UP’s Solution to Heat-Related Track Conditions
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
A Union Pacific high-rail truck equipped with a paint sprayer fights the sun’s heat by applying white paint to steel rail – the paint helps lower the rail’s surface temperature to reduce rail shifting and overheating.
Image and caption courtesy of UP
OMAHA, Neb. - Union Pacific blends a technique used in Europe with a U.S. highway practice to mitigate heat-related track conditions.
Union Pacific recently reported it is deploying a mix of European rail techniques with U.S. highway practices as a way to manage heat-related track conditions this summer with paint. The Class I said this is part of its “broader strategy” that it says allowed for its best-ever full-year derailment incident rate last year.
Chief safety officer Rod Doerr spoke about the strategy, saying UP used “took a page from road striping. . . Using a high-rail truck and paint sprayer, we apply white paint to both sides of the rail.” The color reflects the sun, lending to a lower overall surface temperature on the rail.
Heat, Doerr continues, causes steel to expand. When that steel has nowhere else to go, it will “push sideways and create what we call a thermal misalignment.” Throughout the 32,000-mile network, maintenance crews needed a way of mitigating this in the summer. The result is a success with a “20-degree drop in the rail temperature,” he added.
The technique is used throughout Europe, but “no other railroad in the U.S. is doing this.” This “prevention-first” strategy is build through a mix of innovation, monitoring, and proven practices, UP reports.
