Vale's green railroad project uses alternative materials for sleepers

14 May 2008

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Vale, the world's biggest iron-ore exporter has abolished the use of native wood sleepers on its railroads. However, wood is still the best option for sleepers – a railway line is made up of sleepers and tracks which are laid over a bed made of crushed rock.

The initiative encompasses social and environmental initiatives foreseen in the green railroad project which is a demonstration of the Brazilain firm's environmental sense of responsibility back by investments in various tests in search of the best innovations.

Vale is the first private company in Brazil to use them on a large scale, a practice that has become common throughout Europe. Besides reducing environmental impacts; the steel sleeper contributes to operational safety and affords greater efficiency of the rail systems since they offer better performance.

On the Carajás EFC railroad, more than 140 thousand steel sleepers have already been installed. Approximately 2 million steel sleepers, which have longer life than wood, have been used on the Vitória a Minas (EFVM) railroad. Thanks to this policy on both railroads, more than 500 thousand trees have been saved. The implantation of the new sleeper is progressive and will eventually substitute 400 thousand wood units per year on the two railroads which is equivalent to preserving 100 thousand trees per year.

Besides the steel sleeper model, Vale, for the last three years has been using sleepers made of eucalyptus coming from reforestation projects on the Centro-Atlântica (FCA)railroad where more than two million units have been installed. Eucalyptus is easy to cut, drill and handle since its basic physical characteristics are identical to other kinds wood sleepers.

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