I've got some photo's but don't have a suitable URL to post them to. Would be happy to email them for someone else to post.
[quote user="Railway Man"]
Norm48327: Sharing the ROW with public utilities is pretty common where I live. I assume it is mutually beneficial to both the railroad and the utility companies.
Sharing the ROW with public utilities is pretty common where I live. I assume it is mutually beneficial to both the railroad and the utility companies.
Very much depends what the utility is, and where it is, and what year it is. In the time when people were thinking there wasn't much future in the railroad business, the meager one-time check offered by a fiber company seemed like free money. Fiber isn't too painful to move out of the way of a rail expansion project, but transmission lines become very expensive to move as their size grows larger, and pipelines apparently are made from solid gold. On a branch line it may not matter much, but right-of-way width in a high-traffic main line corridor is very valuable. There are many who wish that our predecessors had never entertained anything in the ROW other than the railway.
RWM
RWM has opened the most germane aspect of this discussion: ROW needed by the railroad for its operations and growth, and also, the title the railroad has to its property.
The high traffic lines are growing in importance and the HSR advocates want to utilize it even more. Look at the BNSF Transcon where triple track was installed on Cajon Pass and the difficulty they have had at Abo Canyon. Also, imagine what happen when a derailment occurs, especially at high speed. Do you want a gas or petroleum line burried within fifty feet of a high densitiy, high speed main track? And are you willing to have a vital fiber optic line severed and not available to be repaired for several days?
The title that railroads have is very complex. They almost always acquired it in small segments and by varied means. Some of those acquisitions stipulate, either in the document itself, by statute or by litigated case law, that the railroad has title only for the operation of its transportation business. So does the railroad have the right to sell occupancy for utility lines which parallel the tracks? Crossing the railroad from one side to the other is not a conflict but paralleling may entitle the owner who conveyed title to the railroad to participation in the revenue derived.
One branch line near here - the 7-mile former Reading's Colebrookdale branch - has an AT&T FOL running along it from Pottstown to Boyertown, where's there's a fair-sized bank HQ and some other businesses. If I recall correctly from about 10 years ago, the recurring annual payment for those lease rights from AT&T is in the range of $14,000 per year, and was the most significant single component of the valuation of the line when its sale by the County and purchase by its then sole-user was being contemplated.
Fiber-optic lines are unfortunately routinely severed from causes other than derailments, and in those circumstances do not rise to the level of affecting national security. An IT guy I know once said "The backhoe is the natural enemy of the Internet", and a few years ago a morning spent with a then-AT&T "Long Lines" locating technician yielded some interesting and bizarre stories about that occurs. So some disruptions ought to be tolerable - it's a network, after all, and there ought to be alternate routes available.
To compel a relocation of an FOL at no expense - or on the other side, to obtain reimbursement for same - is largely a matter of bargaining power and ability between the railroad and the FOL owner. There is no compelling natural law that prohibits the railroad from requiring the FOL to be relocated when and where the railroad needs that done - although that might well affect the amount of the payment for the lease or easement. Here in Pennsylvania that's a fundamental, well-understood, and non-waivable condition to installing a utility line of any kind (except CATV) in a public street or road - whether state or local - and it is exercised frequently in connection with road widenings and intersection improvements, which are the highway equivalents to adding tracks and upgrading interlockings. And you know, I don't see that this Commonwealth or its residents are notably underserved or overcharged by said utilities because of that - it's a cost of doing business, and is part of the bargain for the otherwise nominal cost - permit fees, etc. - of using the public R-O-W.
diningcar's comments about the quality of the title to the railroad R-O-W affecting the legal right to install a FOL is 'spot on'. In some documents I've seen, the railroad makes no representations or warranty of title - it's essentially a 'Quit-Claim', and the FOL company takes it 'as-is' and so has to be prepared to negotiate and fight the issue with anyone who raises it. Of course, those companies usually also have the power of private eminent domain/ condemnation, so the dispute with the owner of the underlying land rarely lasts too long, and is usually more about the size of the check for the 'taking' damages than about the power of the FOL to condemn whatever rights it needs.
- Paul North.
WOW! So many questions and so little time. I started out installing fiber optic networks on RR ROW as a contractor (Henkels & McCoy) using the first RR cable plow. Later I was the ROW owner for the installation of fiber optic networks when I worked for Amtrak on the NEC. After that I installed fiber optic networks on RR ROW as the "client" when I was with Qwest. So I've experienced it from all sides of the table.
