(Source: Railway Age, August 19, 2019)
NEW YORK — In a wide-ranging interview with Railway Age in December 2018, BNSF’s then-Executive Chairman Matt Rose had this to say about the future of locomotive propulsion technology: “We’ve got to look at alternative fuels for our locomotives. We tested LNG, and we don’t see the spread between diesel and natural gas wide enough to justify us making that investment, and it’s a significant investment. For us, it’s probably $8 billion to $10 billion. We don’t see the returns of doing that. So we’ll open the next chapter of our book—battery operated locomotives. And we’re looking at different tender configurations, and working with suppliers on who we think could provide us with some unique battery technology development … [B]attery-powered locomotives … create a lot of electricity going down the track. That energy all dissipates. We haven’t figured out how to capture that electricity. That’s what we’re spending a lot of time thinking about.”
Full story: Railway Age