(The Hampton Roads Daily Press posted the following article by Peter Dujardin on its website on February 25.)
NORFOLK, Va. — Norfolk Southern Corp. is now using a biodegradable soybean oil residue to grease its tracks as an alternative to petroleum-based grease.
The Norfolk-based railway said it is the first railroad in the country to use the environmentally friendly alternative, which uses oil from excess soybeans grown by Midwest farmers.
Until now, Norfolk Southern has used petroleum grease at all curved sections of its 22,000 miles of railway to prevent the train’s wheels and the track’s sides from being worn out from friction. The soybean oil grease, called SoyTrak, will immediately replace the petroleum grease in dispensers near thousands of curves.
The railroad has been developing the new grease over the last several years with the University of Northern Iowa and a Waverly, Iowa company, Environmental Lubricants Manufacturing Inc., for the last couple of years.
“We constantly work on innovative track materials,” said Susan Terpay, a Norfolk Southern spokeswoman. “This had to be as good as the petroleum-based lubricants, and it’s undergone strenuous tests in all weather conditions.”
And the company went beyond saying that soybean oil is as good as petroleum oil: it said it’s even better. “It’s more efficient than petroleum in reducing wear through its greater durability and capacity for reducing friction,” said Don Cregger, Norfolk Southern’s manager of project engineering.