Backhoe fade is what we call cable damage by dig-ups. I belonged to a national organization of RR companies and the telecom industry that actively worked with the state "One-Call" systems to reduce the number of backhoe fade incidents. The NRTPC is still in existence.
I worked for CSX Fiber Networks as a consultant and negotiated the agreements for telecom companies to use the CSX ROW. The deals varied greatly from location to location and fees were largely dependent on the ROI for the fiber route. The largest deal I ever worked on netted $200,000 per mile one-time-fee + yearly fees for 20 years.
The thing that always caused me heartburn was that the big money went straight to the coffers of the railroad companies and NONE of it ever trickled down to the MOW and B&B people who had to support our efforts during the installation of the fiber optic network. There we were demanding a track-out-of-servcie so that we could run our RR cable plow and the railroaders were trying to haul freight or passengers over the track to make money for the company. And then there was the issue of getting flagmen support for our operations. That was another nightmare, but many railroaders got a lot of OT...
JLY
I'll try to shed a little more light on the legal ramifications of using Railroad Rights of Way for things other than actual railroad usage (i.e., laying fiber optic cables) Since I live in Georgia, I had the privilege watching of the Atlanta-Macon installation. Qwest/NS T-Cubed subsidiary teamed up around 2001 to lay this cable from Atlanta to Jacksonville via the old secondary CofG mainline to Macon and the former GS&F to Jacksonville. I was told that the initial installation cost was at least $36 million. This didn't include the annual lease of the right of way by Qwest. Unfortunately, neither company bothered to look at whether doing any of this was actually legal! (with full time legal departments at both companies, you'd think someone would have caught on!)
Much of today's railroad mainlines were built via government issued easements from the original property owners. A lot of these easements stipulated that the right of way could be used ONLY for railroad transportation and nothing else. It also couldn't be subleased to another entity for non-railroad usage. Should the railroad be abandoned, the right of way reverts back to the current property owner unless the government takes it via eminent domain. (i.e., bike trails) Fiber optic cable does not fall under this category. One of the landowners here in Georgia had an aptitude for the law, and figured this out. A multi-million dollar, class action lawsuit soon followed claiming the railroad broke the freight/passenger transport only clause. Each and every property owner with ROW frontage was awarded money based on how much feet/acreage they had adjacent to the ROW. I never did hear the final amount of the lawsuit, but I'm sure it was in the millions! And the VERY costly cable they laid? To my knowledge, it has never been used. If anyone has more (or better) info on this, I'm all ears! It was both fascinating and hilarious to watch this all play out. I know at least two people who actually received money from this lawsuit, and both got a kick out getting paid money for someone else's stupidity!
Joe H. (Milepost S256.0; NS Griffin District)
Pictures: http://anb740.rrpicturearchives.net
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/anb740
anb740 I'll try to shed a little more light on the legal ramifications of using Railroad Rights of Way for things other than actual railroad usage (i.e., laying fiber optic cables) Since I live in Georgia, I had the privilege watching of the Atlanta-Macon installation.
I'll try to shed a little more light on the legal ramifications of using Railroad Rights of Way for things other than actual railroad usage (i.e., laying fiber optic cables) Since I live in Georgia, I had the privilege watching of the Atlanta-Macon installation.
ANB740: There is another questionable Georgia installation that I have wondered. There is a FOC between Columbus and Albany Ga along the SAL ROW that the trackage has been abandoned. There have been some minor disputes about back hoe disruptions but your post briings up some interesting items. Also some buildings have been built over the old ROW?
Michels Communications I've got some photo's but don't have a suitable URL to post them to. Would be happy to email them for someone else to post.
You can email photos to buxton.graham @ gmail.com and I will post them. (Make sure to remove the spaces bracketing the "@".)
From Anb740:[ FTT] "...I had the privilege watching of the Atlanta-Macon installation. Qwest/NS T-Cubed subsidiary teamed up around 2001 to lay this cable from Atlanta to Jacksonville via the old secondary CofG mainline to Macon and the former GS&F to Jacksonville. I was told that the initial installation cost was at least $36 million. This didn't include the annual lease of the right of way by Qwest. Unfortunately, neither company bothered to look at whether doing any of this was actually legal! (with full time legal departments at both companies, you'd think someone would have caught on!..."
Just a Note on the above.. I believe that this was the installation/ event that triggered this Thread at the beginning with questions about FOC lines along railroad ROW's.
I lived in Georgia from 1998 to 2001. It was the installation by QUEST on the NS ROW that triggered my curiosity, and consequent post here. It is amazing the amount of information that can be found in this Forum!
