One of the nation's largest railroads must replace millions of defective wooden railroad ties on its tracks because they're degrading faster than expected, the company said in a federal lawsuit.
Norfolk Southern Railway blames an Alabama company that produced its railroad ties of failing to use proper protective coating on more than 4.7 million of them, the railroad said in its lawsuit filed this month in U.S. District Court in Alabama.
Instead of using materials that preserve the wood, officials with Boatright Railroad Products Inc. ordered workers to "make them black by whatever means necessary" so they appeared to be properly treated but were not, Norfolk Southern maintains in the suit.
"So long as the railroad ties had the same physical appearance as a tie that had been properly treated, it did not matter to defendants if the substance used to 'make it black' was actually a wood preservative at all."
