US Patent Issued to Herzog Railroad Services on April 29 for "Rail tie plate orienting and distribution system and method" (Missouri, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,286,759, issued on April 29, was assigned to Herzog Railroad Services Inc. (St. Joseph, Mo.).

"Rail tie plate orienting and distribution system and method" was invented by Matthew L. Combs (Agency, Mo.), Jacob P. DiVilbiss (Kansas City, Mo.), Daniel L. Wilcoxson (Savannah, Mo.) and Alex Jensen (Fort Worth, Texas).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for singulating, orientating and distributing tie plates along a section of a track of a railroad is disclosed using a vehicle adapted to travel on rails including a tie plate singulating assembly, a tie plate flipping assembly, a tie plate quarter turn assembly, and a distribution assembly....