ABSTRACT
Soils at railroad facilities have in the course of normal activities become contaminated with various types of petroleum hydrocarbons. At most railroad facilities there are many challenges to the remediation of petroleum-contaminated soils. Not the least of these can be the reaction of the operating personnel when an attempt is made to take away or shut down their track. Current terminology defines petroleum as any hydrocarbon mixture of natural gas, condensate, and crude oil. Petroleum products can be further classified through fractionation into a saturate or aliphatic fraction, an aromatic fraction, and an asphaltic or polar fraction. Gasoline is a mixture of several hundred different petroleum-derived compounds as well as synthetic products that are added to improve performance. In order to address contamination caused by the release of petroleum products onto soil, regulatory agencies have implemented cleanup criteria for total petroleum hydrocarbons in soils.