The point that Anb740 and RR Plow made about the administrative difficulties (land titles, and ownership issues) brings into perspective how difficult in these modern times of the 21st Century how historical problems can bedevil projects done to advance modern technology. Railway Man and Mud Chicken especially has opened my eyes to issues of tracking ownership through Public Records and their historical trail of peculiarities of former ownership vs. current ownership and land occupancy (D,M&G RR. nee: D,M& A RR Originally a Narrow Gauge through this area and then a MoPac RR branch [to UPRR] )
These photos are the ones offered by Michels Communications earlier in this thread. The photos have been resized to the maximum (550 pixels) allowed by this forum. Most do not have individual captions, so I have posted the descriptive "filename" under each photo.
-railplow pre-rip.jpg
-railplow rocky area.jpg
-railplow 8 duct NJ.jpg
-railplow 8 duct.jpg
-Rail plow photo - 8-way duct.jpg
-Rail plow photo - Gondola with colors.jpg
-Rail plow - old design.jpg
-bore pullback.jpg The bore pullback photo shows the drill stem, which crossed under the converging track at a depth of 10 feet. The bore stem is attached to a swivel, reamer/hole opener, and the HDPE casing pipe which will line the hole.
-bridge approach.jpg The bridge approach shows the casing pipe being trenched toward the bridge attachment.
-Delta plow 6 duct.jpg The Delta Plow photo shows a conventional crawler tractor that is used in shorter sections where the rail plow isn’t practical.
-Typical Handholes.jpg Typical handholes photo shows the boxes that are used as assist point for installing the fiber optic cable, and for storing maintenance coils of cable.
Edit: It appears I misunderstood the 550 pixel limit, and may have been able to post pix that would initially display 550 pixels, but display larger if then clicked. Next time!
There's an article on page B-5 of the "Marketplace" section of today's Wall Street Journal about the resurgence of fiber optic companies - how their values have increased, many recent acquisitions, and the demand for their services, especially for the 'last mile' between the networks and users in cities, and from the land-based networks to cell phone towers for mobile phone users, etc. It mentioned that there's generally still plenty of capacity between cities, so it might be a while before there's a lot more FOL laid on railroad R-O-W's for long distances - or maybe not so long. But the R-O-W for short distances in those urban areas might be more valuable now . . .
Now, the fiber-optic network business is enjoying a resurgence, particularly for metro fiber, the high-capacity lines that connect a city's office buildings, data centers and cellular towers to the Internet. . . .
While there is a still an abundance of the long-haul fiber that connects cities to one another, there is an increasing demand to replace slower copper cables with faster fiber in much of the "last mile" of the Internet—the direct connections to users.
Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204467204576048110913769584.html#ixzz19X1yEq7v
The resemblance of the railplow to a Jordan spreader is quite remarkable.
I'm impressed to see that the ducts are inserted into the trenches as they are cut. But it makes sense, I was wondering what kept the trench from closing before the liner was laid, bu seeing how you do it all at once explains a lot.
Do you ever have problems with one of the ducts snapping off under the pull, (under ground0 and having to go back, dig it up and splice it. If so does the whole operation stop while the fix is made, or does the trencher just stub the open end back into the machine and leave the line to be repaired later?
Convicted One Do you ever have problems with one of the ducts snapping off under the pull, (under ground0 and having to go back, dig it up and splice it. If so does the whole operation stop while the fix is made, or does the trencher just stub the open end back into the machine and leave the line to be repaired later?
The plow is usually followed by at least 2 high rail excavators for cleaning up the ballast, installing handholes, digging the duct down in areas where we had to pull the plow up, such as culverts, or to repair snapped ducts. These locations are usually marked with a wood stake or paint on the ground or on the rail so the plow can keep moving. Track time is usually hard to get, you don't want to stop the plow if you can avoid it.
Some of our old plows were modified Jordan Spreaders. The newer versions were built from the ground up, they have better control and much more robust hydraulic systems.
Hope the photo's help to explain the process.
Thanks for the wealth of information. One last question from me, what is the typical track speed while installation is in progress?
Convicted One Thanks for the wealth of information. One last question from me, what is the typical track speed while installation is in progress?
It's widely variable based upon a number of factors. Influenced primarily by depth required, number of ducts being installed, soil conditions and the presence of other obstacles. I would say a range of 0.1 to 1.0 mph, sometimes a little better. When it's going really good you'd have to walk fast to keep up. In difficult soils the plow may have to pre-rip the path a time or two before full depth can be achieved. If pre-ripping doesn't produce results we have to go to open cut or hammering and excavating the rock out.
