TBT Engineering’s patented invention is being distributed by Supercom Industries, a First Nations partnership
THUNDER BAY — A Thunder Bay-developed product that makes railroad beds much less prone to grow to be unstable over peat has caught the eye of the North American railway trade.
The Spring Drain or S-Drain, an innovation from TBT Engineering, has acquired an award from the Railway Engineering-Upkeep Suppliers Affiliation headquartered in Washington, DC.
The occasion held final week in Louisville, Kentucky was attended by representatives of TBT Engineering and Supercom Industries, a First Nations-owned firm that has the unique licence for advertising and marketing, manufacturing and set up.
“We’re extremely proud to obtain the Product Innovation Award,” stated Sarah Levesque, enterprise improvement and gross sales supervisor for Supercom, headquartered on Fort William First Nation.
“This award validates the laborious work and dedication of our staff, and it conjures up us to proceed to extend consciousness of our product as we ramp up Spring Drain’s commercialization.”
TBT Engineering’s patented system for bettering the stability of railway embankments was launched as a trial with the CPR (now CPKC) in 2015.
Peat can liquefy — a phenomenon referred to as a peat boil — as more and more longer and heavier trains cross via wetland areas, ensuing within the observe being taken out of service for prolonged durations.
“The one solution to actually repair that on the time was to dig out all of the muskeg or the peat and fill it with rockfill. After which a peat boil would present up proper adjoining to our repair, as a result of we weren’t digging out the entire swamp,” stated Gord Maki, a vice-president with TBT Engineering and the developer of the S-Drain.
The answer he got here up with reduces the danger of liquefied soil being pressured upward towards the tracks by pore water strain.
“In the event you consider soil as a bunch of particles, in between that is named your pore area. Swamps are filled with water, so when the prepare comes throughout, it tries to squeeze all of the particles collectively, which will increase the strain of that water to the purpose the place it really squirts out of the bottom like a little bit volcano,” Maki defined.
He stated regardless of the title, the invention is extra precisely described as a strain aid system.
“If a sponge is filled with water, and also you wrap it in cellophane, then attempt to squeeze that sponge, you’ll be able to’t as a result of the water is resisting it. In the event you poke a little bit gap within the cellophane, you get a bunch of water squirting out. That is principally what this product does…. We poke a variety of holes into that sponge.”
The tube-shaped S-Drains are positioned vertically in four-metre-long holes drilled between the railway ties, then crammed with free stone.
Made from corrugated weeping tile wrapped in sturdy, pre-stressed materials just like high-density polyethylene, a number of models put in beneath the tracks facilitate the switch of a prepare’s load over gentle and spongy terrain.
“When that power goes into that pre-stressed materials, it pushes out, then when the load’s off once more it pulls it again in once more good and tight … so it acts extra like a spring. The spring is the actually essential a part of the factor that makes it work in contrast with a number of the different merchandise on the market,” Maki stated.
S-Drains have been confirmed to make the bottom extra steady and sharply lowering the build-up of water strain by way of speedy drainage.
“We’re getting principally a 95 per cent discount in pore water strain after we set up these. Even the primary ones we put in in 2015, they’re working completely.”
Since then, he stated, the corporate has labored on eight mission websites, putting in as few as 75 drains to as many as 600, relying on the situation.
TBT Engineering’s partnership with Supercom was launched in 2023.
Levesque referred to as the Spring Drain a game-changer within the railway trade, crediting it with stopping potential security hazards whereas lowering ongoing upkeep prices and working prices.
“We now have the only real licence to market, promote, distribute, set up the drain, and that’s what we’re doing proper now. We needed to fine-tune a number of issues. We needed to get the manufacturing facility up and operating so that after we began getting gross sales, we had the flexibility and capability to construct the drains.”
The publicity the Spring Drain is receiving due to the award is essential, she stated, as a result of till now the corporate and the drain have had a reasonably low profile.
“This product could be very new. So simply having that product consciousness is de facto essential to us. We all know what the capabilities are, and the way it may assist…. Our product is patented for North America. There’s a variety of peat particularly in Canada, largely in Ontario, however there may be additionally various peat in swampy areas in the USA.”
Levesque stated further manufacturing could also be achieved sooner or later on different First Nations.
Supercom was initially fashioned by six Lake Superior-area First Nations in 2016 to maximise employment and financial advantages in the course of the development of the East-West Tie transmission line between Wawa and Thunder Bay.
— TBnewswatch
