(The following story by Mark Lawton appeared on the Pioneer Press website on March 2, 2009.)
GLENVIEW, Ill. — A local railroad aims to make its locomotives environmentally benign.
The Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad runs between Franklin Park’s industrial area, Riverdale and Northwest Indiana. It carries 170,000 carloads annually down 54 miles of mainline track (plus another 266 miles of siding and yard track) filled with aluminum, oil, corn, chemicals, lumber and other items.
To do so, its uses a number of locomotives, the oldest of which was built in 1949, said Dave Nelson, general superintendent of operations for the IHBR.
The $2.7 million grant has been approved by the Chicago Metropolitan Planning Agency for congestion mitigation and air quality. The grant will cover 65 percent of the cost of replacing the diesel engines on three of its locomotives with smaller engines that are more fuel-efficient and produce less air pollution.
“The technology is tremendously different,” said Nelson.
The village of Franklin Park is expected to approve the grant at its meeting tonight at 7 p.m. It next goes down to Springfield, which will solicit bids for replacing the engines. Nelson estimates another six months before the engines are replaced.