Cxt Develops Portable Tie Plant Technology To Improve Access To Railroads In Eastern Markets

In what it described as a major step forward, CXT Inc. of Spokane has developed a transportable concrete railroad tie plant that will help the company compete in distant markets.

“This helps us get out of the envelope of the Pacific Northwest,” John White, CXT’s president and chief executive officer, said Monday.

“We have a competitor in Denver,” White explained, “and we’ve got to leapfrog that competitor in order to get into other parts of the country.”

The portable plant will allow the company access to those markets, while giving it more flexibility than would be possible if CXT built permanent plants in other locations.

The employee-owned Spokane company’s principal business is the manufacture of concrete railroad ties. The concrete ties are used to replace deteriorating wooden ties, and in new track construction.

In the past, the company’s principal contracts have been with first Burlington Northern, and now Union Pacific. Transportation costs and logistical problems in moving ties from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast and the South have kept CXT from competing in those markets.

“There was an inherent inability to be competitive on small tie contracts in other parts of the United States due to high freight costs,” White said. “With transportable tie plants, CXT now has the capability to service each individual railroad with a complete package…

White does not expect the transportable plants to drain production from the company’s principal plant in Spokane.

“Spokane will remain the low cost producer because of our volume here,” White said. “But we recognize that nothing is static. If we don’t do this, someone else will and we want to be a leader and not a follower.”

White said the mobile production plants were made possible by the development of a unique way of constructing pre-stressing beds, in which the pre-stressed concrete ties are formed, so the beds can be transported.

When CXT gets a remote contract, he said, the production equipment will be transported there, a suitable building leased, and the operation will continue until the contract is fulfilled.

The transportable tie plant will be used to respond to orders of 50,000 ties or more from any location adjacent to an individual railroad and close to quality concrete materials.

“This is a personalized service for each railroad,” White said.

The mobile manufacturing process was developed jointly by CXT and Concrete Railroad Materials, Inc., a subcontractor which has worked with CXT for several years, White said.

The two companies have formed a new company called CXT systems, LLC, which will run the mobile production operation.

While CXT’s core business consists of track and turnout ties for railroads and transits, CXT has now developed an interlocking paver division, and an environmental concrete products division, which is mainly involved in manufacturing pre-assembled small concrete buildings.