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Opinion: New locomotives are green machines
(The following story by Bruce C. Smith appeared on the Indianapolis Star website on November 20, 2009.)
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. — The two newest movers and shakers in fast-growing Avon weigh in at more than 13 tons each. And they're green.
Railroad company CSX Transportation unveiled two locomotives Thursday at the Big Four Yards in Avon, touting the yard engines as at least 80 to 90 percent more environmentally clean than most other railroad locomotives in service.
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And since they won't sit and idle for hours, the pair of new GenSet locomotives will be quieter and more friendly to neighboring homes and businesses, according to CSX and Avon officials.
The two GenSet locomotives are the first in Indiana. However, CSX officials said they hope to buy more for the Hawthorn Yard on the Southeastside of Indianapolis.
The GenSet engines reuse the base of old train engines that have been refurbished and re-engineered to run with highly efficient and computer controlled Cummins diesel engines made in a factory in Seymour.
In each locomotive, an old 2,100-horsepower diesel has been replaced by three 700 hp supercharged Cummins engines. Besides enhanced mufflers, air cleaners and other state-of-the-art technology, the key to the ultra-low emissions locomotives is that only enough power is turned on at a time to pull the load. If two of the engines will do the job, then the third remains off.
And if the locomotive is unused for a few minutes, the engines go into sleep mode and turn off.
Unlike older diesels, the engines in the new locomotives are easy to start so they don't have to idle to stay ready to run.
"These locomotives create 80 percent fewer emissions than a typical rail yard locomotive and use about 50 percent less fuel," said Tony Ingram, executive vice president for Florida-based CSX.
Carl A. Gerhardstein, director of environmental systems for CSX, said there might be even greater cuts on some types of air pollutants, including 86 percent of the particulates and 90 percent of the nitrous oxides. Those are two of the key pollutants measured in federal air pollution standards on railroad equipment to be effective in 2012 and 2015.
These locomotives, built by National Railroad Equipment Co. based in Illinois, are a second generation version of the ultra-low emissions yard engines that were introduced two years ago to meet air pollution requirements in California, said NRE Vice President James M. Wurtz Jr.
NRE and other train equipment manufacturers are working on future versions of ultra-low emission diesel locomotives that can pull high-speed passenger trains.
However, the new locomotives in the CSX Avon yard will be workhorses pulling 100 or more cars at times, at low speed over short distances. They may never exceed the 10 mph speed limit in the Avon yard as they shuttle an average of 2,000 train cars a day.
The 5-mile-long CSX rail yard is one of the biggest employers in Hendricks County, with about 450 workers in Avon.
On behalf of CSX, the town applied for federal air quality and congestion mitigation grants, which paid 80 percent of the $1.4 million cost for each locomotive.
Friday, November 20, 2009
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