BY JACQUELINE PATTERSON. I am a huge fan of the TV program “The Big
Bang Theory.” I think the writing is superb and the delivery from the actors is
sharp ...
FRACKING BOOM [con nued]
from state departments of transportation to the railroad to mapping websites. Utilizing this information instead of gathering new data every time is an excellent way to save time without cutting corners or compromising the overall quality of the project. Of course, the information still needs to be verified in order to determine its accuracy, particularly for the exacting needs of an engineering project; however, it allows the project to progress to a certain point while more detailed information is being gathered. Essentially, it's a merging of technologies, a joining of existing infrastructure data with what the engineering firm itself is able to gather; and, it allows engineers to move projects along at a much faster rate than they were able to ten years ago. Another possible time saver is beginning construction at a design level less than 100 percent. This solution is not ideal, but it does afford the engineer a chance to kick a project into high gear. This involves eliminating some of the intermediate exchanges between client and engineer, and, on the part of the engineer, requires a great deal of trust and a keen understanding of the client's particular policies, standards, and requirements. By doing this, a firm can put their professional reputation on the line, but if done properly, it can demonstrate to clients that they are able to deliver a quality project quickly. First quarter 2013 volumes of crude oil transport are more than 150 percent higher than first quarter 2012 volumes, a number which is expected to rise as the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Permian Basin, and Niobrara formations continue to be the hot bed for oil fracking. Railway engineers need to develop and implement innovative solutions that will not only keep their clients happy, but that will be conducive to the safe building of the nation’s railroad infrastructure.
JLP WELCOMES CHARLIE BURNHAM, P.E. It is our pleasure to announce that Charlie Burnham has joined the JLP team. Charlie will be based out of our Sea le office and will serve as our Senior Business Unit Manager for the Pacific Northwest. Charlie started his career at the Milwaukee Railroad in the mid 1970’s where he provided office and field engineering and project supervision of all phases of railroad plant addi ons and maintenance including track, bridges and trestles, buildings, roadways, u li es, and drainage. Later, he was one of the founders of a railroad construc on and engineering corpora on where he was responsible for prepara on of project es mates and proposals, market development, client rela ons, consul ng engineering and design, purchasing, inventory control, and project management. More recently, Charlie was a prominent member of a large engineering firm where he was responsible for all aspects of project development, design and construc on support services for mul ‐discipline heavy rail projects. His vast experience with design and construc on management of rail projects makes Charlie an ideal member of our JLP Family. Welcome aboard!
JLP PROJECT SELECTED AS FINALIST FOR “BE INSPIRED” AWARDS BY BENTLEY The annual Be Inspired Awards compe on, part of Bentley’s The Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference, brings together infrastructure professionals and members of academia from around the globe. The Be Inspired Awards has recognized more than 2,000 of the world’s most outstanding infrastructure projects since its incep on in 2004. The program boasts a unique compe on – the only of its kind that is global in scope and comprehensive in categories covered, encompassing all types of infrastructure projects. JLP submi ed the work performed for BNSF in The Cascade Tunnel and has been selected as a finalist for the category of “Innova on in Point Cloud Processing and Management.” The Cascade Tunnel is the longest tunnel in the United States, near Stevens Pass, Washington, and a vital corridor for shipping freight. BNSF retained J.L. Pa erson & Associates (JLP) to survey and model the tunnel for alignment and clearance envelope improvements. Due to tunnel access me constraints, JLP combined control and LiDAR survey techniques to create a map using MicroSta on and its powerful point‐cloud management tools. Using regression models in Bentley so ware, JLP has iden fied and recommended significant reduc on in construc on dura on and costs to it client.