A few more tid-bits based on the above response:
I installed Sprints FOC on Guilford ROW in the late 80s and I think it's correct to say they held onto the ROW to get the revenue from FOC installations.
Danella sent people to Canada to copy the CN Rail plow that I consulted on for CN Rail. They only did a couple of jobs and the last time I saw the plow it was in a yard behind their HQ in Plymouth Meeting PA. They contacted me a number of years ago to see if I could broker a deal to sell the plow in Mexico.
SP Telecom was the direct forerunner of Qwest. Qwest owned and ran a number of cat-tractor plows, but never actually owned a RR Cable Plow. During the Qwest backbone build-out in the 90s there were two construction groups -- the In-House and the Out-House. I was part of the Out-house (yes we got all of those jokes). We contracted all of our work to third party contractors such as Michels, Henkels & McCoy, Mears, and others.
James
Michels didn't field a RR cable plow until 1987. Henkels & McCoy invented the RR cable plow and patented it many years before. H&M used the second generation RR cable plow to perform the FIRST RR cable plow fiber optic installation in 1984 for AT&T between Harrisburg and Chicago. H&M was using the RR cable plow for fiber optic installations for two years before Michels built their first plow. I'm just setting the record straight based on a lot of stuff posted in this string. I was there - I know.
RRPlow H&M used the second generation RR cable plow to perform the FIRST RR cable plow fiber optic installation in 1984 for AT&T between Harrisburg and Chicago.
H&M used the second generation RR cable plow to perform the FIRST RR cable plow fiber optic installation in 1984 for AT&T between Harrisburg and Chicago.
With what you say about the Guilford ROW, i wonder if the same logic was a factor in CSX's decision to rent out that former PRR line to Chicago, Fort Wayne, & Eastern, instead of abandoning it?
Fortunately, the days of the railplow are coming to an end. The western Class 1's have all but banned its use for safety clearance reasons and for the damage it does to the subgrade (If you didn't have ballast pockets beforehand, you will now). About the only place railplows are still used is on narrow R/W's and in yards.
RRPlow SP Telecom was the direct forerunner of Qwest. Qwest owned and ran a number of cat-tractor plows, but never actually owned a RR Cable Plow. James
SP Telecom was the direct forerunner of Qwest. Qwest owned and ran a number of cat-tractor plows, but never actually owned a RR Cable Plow.
We purchased 27 rail cars including 4 rail plows from Qwest in Aug 2004. At the time the cars were kept on a siding in Carleton, OK. I've still got the bill of sale and it has a Qwest logo on it. In 1995 SP Telecom assumed the name Qwest and later went public. Most of the cars we purchased from Qwest were either cut up for scrap or sold due to their age. We've still got 3 of the SP/Qwest rail plows. One of them (MPCX 5003) is in the first two photo's attached by Rader Sidetrack, above. Those photo's were taken in Nov 2010.
Michels is getting a lot of "press" in this string. Again, I have to set the record straight. Henkels & McCoy installed the first single-mode fiber optic network in 1983. The ROW was Amtrak's northeast corridor. This was not a RR cable plow job. The fiber optic cable was installed in the existing duct and manhole system that was built along the NEC in the 1930's. You can imagine the condition of the duct system. We had to remove old lead-sheathed C&S cables from the ducts to make room for the new FOC. The "owner" of the network was the up-start MCI. This was the first major network build after the de-regulation of the AT&T monopoly.
The very first use of a RR cable plow for installing fiber optic cable was the Harrisburg to Chicago installation that started in 1984. Henkels & McCoy did this project using the then-patented RR cable plow.
RE: hitting a rock or similar underground obstacle while plowing - it stopped a 2200 HP locomotive in it's tracks! Although rare, I've seen the plow shank, which is 2" thick T-1 steel snapped off. More common was the blowing out of the hydraulic cylinders that controlled the plows movement. That usually meant working all night to repair the damage.
That's very interesting - really. I worked for Qwest from 1994 to 2000. I was Director of Construction (originally for SP Telecom, later Qwest) for the network east of the Mississippi. We didn't have RR plows available to us from Qwest. We contracted for the RR plows from Michels, Henkels & McCoy, and later Mears.
I wonder if Qwest acquired the RR cable plow after I left in 2000. I can't imagine that we would have contracted for RR cable plows if we had our own.
BTW, The first 8 second generation plows built by H&M were built on flat cars acquired from Conrail. I attribute the sensible use of locomotive chassis for RR cable plows to Michels. To my knowledge, all RR cable plows built after Michels use the locomotive chassis have been built on similar platforms. Michels' roots are in the pipeline industry and pipeliners build heavy-duty equipment.
