2018 Railway Tie Survey and the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials Rulemaking Activities

IRG/WP 19-50352

R Fronczak, S Smith

This presentation will discuss a survey AAR recently completed on the management of used crossties in the North American rail industry. Approximately 23 million new wood ties are purchased and installed in the North American rail network every year. The presentation will show the number and percentage of ties which are managed by reused in track, reuse in commercial, agricultural or residential landscaping, incinerated, recycled using combustion, recycled using gasification, and landfilled. In addition, the railroads have been working with the treated wood industry to petition EPA to remove the design to burn requirement from the Non-Hazardous Secondary Materials regulation. The design to burn requirement limits used creosote and creosote borate treated ties to boilers that are designed to burn or previously designed to burn fuel oil. This has taken away 58% of the boilers railroads used to use to manage these ties. A petition for rulemaking to remove this requirement was filed with EPA in December of 2018. The presentation will cover the most recent activity in this area.


Keywords: crosstie, creosote, non-hazardous, railroad

Conference: 19-05-12/16 Quebec City, Canada


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