FRACKING BOOM [con nued]
RECHARGING AND REFRESHING TO STAY SHARP AND FOCUSED BY JACQUELINE PATTERSON
I
am a huge fan of the TV program “The Big Bang Theory.” I think the writing is superb and the
delivery from the actors is sharp and funny. In a recent episode, Sheldon’s friends notice that he disappears every day for about 20 minutes and they all know there are no meetings or activities
scheduled in his calendar during that time. They embark on a quest to find out what he is doing and why he is never available during those 20 minutes each day. The episode is hilarious as usual because they go to great lengths to solve this riddle. The rather anticlimactic bottom line? Sheldon desperately needs to decompress, recharge, and refresh every day while playing hacky sack and counting how many touches he can take without dropping the small bean bag. With all of these pressing demands on our time, I thought how appropriate this is for us, the members of corporate American society. Between family and friends: Taking the kids to school, soccer practice, school plays, going grocery shopping, washing the cars, computers always plugged into IM, cell phones, Skype, Facetime, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram…we are constantly connected. At work and with clients: Answering clients’ voice messages, e-mail, checking websites, texting…we are constantly connected. However, being too connected can affect both personal and professional relationships, not to mention one’s health. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at M.I.T., is the author of a book called “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” Dr. Turkle states that the effects of our new interconnected reality on the human psyche are predominantly negative. Therefore, how can we be responsive to everyone’s needs while keeping our sanity? I would suggest that we mimic that wonderful genius and brilliant scientist, Dr. Sheldon Cooper and dedicate 20 minutes a day to something relaxing and fun, nothing that requires technology or constant connection. For example, how about a simple walk around the block? Or 20 minutes of meditation or listening to music? How about reading a book or a magazine…a real book or magazine, rather than an electronic book, so one can have the pleasure of turning actual pages. Better yet, how about going for a run,
challenge of delivering design and construction projects within increasingly demanding windows of time, creating an unavoidable need to develop innovative solutions to complete projects in record-setting time. Meeting Increased Capacity Demands Existing railroad infrastructure would require significant investment to be able to meet the growing capacity and traffic demands of the crude oil transportation industry.. Consequently, railroads have been faced with the need to improve existing routes beyond routine maintenance by adding double track and siding extensions, storage tracks, signal upgrades, tie renewals, as well as track surfacing and under cutting, not to mention any of the design and construction pertaining to the federally mandated PTC projects. This effort to accommodate the ever-increasing capacity needs of oil companies as they flood the nation’s rail infrastructure with more and more oil unit trains must be done without interfering with existing operations. We are talking about a system that is already saturated with the transport of other commodities, passenger movements, and containerized trains such as the ever hot “Z” or “Q” trains carrying the likes of UPS and FedEx. This demand has catalyzed a paradigm shift from long-term planning to short-term action, fostering the conception of more complex projects. Construction projects and permitting that would typically take a minimum of one and half years are being done in less than half the time. This puts a significant amount of pressure on railway engineers to complete projects in such a
short amount of time, while still delivering the same highquality projects their clients have come to expect. It is a doubleedged sword in a sense: railway engineers need to be responsive to their clients’ needs, but still provide the same level of service and safety. In a climate where economic pressures are driving the “bottom dollar,” it is up to the engineers in the trenches to become more and more sophisticated by providing more “bang for the buck.” Implementing Creative Solutions As with any design project, there are clear-cut processes, standards, and criteria that must be met; certain aspects of these processes are impossible to circumvent. Therefore, the most effective way to save time without eliminating critical steps is first to establish a baseline schedule and then look for ways to shorten the design timeframe. This can be accomplished by leveraging technology and the enormous amounts of accessible information stored on the Internet. Like with most things worth doing, this is easier said than done and it requires that you possess the proper cross platform expertise because of the very nature of the source data. Here is the disclaimer: don’t try this without being sure you can handle the “what if’s”. As engineers, we hate to make moves that have not been fully mathematized, checked and back checked. Along with readily available public data comes risk. Traditionally, one of the most time-consuming aspects of the design process is gathering data. But, in today's online world, there are many public sources of data that are readily available,
attending a yoga class, meeting a friend for lunch and actually talking to them rather than texting or e-mailing? It’s amazing how focusing completely on an activity can recharge, refresh, and refocus you in a good way. Take care, Jackie
WHY THE FRACKING BOOM HAS ENGINEERS ON THE FAST TRACK BY MARC A. CAÑAS, GISP
