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Stefan Baur 6 * 💉

@freemin7 I found an older, but post-reunification case: Hamburg-Berlin. Concrete sleepers from the 1990ies failed around 2008, track had to be closed off for 3 months for the replacements to be installed.

19 January at 12:41 | Wall-to-wall | Open on infosec.exchange
11 comments
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Stefan Baur 6 * 💉

@farbenstau
Interesting. Now the smoking gun question:

Were the concrete sleepers manufactured in (former) east germany?

Maybe i should have used a weaker statement and called it a non-west german problem.

19 January at 12:44 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Stefan Baur 6 * 💉 replied to Johann-Tobias

@freemin7 It seems they were from the new Bundesländer, indeed.

19 January at 12:49 | Open on infosec.exchange
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Stefan Baur 6 * 💉

@farbenstau
Let's call it a communist Altlast then.

I found nothing about concrete cancer being a problem before east germany in that region. (looked from Nazi germany to Prussia)

That this issue plagued east germany trhough outs it's existence suggests some geological cause with a lack of process control and competition. That the problem persistent so long into the unified germany also shows a market failuire, possibly due to local monopoly and limited west german competition (distance).

19 January at 13:03 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Stefan Baur 6 * 💉 replied to Johann-Tobias

@freemin7 I wonder if the Schienenfreunde Cartel was only about steel or also about sleepers …

19 January at 13:07 | Open on infosec.exchange
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Stefan Baur 6 * 💉

@farbenstau
It seems that was about the total price of the rail.
The limited competition i alluded to is just a "it cost money to transport things over long distances"-thing in my mind. Building one concrete industry isn't a problem but if there is a cheap local supplier producing subpar goods which become subpar after 2 decades, that's a hard market to disrupt.

BTW, it totally was a geographical issues combined with bad procress control according to the german wikipedia:

@farbenstau
It seems that was about the total price of the rail.
The limited competition i alluded to is just a "it cost money to transport things over long distances"-thing in my mind. Building one concrete industry isn't a problem but if there is a cheap local supplier producing subpar goods which become subpar after 2 decades, that's a hard market to disrupt.

19 January at 13:13 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Johann-Tobias

@farbenstau

Als alkaliempfindlich gelten Gesteine, die amorphe oder feinkristalline Silicate enthalten, wie z. B. Opalsandstein und poröser Flint. Insbesondere die in Norddeutschland in größeren Mengen vorkommenden Opalsandsteine sowie die Grauwackevorkommen in der Lausitz können schädliche Mengen an alkalilöslicher Kieselsäure enthalten. Durch Verwendung von Zementen mit niedrig wirksamem Alkaligehalt (mit „(na)“ hinter der Normbezeichnung gekennzeichnet)

19 January at 13:14 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Johann-Tobias

@farbenstau
und durch Begrenzung des Zementgehaltes im Beton kann bei Verwendung von Betonzuschlägen mit alkaliempfindlichen Bestandteilen die Alkalireaktion meist vermieden werden.

19 January at 13:15 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Stefan Baur 6 * 💉 replied to Johann-Tobias
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Stefan Baur 6 * 💉

@farbenstau The question is:
Does "meist" become always when it's done properly and it's a failuire to do properly causing the meist?
Or is it always random?

I think the concrentation of such defects in particular orders for particular installation kinda speaks against a truely random "meist"? However in east germany "concrete cancer" also impacted some "Plattenbau"s but also in local clusters. 🤷

19 January at 13:23 | Open on mast.hpc.social
Stefan Baur 6 * 💉 replied to Johann-Tobias

@freemin7 To me, it sounds like you cannot rule it out completely, either due to the source material being too heterogenous in nature, or due to factors that are not completely known/understood yet. So you need rigid quality control, both during manufacturing and at regular intervals once the sleepers are in place.

19 January at 19:34 | Open on infosec.exchange
Johann-Tobias Schäg replied to Johann-Tobias

@farbenstau
But i was wrong about it just being process control. Fixing it requires a significiant amount of different material which is non local or more expensive. Lack of process control + cheapening out.

19 January at 13:17 | Open on mast.hpc.social
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