A letter from Burlington Northern to Polysystems, INC.

Dear Sir;

I have 22 years in the Railroad industry, 18 years as a Roadmaster on a Class1 Railroad.  During this time I have had numerous occasions to replace culverts under our track.  Until about 2 years ago the best method we used to replace under track culverts was open cut.  This method of course was expensive and caused disruption in train traffic.  Because of the traffic disruption we always delayed any culvert replacement until it was a near emergency requirement.

A couple of years ago we tried some culverts made of High Density Poly Ethylene supplied to us by Poly Systems Inc. of Steelville, MO.  The design of this type of culvert allowed us to reline the existing culvert rather than replacing it.  This has been a major improvement over the open cut method.

We have used several different ways to install this liner inside the existing culvert, depending on the condition of the old culvert.  We pulled some in by hand, with cable and winch, and with a hydraulic power jack.  We have also pushed some in with a track-hoe.  In both the pulling and pushing we used a special attachment that screwed on to the pipe we were installing.

The culvert pipe itself screws together at the joints so you do not need any addiction hardware and the pipe can be made any length we need for any particular location.  Because the pipe is smooth on the outside it can be pulled by many obstructions inside the older culvert and because it is smooth on the inside you can get by with a smaller culvert than the existing one due to the increased velocity. 

We have learned through experience that with the proper preparation most all culverts can be relined using this type of culvert and it saves us the headaches that we faced when we used the open cut method. 

Sincerly,

B. L. "Cotton" Smith

Roadmaster

-Letter written on November 15, 1995 to Poly Systems, INC.