Operations focus: Fit to be tied

T.C. Taylor, left, owner, and Randy Cochran, general manager of TiFuel, make landcaping material and boiler fuel from railroad crossties.

T.C. Taylor is not one to tackle any project halfheartedly. As a longtime veteran of railroad-related businesses and the founder and owner of a number of businesses based in Marietta, Ga., that serve that industry, he believes in doing things right the first time. That includes giving the customer more than he or she expects, treating his employees well, and using only quality equipment to get the job done.

On one of those business ventures, TiFuel, an operation that takes crossties deemed no longer suitable for track use and either sells them for landscaping or grinds them up for boiler fuel, he has raised the bar even higher.

Seeking to both streamline the efficiency of the operation and reduce its environmental impact, TiFuel recently turned away from contract grinders, brought that operation in-house via a new grinder purchase, and in doing so, went with an electric unit, a 4600XL model made by Morbark, Winn, Mich. Taylor says TiFuel employees are now grinding all they need—when they need it—and he sees a significant savings in fuel, maintenance and upkeep costs as well as a reduction in both noise and environmental pollution.

A better approach
Though most Americans tend to shrug off railroads, particularly freight trains, as a technology whose time has come and gone, nothing could be further from the truth.

Railroads have, in fact, been bucking a host of economic trends over the last couple of decades and today are one of the few industries in which employment, revenue, return on investment, and dollars spent on infrastructure improvements have been on the rise.

Maintaining that infrastructure, including the nearly 17 million crossties that support the U.S. railways system, is a massive and ongoing process. When ties are deemed too worn for track use, they are pulled and disposed of, a practice which, according to T.C. Taylor, forms the basis for TiFuel’s business operation.

“Proper disposal of crossties has been an issue for a long time now and a number of different approaches have been tried,” he says. “Years ago, one company had a machine they called the ‘tie destroyer’ which would run on the track, grind up the old ties that had been pulled, and spit the debris off to the side. While somewhat effective, it just created more of a mess for the railroad. Because of my experience, I knew that rail ties were an excellent fuel source and felt they should be used that way. So I contracted with railroad officials to get control of those ties and put them to a better use.”

Taylor says he and his company have worked hard to build up a solid business relationship with Norfolk Southern Corp., Norfolk, Va., which he cites as one of the most innovative railroads operating today.

That effort has paid off—Taylor says his company is one of only a few contractors ever allowed to work right alongside the railroad’s track gangs.

The tie retrieval and grinding process is simple: through one of his businesses, Railroad Maintenance and Service Co. of America, a rail-mounted loader/handler (Taylor’s own patented design) gathers the ties that have been removed, loads them onto rail cars and brings them back to the TiFuel yard in Greeneville, Tenn. There, once again using the right-of-way handlers, the ties are offloaded and sorted according to quality: better ones for use as landscape timbers or retaining walls, the remainder for boiler fuel at an area paper mill.

“It is essentially the same approach we’ve been taking since I first got the idea to pursue this more than 30 years ago,” he says. “However, when we started, diesel was 39 cents per gallon and companies we approached thought we were crazy. It was a different story when diesel prices skyrocketed. Suddenly these ties, which have a BTU value almost double that of traditional biofuel, became a very cost-effective alternative for them.”

Changes in attitude
TiFuel’s yard in Greeneville is the picture of efficiency. At the long and narrow approximately 8-acre site (it was once a Norfolk Southern piggyback siding), Taylor’s team has developed the unloading, sorting, grinding and trucking process into a science.

Only nine people handle the entire operation, a number that belies both the constant, almost frenetic level of activity taking place, and the volumes done. Handling more than 1.3 million ties per year, the site’s volume is about half of all the used ties that Norfolk Southern generates. Of that number, 250,000 are slated for landscape use with the balance headed to the grinder for fuel.

For the better part of three decades, that grinding effort had been handled by contract grinders who were paid to come in and take the fuel-grade ties down to the 3-inch minus size needed for delivery to the customer. That arrangement was not without its challenges, says Randy Cochran, general manager of the TiFuel operation.

“For the most part, things worked out fine,” says Cochran. “But, because you are at the mercy of that grinding company, if for some reason they can’t get to you, you can be dead in the water. With that in mind, we decided to bring the grinding part of the business in-house. We did a lot of research, selected Morbark based on that research and its solid reputation, and started thinking about what we wanted in a grinder.”

With a major capital investment at hand, TiFuel’s considerations were many, and the company’s managers put considerable thought into the purchase before selecting an electric-powered Morbark model 4600XL grinder. (See the sidebar “Electric Avenue” on the right.)

Valued Lessons
While a paper mill is the sole customer for TiFuel’s ground up material, the landscape-grade ties—roughly 1,000 flatbed trucks of them each year—go to customers ranging from major chain home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowe’s to independent landscapers. Never one to rest on his laurels, Taylor says the company has some plans in the works to grow the business even further.

“We can’t expand any further at this site simply because of the physical size limitations,” he says. “But we are looking at setting up another location in which we will do an identical operation further south. I feel we have everything that we need in place now, including markets for our products, equipment that is reliable and efficient, and a work force that is second to none.”

A 35-year veteran of the rail industry (in one form or another), Taylor says lessons his father taught him as a youngster helped shape the man he’s become and the career paths he has chosen.

“My dad instilled a work ethic in me that I value and I’ve never lost,” he says. “He taught me that the dirtier and less-desirable a job is, the better the opportunity. I’ve taken that to heart and it’s served me well. It pains me to see a whole generation coming along who only want to get an MBA and become executives or managers. This country was founded on the principle of hard work; that’s something I’m afraid has gotten lost along the way.”

While other companies may look for ways to cut corners at the expense of their workers, Taylor says that is one area in which he will not scrimp.

“This is not the most glamorous job around and everyone here, including me, knows that,” states Taylor. “So in all my operations I pay my people well, because I recognize that without them I wouldn’t have a business to speak of. As a result, I’ve got people who take pride in their work and we have a very low employee turnover rate. I couldn’t be happier with the way things are going now. I have an outstanding management team in Randy and Pat Wilson, our vice president, great employees, and equipment like the grinder that I know will be contributing to our success for years to come.”

He concludes, “We have a saying down here: Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered, and it’s very true. As a company, we’ve tried to avoid being hoggish and there’s no denying that it’s really paying off.”

This story was submitted on behalf of Morbark Inc., Winn, Mich.