U.S. Army seeks faster rail repairs to speed up deployments

Army logistics leaders met at Anniston Army Depot in Alabama from August 25 to 27 to work through readiness problems across the service’s rail network, the system the Army relies on to move tanks, other heavy equipment and munitions to where they’re needed.

The summit brought together Army Sustainment Enterprise leaders and technical experts to build a shared plan for a rail system that has been strained by decades of heavy use. Aging locomotives, worn-out rail cars and deteriorating track at Army installations have created readiness gaps across the network, according to the Army.

“Rail directly impacts readiness and is an integral part of force projection,” said Mike Dusablon, the Army’s force projection lead. “Rail is readiness force projection. We as the rail experts must connect to it all, the training, the rail crews, safety, to be able to project forces effectively. It’s going to take the entire enterprise to change how the Army operates on a day-to-day basis.”

Rail matters to Army planners because it’s how heavy equipment gets from a base to a port or staging area during a deployment. Discussions at the summit centered on moving away from managing rail base by base and toward a single, coordinated approach tied to the Army’s broader effort to modernize its Organic Industrial Base, the network of 23 government-owned arsenals, depots and ammunition plants the service is currently upgrading under a 15-year, $18 billion investment plan.

“When the command talks about modernizing the Organic Industrial Base, rail falls right into that with infrastructure, locomotives and rail cars,” said Isis Green, lead traffic management specialist with Army Materiel Command’s G-3 Support Operations Division. “Two of the focus areas are rail safety and making sure that we are aligned across the enterprise.”

For commanders, how fast a combat unit can load up and move during a crisis depends directly on whether the rail network at their installation is ready to support them. Leaders at the summit reviewed plans to build real-time visibility into which tracks are usable, what shape the equipment is in, and whether rail crews hold current certifications.

“We are working through the whole maintenance process and documenting it to give it visibility,” said Dan Starkenburg, mobility chief for the Army Sustainment Command’s Transportation Readiness Division. “Ultimately, our goal at ASC is to be able to take a snapshot and look at an installation if we are ready. Do I have locomotives? Do I have the personnel to operate? And is my infrastructure ready to support the warfighter to launch them off the installation? Because we are the initial point where the warfighter launches from.”

Staffing was another focus area, with plans discussed for mobile training teams and retention efforts aimed at keeping rail crews qualified and available.

To speed up repairs and parts procurement, the Army is also leaning on a long-running partnership with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Volpe Transportation Systems Center, which has supported Army rail operations for more than 37 years.

“The Volpe Center has been supporting Army rail for over 37 years. It’s a partnership that the Department of Transportation has had for over 50 years, we’re all in this together,” said John Wojtowicz, senior advisor for National Security and Critical Infrastructure Programs at Volpe.

That partnership includes indefinite-delivery, indefinite-quantity contracts that let the Army draw from a pool of pre-approved vendors instead of starting a new contract from scratch for each repair job.

“For a contracting officer to do a separate requirement can take 12 to 18 months, which the mission just cannot wait for,” said Patricia Barnette, a contracting officer at the Volpe Center. “Starting an innovative IDIQ contract vehicle with a pool of pre-vetted vendors allows us to issue task orders against an existing contract, which cuts procurement lead time in half.”

“We’re making great traction bringing the stakeholders together and getting a singular way forward through the Army Rail Enterprise to receive guidance from the major commands on what they want us to do, and how we are moving forward with bringing Army rail into the 21st century,” said Brett Goertemoeller, supervisor of locomotive engineers at the U.S. Army Transportation School.