(The following story by Scott Davis appeared on the Lansing State Journal website on July 24, 2010.)
LANSING, Mich. — More than a century ago, gangs of burly men would lay railroad ties at a snail’s pace, driving them in with sledgehammers.
Today, the work proceeds more quickly with large hydraulic machines, but still not fast enough to avoid causing headaches for motorists facing traffic backups and detours.
Such a project to replace 40,000 ties on nearly 40 miles of CSX Corp. track between Lansing and Howell now is causing delays for motorists in Meridian Township.
Drivers hit some of those delays Wednesday and Thursday when Van Atta Road near Jolly Road was closed off for the track upgrade. More temporary closures are scheduled in coming weeks for Hagadorn, Burkley, Corwin and Harrison roads.
The track upgrades in Meridian Township are occurring at the same time as a summer-long bridge construction project on Dobie Road over the Red Cedar River and reconstruction of Grand River Avenue near Meridian Road.
Bill Stelzer, a Williams-town Township resident, said this week’s closure of Van Atta added up to 10 minutes to his daily commute to his petroleum exploration consulting job in Lansing. He said the Van Atta closure, combined with other work, was disrupting north-south traffic in Meridian Township.
“I tried to go Okemos Road a few times, and it’s a disaster,” Stelzer said. “It was frustrating to see (Van Atta) closed, and thinking, ‘Boy. This isn’t very good planning.”
Bill Conklin, managing director for the Ingham County Road Commission, said CSX submits its upgrade schedule to the road commission and other municipalities, and the commission generally allows the train company to schedule their own work.
“We can’t really control what the railroad does,” Conklin said. “They have to do what they have to do.”
Tom Bowen, roadmaster for CSX in western Michigan, said the company began the project this month to replace most of the railroad ties between Lansing and Howell. The work is expected to be concluded in September.
Bowen said there are about 3,000 ties per mile of track, and CSX generally replaces up to 1,400 ties per mile, depending mostly on the condition of the tie. He said the company can extract and lay 3,000 ties a day using hydraulic machinery that can pull up the old ties and drive in new ones.
Bowen said the old wood ties are shipped to a power plant in Alabama and burned for electricity.
The company generally replaces most of the ties every six to eight years, he said. The project also includes resurfacing where tracks cross roads.