(The Chicago Tribune published the following article by James P. Miller on April 6.)
CHICAGO — America’s railroads are under pressure to reduce the tons of pollution their locomotives spew daily and to cut their fuel expenses as well. Can they do it?
With the help of the “Green Goat” and another clean-diesel technology being field-tested in Chicago rail yards, the rail industry says it thinks it can … it thinks it can … it thinks it can.
At Union Pacific Corp.’s Proviso Yard in suburban Melrose Park, a score of red and yellow locomotives stand outside a sprawling maintenance and repair building, their mammoth engines idling. “They break `em, we fix `em,” a hardhatted worker hollers cheerfully over the roaring whine.
It will be many hours, perhaps a day, before the waiting engines chuff into the building to be serviced. While they wait, their engines will run continuously. The sound they generate is so loud that it is painful to stand near them. They stink, too. Despite a stiff breeze out of the north, the oily smell of diesel fumes hangs everywhere.
Twenty yards away, a different engine is preparing to go to work. It is as powerful as the conventional engines nearby. But instead of the mechanical howl of a big diesel, it emits only a modest, intermittent rumble. And instead of a blue-tinged pall of hot diesel smoke, the prototype locomotive known as the “Green Goat” issues an insignificant exhaust plume from time to time. The goat’s air brakes release with a whoosh, and then the locomotive glides soundlessly away.
Only a few miles away, at the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad yard in Cicero, the scene is not greatly different. Trains pull into the yard loaded with intermodal containers; heavy trucks belch black smoke as they carry the containers away. Near the roundhouse sits a covey of unmanned locomotives, engines thrumming. “This is what it sounds like up close,” shouts locomotive foreman Jack Frank.
“Park one of these at the edge of the yard near a neighborhood, and they’re going to hear it all night. They’re going to get irate,” he says, clearly familiar with that particular issue.
Frank swings up onto the catwalk that runs along the edge of the locomotive about 5 feet above the ground. Opening a door-sized panel, he turns on a diesel motor the size of a small dresser; this is the “Kim Hotstart” unit that has been retrofitted onto the 25-year-old locomotive. Walking forward to the engineer’s cabin, Frank shuts down the main engine. As the big engine’s sound abruptly cuts off, the modest buzz of the small motor becomes audible.
“It’s a win for everybody,” says the mustachioed manager, smiling. “Uses less fuel, makes less pollution, runs quieter.”
At rail terminals across America, switcher locomotives–known in railroad slang as “goats”–spend 16 hours or more every day butting railcars into position, herding strings of boxcars to the proper site, and generally keeping things on track so the mile-long trains they assemble depart on time.
Because big diesels are often hard to start, particularly when the air temperature drops below 40 degrees, it’s standard practice to constantly keep their 2,000-horsepower engines idling, even though they’re only called on intermittently.
Running the engines all day solves the start-up problem, but it’s also a big reason why rail centers are so noisy, and why their air is so frequently polluted. The average yard locomotive burns through an estimated 25,000 gallons of diesel fuel each year, and in the process pumps about 5 tons of pollutants into the atmosphere, according to Environmental Protection Agency estimates.
That could be changing. Burlington Northern and Union Pacific are each conducting extensive trials on locomotive formats that appear likely to cut emissions by as much as 90 percent.
Initial results have been positive in both trials.
Railroad officials are focused on cutting their fuel bills, while environmentalists like the prospect of a drastic drop in the engines’ output of smog-producing nitrogen oxides, soot particles and carbon monoxide.
“The beauty of it is that, from our perspective, we see a lot of emission-reduction potential, and from the industry point of view it’s reducing costs,” says Francisco Acevedo, environmental engineer with the EPA’s Chicago office.
The Chicago hotstart technology test involving BNSF and the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad is being sponsored as a demonstration project by the EPA.The Hotstart system uses a straightforward concept: If locomotives are left running in order to avoid starting problems, finding another way to keep the engine warm would allow the engines to be shut down whenever they’re not being used.
The equipment made by Spokane, Wash.-based Kim Hotstart Manufacturing Co. draws the locomotive engine’s cooling water and lubricating oil past a heating unit, using a small engine that can easily be fitted alongside the existing engine.
Based on tests that began last September, BNSF calculates that the hotstart system is reducing fuel use by 15 percent to 20 percent, depending on how much time the locomotive idles.
