UP Employee Repurposes Downed Trees After Tornados in Missouri
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
Courtesy of Union Pacific
POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. – After tornados in Missouri, a Union Pacific employee processed downed trees to turn into rail tie-ready logs for local mills.
Track Supervisor, Tod Spradley, said, “I hated to see all of those trees go to waste,” after tornados hit the town of Poplar Bluff in Missouri. UP reports the track supervisor collected oak, hickory, and gum logs on and around his property to cut more than 40 logs into tie length. (Notably, there are an estimated 40 to 60 logs to collect on his 42-acre property.) The 8-foot, 6-inch logs were then loaded into Spradley’s large dump trailer with an excavator and tractor.
Spradley said, “Mills usually get logs from professional loggers. . . They cut them into various tie sizes and lumber before shipping them to treatment plants.” Once loaded onto his trailer, Spradley said his lumber was accepted by sawmills in both the Neelyville and Doniphan areas. The lumber will be treated and sold as ties to Union Pacific.
Union Pacific states that it will “invest $1.9 billion in infrastructure replacement, furthering its commitment to the safety and integrity of critical assets like rail ties. Last year, Engineering team members replaced more than 3 million ties throughout the railroad’s 23-state system.”
