific using superlong rail lengths to replace worn track

 

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Three cranes unload 480-foot lengths of railroad track destined for installation on the Union Pacific system from the railroad’s special freight ship in Stockton, California. The rails were brought by sea from a steel mill in Japan, where they were made especially for the Omaha-based railroad.

 

 

Reducing the number of welds in a section of replacement railroad track has been a quest that sent Union Pacific Railroad around the world, a journey that finally culminated this year on a lonely stretch of west Texas scrubland.

 

The Omaha-based railroad is now the first large U.S. railroad to employ superlong rail lengths to replace worn track. The 480-foot pieces of rail — one is the length of 1½ football fields — require 88 percent fewer welds than the current 80-foot standard pieces. Fewer welds mean fewer stress points and, Union Pacific hopes, fewer derailments — a particular concern now that shipments of ethanol, chemicals and crude oil are on the rise.

 

“The long-rail project could significantly reduce broken rails related to welding,” said U.P. spokesman Mark Davis.

 

The first stretch to get the new rail was in Texas, between Sierra Blanca and Finlay — a 24-mile patch that was upgraded this year. To do so, U.P., employer of 8,000 Nebraskans, had to scour the earth and its seas.

 

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#3 CNJRoss

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Posted 27 July 2015 - 08:45 PM

Recordnet.com, 7/26:

 

PORT OF STOCKTON

Working on the railroad plant

 

STOCKTON — Tucked away on the west end of Rough and Ready Island, behind the row of Port of Stockton warehouses facing Humphreys Road, a one-of-a-kind plant is turning out quarter-mile lengths of steel rail.
That rail goes to Union Pacific Railroad Co. maintenance and expansion projects throughout the western U.S., including areas just east of the Mississippi River, said Dave Buccolo, general manager of Central California Traction Co., a Stockton short-line railroad half owned by Union Pacific.

 

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