Union Pacific Railroad will move mountains to safely deliver the service we sold our customers – and the railroad’s rockfall mitigation teams help make it possible.
A rockfall mitigation team scales the terrain in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.
“Proactively reshaping terrain along our routes enhances rail safety and efficiency by decreasing the chance of rockslides in canyons, cuts and mountainous regions,” said Rachel Beck, senior manager-special projects.
Union Pacific’s rockfall mitigation efforts are part of the $3.4 billion in capital the railroad plans to invest this year to support safe operations, renew assets and grow with customers.
From the Rocky Mountains to the river valleys of Missouri and Oklahoma, teams travel by foot, hyrail vehicle, helicopter or car to strategically bolster safety and service in special corridors. Permanent physical installations provide longer-term stability, securing the landscape with bolts or pin and drape mesh, while preventive scaling quickly removes loose rocks to prevent erosion’s natural shifts.
“Data helps us determine where we can have the most impact,” Beck said. “Almost 90% of the network’s slide fence indications were attributed to weather or rockfall-triggering events.”
Signal information and rockfall event history are used in combination with United States Geological Survey fire scar data and markers to inform the railroad’s scaling program.
“Preventive measures are a team effort,” said Timothy Boland, senior manager-Engineering Systems. “Rockfall mitigation projects and the teams who support them are committed to keeping train movements safe.”
Read about two boulder busting brothers keeping tracks safe in Union Pacific’s mountainous regions with preventive measures like light explosives.
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