The unprecedented fracking boom in Canada and the United States continues to provide an abundance of crude oil to companies at a rate far outpacing their ability to move the product via pipeline given the limited existing capacity. Although initiatives like the Keystone Pipeline Extension Project will serve oil companies by eventually increasing their pipeline capacity, moving Crude by Rail has and continues to be a viable solution for oil companies to solve their immediate delivery needs. At the Crude by Rail conference held in Houston, TX in February 2013, those of us who attended heard the same theme resonate throughout the conference, “regardless of pipeline capacity, existing or future, the only viable transportation plan for the oil business is to have both a pipeline and rail delivery strategy as part of the plan”. This has placed a significant demand on railroad infrastructure for increased capacity and rail traffic, as railroads have become an integral component of the oil industries’ business strategy for crude oil transport throughout the United States and Canada. As a result, railroads, and ultimately railway engineers, are faced with the
[Con nued on Page 3]
[Con nued on Page 4]
FRACKING BOOM [con nued]
RECHARGING AND REFRESHING TO STAY SHARP AND FOCUSED BY JACQUELINE PATTERSON
I
am a huge fan of the TV program “The Big Bang Theory.” I think the writing is superb and the
delivery from the actors is sharp and funny. In a recent episode, Sheldon’s friends notice that he disappears every day for about 20 minutes and they all know there are no meetings or activities
scheduled in his calendar during that time. They embark on a quest to find out what he is doing and why he is never available during those 20 minutes each day. The episode is hilarious as usual because they go to great lengths to solve this riddle. The rather anticlimactic bottom line? Sheldon desperately needs to decompress, recharge, and refresh every day while playing hacky sack and counting how many touches he can take without dropping the small bean bag. With all of these pressing demands on our time, I thought how appropriate this is for us, the members of corporate American society. Between family and friends: Taking the kids to school, soccer practice, school plays, going grocery shopping, washing the cars, computers always plugged into IM, cell phones, Skype, Facetime, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and Instagram…we are constantly connected. At work and with clients: Answering clients’ voice messages, e-mail, checking websites, texting…we are constantly connected. However, being too connected can affect both personal and professional relationships, not to mention one’s health. Sherry Turkle, a psychologist and professor at M.I.T., is the author of a book called “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.” Dr. Turkle states that the effects of our new interconnected reality on the human psyche are predominantly negative. Therefore, how can we be responsive to everyone’s needs while keeping our sanity? I would suggest that we mimic that wonderful genius and brilliant scientist, Dr. Sheldon Cooper and dedicate 20 minutes a day to something relaxing and fun, nothing that requires technology or constant connection. For example, how about a simple walk around the block? Or 20 minutes of meditation or listening to music? How about reading a book or a magazine…a real book or magazine, rather than an electronic book, so one can have the pleasure of turning actual pages. Better yet, how about going for a run,
challenge of delivering design and construction projects within increasingly demanding windows of time, creating an unavoidable need to develop innovative solutions to complete projects in record-setting time. Meeting Increased Capacity Demands Existing railroad infrastructure would require significant investment to be able to meet the growing capacity and traffic demands of the crude oil transportation industry.. Consequently, railroads have been faced with the need to improve existing routes beyond routine maintenance by adding double track and siding extensions, storage tracks, signal upgrades, tie renewals, as well as track surfacing and under cutting, not to mention any of the design and construction pertaining to the federally mandated PTC projects. This effort to accommodate the ever-increasing capacity needs of oil companies as they flood the nation’s rail infrastructure with more and more oil unit trains must be done without interfering with existing operations. We are talking about a system that is already saturated with the transport of other commodities, passenger movements, and containerized trains such as the ever hot “Z” or “Q” trains carrying the likes of UPS and FedEx. This demand has catalyzed a paradigm shift from long-term planning to short-term action, fostering the conception of more complex projects. Construction projects and permitting that would typically take a minimum of one and half years are being done in less than half the time. This puts a significant amount of pressure on railway engineers to complete projects in such a
short amount of time, while still delivering the same highquality projects their clients have come to expect. It is a doubleedged sword in a sense: railway engineers need to be responsive to their clients’ needs, but still provide the same level of service and safety. In a climate where economic pressures are driving the “bottom dollar,” it is up to the engineers in the trenches to become more and more sophisticated by providing more “bang for the buck.” Implementing Creative Solutions As with any design project, there are clear-cut processes, standards, and criteria that must be met; certain aspects of these processes are impossible to circumvent. Therefore, the most effective way to save time without eliminating critical steps is first to establish a baseline schedule and then look for ways to shorten the design timeframe. This can be accomplished by leveraging technology and the enormous amounts of accessible information stored on the Internet. Like with most things worth doing, this is easier said than done and it requires that you possess the proper cross platform expertise because of the very nature of the source data. Here is the disclaimer: don’t try this without being sure you can handle the “what if’s”. As engineers, we hate to make moves that have not been fully mathematized, checked and back checked. Along with readily available public data comes risk. Traditionally, one of the most time-consuming aspects of the design process is gathering data. But, in today's online world, there are many public sources of data that are readily available,
