(The following article by Andrew Silva appeared on the San Bernardino Sun website on February 21.)
COLTON, Calif. — As the region continues to wrestle with the worst air in the nation, Union Pacific Railroad officials Tuesday showed off some of the cleaner-burning locomotives coming into service.
The San Bernardino area is home to two major rail yards, including Union Pacific’s Colton yard and BNSF Railway’s intermodal yard.
Reducing emissions from rail operations could have a major benefit on the health of those living nearby, air quality officials have said.
Railroad officials said they’re working hard to do their share.
“We have spent $5 billion on environmentally friendly locomotives since 2000,” said Scott Moore, a Union Pacific assistant vice president.
New clean-burning, long-haul locomotives and lighter “switcher” engines, which work only in yards, are being hauled around on a publicity tour to tout the new technology. The tour kicked off in the Colton yard.
Sixty of the cleaner switching engines will be coming to Southern California, and Union Pacific has ordered 500 of the cleaner long-haul locomotives.
The switchers will have three 700-horsepower engines aboard instead of one large engine.
The smaller engines will be far cleaner, and for maintenance or upgrades can be pulled out by two workers in eight hours, said Lanny Schmid, director of environmental operations for Union Pacific.
The bigger, long-haul locomotives had to be redesigned from the ground up, said Shaunda Parks, a spokeswoman for General Electric, which builds the locomotives.
Previous attempts at cleaning up railroad engines resulted in major losses of power and fuel efficiency.
The new Evolution engine, which took eight years and $300million to develop, gets 5 percent better mileage while cutting emissions 40 percent, compared with existing technology.
There has been some disagreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency about the next leap in regulations.
The Evolution meets the current standard of 5.5 grams of oxides of nitrogen per horsepower per hour. The EPA is considering a 1.3 gram standard. GE has said it can get down to 1.9 grams.
Parks said discussions with the EPA are continuing and the company is committed to aggressive reductions.
“We’re talking about a difference of 0.6 grams, and we’re coming down from 5.5,” she said.
Filters that can be added to older locomotives are also being tested but haven’t been as promising because they are extremely bulky and there’s not much extra room on a locomotive, Schmid said.
Also on display were simulators used for training both locomotive engineers and operators in switch yards.
Operators are trained to be as fuel efficient as possible in how they handle those massive loads.
Jim Westman, manager at the West Colton Yard, said there can be a 30 percent difference in fuel efficiency depending on how the operators drive the trains.