Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based LB Foster Company has begun delivery of $3.4 million of rail and trackwork products to rail contractor Wintrow Construction of Barberton, Ohio for the construction of 8.5 miles of track and other track materials at the new Vallourec & Mannesmann Tubes (V&M) Star Steel pipe mill in Youngstown, Ohio.
LB Foster has teamed with key strategic partners to meet the product requirements for track construction at this important industrial facility. The new continuous welded rail (CWR) is produced by Steel Dynamics, Inc. (SDI) in their Columbia City, Indiana facility. SDI welded 240 foot rail sections into 1,600 foot strings and loaded them onto a special LB Foster work train for delivery to the Ohio project site. LB Foster's team of rail professionals is managing the logistics required to provide efficient Just-in-Time delivery of the rail and trackwork materials to the jobsite.
The new rail, trackwork and rail accessories supplied by LB Foster will provide mainline access and in-plant transportation for seamless steel pipe at the new Youngstown mill. Vallourec & Mannesmann is building the facility to meet the growing demand for small diameter oil country tubular goods (OCTG) resulting from the increase in drilling for natural gas in the nearby Marcellus Shale region.