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On The Right Track: Union Pacific Replaces Ties, Repairs Crossings

Posted on: Sunday, 21 May 2006, 15:01 CDT

By Tony Vindell, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

May 20--HARLINGEN -- The crews, the railroad ties and the weird-looking machines have been a common sight along the area's railroad tracks for the past three months.

Union Pacific Railroad is undertaking a multimillion-dollar project to replace ties and fix crossings along the 50-mile stretch from Brownsville to Raymondville.

The Omaha-based railroad is investing more than $11.5 million in the Rio Grande Valley, replacing close to 100,000 ties and making improvements to about 160 crossings.

Some crossings, like the one on East Van Buren in the downtown business district, is being completely redone. Other crossings are being improved to make them less bumpy when crossing.

Joe Arbona, a spokesman with UP's southern region that covers Texas and Louisiana, said the improvement project began in March and should be completed in June.

"This is part of a capital improvement plan the company is doing all over the country," he said of the $2.7 billion nationwide project. "We have about 38,000 miles of tracks and that requires a lot of maintenance work."

Just in Texas, the railroad company has 6,400 miles, making the Lone Star State the region with the most tracks.

Arbona said UP employs 8,200 people in Texas -- also the most in the United States -- with an annual payroll of $512 million.

The maintenance project is being handled by UP employees and subcontractors.

"Some of us work seven or eight days in a row, and are off a similar number of days," a UP worker, who asked not to be identified because of company policies, said. "Whenever we finish working in one place, we go to another place either here or in other regions of the state."

Marcus Hogan, who works for J. Construction out of Palestine, a town in East Texas, said they have been here for nearly a year working on different phases of track maintenance.

Hogan said the vehicles seen riding along the tracks are called high rails. Others are called gang trucks because they transport groups of workers to a particular site.

"We have been here since last June," Hogan said. "We are supposed to be off on weekends, but it doesn't always work like that."

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Copyright (c) 2006, Valley Morning Star, Harlingen, Texas

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: Valley Morning Star (Harlingen, Texas)

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