Railroad engineer's idea spans into the future - Military Traffic Management Command - Brief Article

Translog: Journal of Military Transportation Management, Jan-Feb, 2001

By MTMC Command Affairs

Roger Crow had an idea. The veteran railroad engineer, with Fort Campbell's Installation Transportation Division, thought there had to be a better way.

In years of service on the job, Crow had shuttled hundreds, if not thousands, of railroad cars for the many fast-paced moves of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault).

Often the railroad cars arrived with missing spanners--the flat metal plates at the ends of each car that provide a bridge for vehicles being driven from car to car during loading and unloading.

The Army solution was to commission the building of plates of bolted sturdy oak planks to substitute for missing railroad car spanners.

Far from a total solution, Crow noted that the oak planks caused additional problems. They were heavy and bulky to move. The oak spanners sometimes fit poorly--or not at all. Worse, the wood spanners often splintered and broke when work crews tossed them to the ground.

A new development: An improved aluminum-welded spanner appeared among the government stock numbers.

It did not splinter.

But what bothered Crow was that the new aluminum spanners were six inches high. As soldiers navigated over the steep spanners, their vehicles bounced roughly, high above the ground.

For a loading process that involves vehicles moving down a long line of railroad cars, the new spanners were as much an obstacle as a bridge.

"Those spanners caused just all kinds of problems," said Crow.

Crow pondered the problem and concluded: Why not reduce the spanners' height, then increase the support to make up for the loss in depth?

Crow added two more supports to the three that were already at the spanner's base.

"It was a great idea," said Mike Bowers, installation transportation officer. "I'm so proud of the expertise in my office."

The idea won Crow a $4,000 suggestion award.

Other force projection installations heard about the new spanners and called to ask for the specifications.

But Crow's biggest compensation comes when he watches the vehicles of the 101st Airborne Division loading--positioning quickly and safely from railroad car to railroad car.