attending a yoga class, meeting a friend for lunch and actually talking to them rather than texting or e-mailing? It’s amazing how focusing completely on an activity can recharge, refresh, and refocus you in a good way. Take care, Jackie
WHY THE FRACKING BOOM HAS ENGINEERS ON THE FAST TRACK BY MARC A. CAÑAS, GISP
The unprecedented fracking boom in Canada and the United States continues to provide an abundance of crude oil to companies at a rate far outpacing their ability to move the product via pipeline given the limited existing capacity. Although initiatives like the Keystone Pipeline Extension Project will serve oil companies by eventually increasing their pipeline capacity, moving Crude by Rail has and continues to be a viable solution for oil companies to solve their immediate delivery needs. At the Crude by Rail conference held in Houston, TX in February 2013, those of us who attended heard the same theme resonate throughout the conference, “regardless of pipeline capacity, existing or future, the only viable transportation plan for the oil business is to have both a pipeline and rail delivery strategy as part of the plan”. This has placed a significant demand on railroad infrastructure for increased capacity and rail traffic, as railroads have become an integral component of the oil industries’ business strategy for crude oil transport throughout the United States and Canada. As a result, railroads, and ultimately railway engineers, are faced with the
[Con nued on Page 3]
[Con nued on Page 4]
FRACKING BOOM [con nued]
from state departments of transportation to the railroad to mapping websites. Utilizing this information instead of gathering new data every time is an excellent way to save time without cutting corners or compromising the overall quality of the project. Of course, the information still needs to be verified in order to determine its accuracy, particularly for the exacting needs of an engineering project; however, it allows the project to progress to a certain point while more detailed information is being gathered. Essentially, it's a merging of technologies, a joining of existing infrastructure data with what the engineering firm itself is able to gather; and, it allows engineers to move projects along at a much faster rate than they were able to ten years ago. Another possible time saver is beginning construction at a design level less than 100 percent. This solution is not ideal, but it does afford the engineer a chance to kick a project into high gear. This involves eliminating some of the intermediate exchanges between client and engineer, and, on the part of the engineer, requires a great deal of trust and a keen understanding of the client's particular policies, standards, and requirements. By doing this, a firm can put their professional reputation on the line, but if done properly, it can demonstrate to clients that they are able to deliver a quality project quickly. First quarter 2013 volumes of crude oil transport are more than 150 percent higher than first quarter 2012 volumes, a number which is expected to rise as the Bakken, Eagle Ford, Permian Basin, and Niobrara formations continue to be the hot bed for oil fracking. Railway engineers need to develop and implement innovative solutions that will not only keep their clients happy, but that will be conducive to the safe building of the nation’s railroad infrastructure.
JLP WELCOMES CHARLIE BURNHAM, P.E. It is our pleasure to announce that Charlie Burnham has joined the JLP team. Charlie will be based out of our Sea le office and will serve as our Senior Business Unit Manager for the Pacific Northwest. Charlie started his career at the Milwaukee Railroad in the mid 1970’s where he provided office and field engineering and project supervision of all phases of railroad plant addi ons and maintenance including track, bridges and trestles, buildings, roadways, u li es, and drainage. Later, he was one of the founders of a railroad construc on and engineering corpora on where he was responsible for prepara on of project es mates and proposals, market development, client rela ons, consul ng engineering and design, purchasing, inventory control, and project management. More recently, Charlie was a prominent member of a large engineering firm where he was responsible for all aspects of project development, design and construc on support services for mul ‐discipline heavy rail projects. His vast experience with design and construc on management of rail projects makes Charlie an ideal member of our JLP Family. Welcome aboard!
JLP PROJECT SELECTED AS FINALIST FOR “BE INSPIRED” AWARDS BY BENTLEY The annual Be Inspired Awards compe on, part of Bentley’s The Year in Infrastructure 2013 Conference, brings together infrastructure professionals and members of academia from around the globe. The Be Inspired Awards has recognized more than 2,000 of the world’s most outstanding infrastructure projects since its incep on in 2004. The program boasts a unique compe on – the only of its kind that is global in scope and comprehensive in categories covered, encompassing all types of infrastructure projects. JLP submi ed the work performed for BNSF in The Cascade Tunnel and has been selected as a finalist for the category of “Innova on in Point Cloud Processing and Management.” The Cascade Tunnel is the longest tunnel in the United States, near Stevens Pass, Washington, and a vital corridor for shipping freight. BNSF retained J.L. Pa erson & Associates (JLP) to survey and model the tunnel for alignment and clearance envelope improvements. Due to tunnel access me constraints, JLP combined control and LiDAR survey techniques to create a map using MicroSta on and its powerful point‐cloud management tools. Using regression models in Bentley so ware, JLP has iden fied and recommended significant reduc on in construc on dura on and costs to it client.