In general, “we’re saving about 7,000 gallons of fuel yearly, per locomotive,” says Mark Stehly, assistant vice president for BNSF’s Railroad Environmental and Research and Development department.
Omaha-based Union Pacific first tested the Green Goat at a facility in California, then brought the experimental locomotive to Chicago last autumn to see how it performs in colder weather.
Made by Railpower Technologies Corp. in Vancouver, the prototype engine is a battery-diesel hybrid, similar in concept to the gas-electric hybrid automobiles entering the consumer market.
The goat’s operating power is provided by a 50,000-pound pack of batteries, which allows it to do the same amount of pushing and pulling as a standard diesel locomotive. The batteries are charged by a 130-horsepower diesel engine that kicks on periodically. The result: The goat chews through 30 percent less fuel than a standard yard locomotive.
The test engine’s obvious environmental friendliness is a “side benefit,” but the key to the tests is whether the goat generates a financial advantage to the company, says Michael E. Iden, Union Pacific’s director of locomotive engineering.
The field trial, which looks promising so far and is set to run until early summer, represents the logical next step in Union Pacific’s years-long effort to develop alternative fuel technology, Iden says.
The railroad spent three years testing liquid natural gas as an alternative to diesel fuel, for example, but finally shelved the concept when it couldn’t resolve certain technical problems. While non-polluting hydrogen fuel-cell technology may someday provide a viable diesel alternative, that option is “nowhere near being ready for prime time,” Iden says.
Road locomotives substantially outnumber yard locomotives, but there’s logic to the industry’s effort to wring savings from rail-yard goats.
For one thing, road engines don’t spend much time idling because they’re generally running from point to point. For another, EPA rules have drastically limited the pollution output of locomotives manufactured since the start of the year 2000, and in 2005 an even tougher mandate is set to take effect.
When railroads decide to invest in big-ticket new equipment, they generally focus on upgrading their fleet of cross-country “road units.” As a result, those locomotives, which boast 3,000 or more horsepower and are used for long-distance hauling, are the youngest and most efficient engines in a railroad’s fleet.
Because locomotives often last 30 years or more, and because road engines that are too old for long-haul chores are often shunted to yard work, the oldest and worst-polluting engines are generally found in the rail yard.
Union Pacific has about 5,000 road locomotives, compared with about 2,000 yard engines. Tellingly, it’s replaced about a third of its road fleet since 2000 but hasn’t purchased yard engines for many years.
The Omaha rail giant will, out of necessity, be buying hundreds of rail-yard goats in coming years, says Iden, but it’s “too soon” to say whether or not they’ll be Green Goats.
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The engine that could be greener, leaner
In an effort to reduce emissions and improve fuel economy, railroads are equipping locomotives used as switchers in rail yards with environmentally friendly technology. Union Pacific is testing a hybrid-powered locomotive known as the “Green Goat.” The Green Goat draws power from batteries that are charged periodically by a small diesel engine. It could reduce nitrogen oxide emissions by as much as 90 percent compared to its diesel-electric counterparts.
Batteries: A pack of 320 batteries supplies the electricity to motors that move the train. Batteries remain charged at 70 percent to 90 percent of capacity.
Diesel engine: The 130-horsepower Isuzu diesel engine recharges the batteries, even when the locomotive is in motion.
COMPARING THE GREEN GOAT AND CONVENTIONAL SWITCHERS
The hybrid battery compartment’s low height provides the operator with a less obstructed view, compared to a conventional locomotive.
Train type: GREEN GOAT
Weight (pounds): 260,000
Length: 52′
Height: 14’6″
Width: 10’6″
Fuel capacity: 2,100 gallons
Cost: $600,000
Average daily fuel usage: 18 gallons
Train type: CONVENTIONAL
Weight (pounds): 267,000
Length: 59′
Height: 15′
Width: 10′
Fuel capacity: 2,600 gallons
Cost: $1,000,000
Average daily fuel usage: 250 gallons
THE ROLE OF THE SWITCHER IN A RAIL YARD
Road locomotives pull rail cars long distances, but when trains reach the rail yard, a fleet of locomotives called switchers takes over, separating and connecting cars to others bound for the same destination.
CLASSIFICATION YARD
1. Cars that arrive at rail yards are grouped by destination.
DEPARTURE YARD
2. The Green Goat moves cars into a departure yard where the train is being assembled to go to different cities.
The goat could pull 25 cars, weighing between 800 tons to 3,000 tons combined.