csmith9474 Just out of curiosity, where and for who is the project for (if you are comfortable disclosing that here)?
Just out of curiosity, where and for who is the project for (if you are comfortable disclosing that here)?
To Smitty (CSmith9474) and to Michael Assad
Thanks you for your interest in this Thread. Since I was the O.P. on it; I'll attempt to give some background.
The original discussion was started by some questions as to the various uses of Railroad R.O.W.s as used for the laying of various types of services that might utilize those routes. (RCL's and Pipelines of various types,etc) . There are several posters that come here from time to time that are Engineering-type, Professionals.
The discussion was originally based on some legal questions as to the amount of control ( ability to sell, or sub-let Railroad ROWS for use other than specific railroad use. Buried RCL's, and other uses that might include other types of utilities.)
One POster mentioned that it was all a product of the legality of the way that a Company had acquired the Original Property rights ( an outright purchase, or a lease from adjacent property holders- to be used specifically for a railroad. When that use was no longer available, to return to the adjacent land owner.) It was a pretty interesting and informative discussion.
The this thread on the RCL cable and, and that process of its use and installation, took off. Discussions of Equipment specifics and the Companies that did the actual installations; SPRINT ( a Southern Pacific Company), QUEST CORP, and then Michaels Company.
There were a couple of articles on the problems caused on the N.E. Corridor, in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, and the service and equipment disruptions caused by exposed Railroad utilities.
This past Summer, and Fall in this area Between Mulvane,Ks. and Wichita; the BNSF laid a number of miles of RCL (fiber Optic Cable) and did major signal replacement on this area of the ElDorado sub. Took out all the former ATSF Signals and replaced them with PTC radio equip,ment and signals. Also pulled down all the old pole lines and their wiring. They did not use any rail mounted laying equipment, it was all non-railroad ditching and underground type digging machines.
This has been a fascinating thread for someone new to the industry who has been tasked with a rail plow project :)
I'm really hoping that Jarrod and/or James are still following this because I need your help!
My company has been contracted to complete the Development Plan for a PTC project. We are confident we will win the business to install the solution as well.
Our system relies on a fiber optic network which is currently unavailable along the line. I have been tasked with finding quotes for installing the fiber and also finding a telco who would be willing to foot the bill and/or lease the extra capacity (we only need one fiber).
Can someone help me with this?
Cheers!
Mike
Jarrod,
I've known Tag for - well a lot of years. I knew Pat's father probably better than I know Pat.
James
I replaced Tag as the head of the Communications division about 2 years ago, and report to Pat who is now the President of Michels Corporation.
In regard to working in Canada, we have a subsidiary (Michels Canada), based in Nisku, Alberta.
Jerrod
Hey Jarrod,
What's your relationship with Tag and Pat?
Liv,
I will call you tomorrow to discuss. The firm I presently work for does not have RR Cable Plows so I'm not lobbying for a contract. I'm RR Plow agnostic. Jarrod's firm (Michels) does have RR Cable plows and I'm sure they would like to put them to use, however I don't know what the present regulations are re: US firms working in Canada. I'm also not current on the location or condition of the CN RR Cable Plows. There are other firms such as Henkels & McCoy who still have RR Cable Plows and actively seek projects.
I'll talk to you tomorrow
484 612 3842
Cable Puller -
I'd be happy to discuss your Manitoba project. I can be reached at (920) 583-3132.
Bartman,
You are absolutely correct. All ancillary costs of installing fiber optic cable on RR ROW was charged to the telecom company that wished to use the ROW. Additionally, a yearly charge for occupation of the ROW was charged to the telecom company was (and still is) charged usually in a 20 year right of occupancy agreement. I worked for Amtrak on the northeast corridor leasing the NEC ROW to telecom companies.
You are also correct in pointing out that state DOTs were the original target of telecoms for ROW for the installation of FOC networks, but the DOTs were so fractious and hard to deal with that the telecoms quickly gravitated to RR ROW. The RR's were independent entities that were accustomed to dealing in ROW agreements and so had all the kinks worked out when the telecom companies came calling.
Further, you are correct in that state DOTs are now attempting to lure telecom and other broadband providers to their ROW now. The DOTs need fiber on their ROW to facilitate their ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) infrastructure. The RR industry was able to get to lions' share to the ROW deals.
Sure James, you can reach me at 204-951-7827. I'd be happy to see if we can work something out on this project.
Liv
I would be happy to offer assistance with your proposed project. Let me address a couple of points in your post.
Let me know if you would like to talk about your installation,
A further analogy can be made as it relates to the title by which the railroad owns its ROW. If the title is only for the conduct of its transportation business then those who have the reversionary interest have been found (through litigation) to be entitled to compensation when fiber optic lines are laid.
However, if the railroad instead of taking money took the rights to fiber optic capacity for their transportation business, communication and signal lines for example, then they have not violated their title to the ROW. I believe that the old Western Union telegraph lines on railroad ROW were the first to utilize this cocept, and of course they have been gone for many years.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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?
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.
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.
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