Your comments are interesting. You infer that the RR cable plow was dangerous. In the many years I was associated with the machines I never knew of an injury greater than getting a cut from a Buck knife. There was a contractor in the late 90s who "re-invented" the RR cable plow by chaining down a Cat 235 excavator on a flatbed car and welding a plow shank to the bucket. They used the excavator to reach over the side of the flatbed to put the shank in the ground and plow inner duct (the HDPE pipe that the FOC was later pulled into). This was truly a Rube Goldberg arrangement that should never been allowed on track. They moved it with the boom extended and got tangled in a power line. If memory serves me, they got a couple of people killed.
The legitimate RR cable plows are still in use, although not very often. I should also say here that UP never allowed the use of the RR cable plow on their ROW because of the issues you mentioned re: ballast and the subgrade. In all my years being associated with the RR cable plows I never had a RR come back to me and claim that the use of these machines caused them problems with the roadbed. I used the RR cable plow on Conrail, CSX, NS, Guilford, CN, BNSF, SP, Alaska RR, FNM, and many of the Class II railroads.
Pipelines were the earlier use of ROW. Many years ago a side boom crane was holding a section of pipe in the air along the SP line into San Francisco. Along comes a commuter train at speed and the venturi effect of the passing train pulled the suspended pipe into the passing train. Several passengers were injured. I am positive that work rules were changed after this incident.
We recently had an owner of a small railroad complain about the cleanup after the rail plowing was complete. We were surprised and obviously concerned so we arranged to high-rail the route. Turns out that he saw one side of the track was picture perfect and the other side was pretty rough, so he assumed the rough side must have been where we were plowing. The picture perfect side was actually where the new duct and fiber had been buried. We had not done any work or had any equipment on the side he was pointing to. Pretty comical.
As for injuries, I'd agree with James, this is not dangerous when properly managed. You'll see some occasional sprains and strains, and if we are allowed to use bullet resistant fiberglass pipe for the bridges instead of steel, even those sprains and strains are greatly reduced.
I always wondered how the cable was buried along railroad rights-of-way, especially since so much of railroad engineering concerns the integrity of the soil underneath the sub-ballast.
Now that I think of it again, would the railroad need to re-lay sub-ballast, ballast, and track after laying this cable, or did they just hope for the best? I can easily see the backfilled soil, no matter how well compacted, somehow compromising the integrity of the whole route.
I was the manager of hundreds of miles of fiber optic cable installations on RR ROW throughout North America. Yes, there were rare, but not uncommon situations where the RR Cable Plow caused damage to the roadbed, but we worked with the RR to fix these problems on the spot. Some RR's (Conrail as an example) would require us to keep many ballast cars at the ready and they would re-dress the ballast (at our expense) after the plowing operation. Nonetheless, I cannot recall any incidents caused by the plowing operation that caused a delay in the movement of freight over the rails. We were allowed to use the ROW to install the fiber optic cables, but the RR's were in the business of moving freight and we couldn't impede their primary revenue stream.
Where on the BNSF did you use the plow? They only place I have seen fiber optic cable installed was by the ROW fence. I can't image they would give you enough track and time to make it pay.
Hello, I was wondering if you were available to look into a small contract i may have coming up in the Maniotba.
Also, Jerrod mentioned installing pipe in the ground with fibers being blown in after the install. What distance can you blow fiber and what putups were the pipes ( lengths per spool ).
The distance i am looking to cover is about 70 Km. Was considering arnoured fiber being plowed directly in-ground but it may be too much stress on the cable ( or not ).
Any and all comments appreciated.
A few comments earlier asked about how the right-of-way was paid for. When I worked for UP, the cable company paid for all direct costs of installing the FOL, including things like flaggers, train crews, etc. Some railroads were then paid either a one-time fee, or a yearly fee, for the right-of-way. Some railroads, instead of cash, took rights to a certain amount of capacity of the line for communications and signals. For some, this was better as it reduced the cash element, thus the tax element.
The railroad right-of-way was not always the desired route. Initially, most communication companies wanted to use highway right-of-ways, but were told they couldn't use them since highway tax money bought them. Therefore, the revenue moved to railroads and other utility routes (some pipelines now have fiber besides them). However, lately, highway departments want the cable lines for their information signs, TV camera monitoring, etc. However, the US network is almost complete and few companies need the highway routes. Therefore, highway departs are now paying people to install the lines. The result is that instead of being paid, the departments are having to pay the full cost of the systems.
Bart Jennings
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