By JOHN E. WEARE
KAB
She has not counted one yet. The two-mile or so pumpkin sandwiches with coal hoppers on either side, I mean. My daughter is confident that current (regular length) BNSF Railway coal trains average 130-something cars. Depending on who you talk to that particular freight should be outlawed or utilized until it runs out. What about the multi-thousand horsepower diesel-electric motors pulling the coal? How environmentally friendly is the average Class I railroad engine?
The answer surprised me — a little. I knew hauling “x” number or pounds of any particular thing across country was more efficient, albeit usually slower, by train than truck. However, trains fare a bit better than I thought. The BNSF website (bnsf.com) agrees with other industry sources, such as CSX, that the average train can move a ton of freight about 423 miles on a gallon of fuel. On the csx.com site, the Association of American Railroads says “moving freight by rail is four times more fuel efficient than moving freight on the highway.” BNSF says three times though it cites “long haul trucks” specifically.
“If just 10 percent of the freight that currently moves by truck were diverted to rail fuel savings would exceed 1 billion gallons a year,” bnsf.com.
I’d say 10 percent is a good goal for the rail industry. Do not hope for much more though. Semi-trucks and trains each haul certain things well with plenty of overlap largely depending on factors such as distance and speed desired. Also, since mergers have pared the number of major freight railroads down to less than 10 and there are fewer shortlines serving smaller communities than 30 or 40 years ago I doubt the truck/train market share battle will shift significantly.
BNSF does connect to a number of smaller railroads throughout its network including a couple near Crawford: Rapid City, Pierre & Eastern (743 miles of track) and Nebraska Northwestern Railroad (7.22 miles of track owned with a rail yard in Chadron). Other track in the neighborhood, I’m thinking of what became the more than 100-mile Mickelson Trail in the Black Hills, was abandoned when I was a kid.
So, taking the track miles and market share versus other forms of transportation off the table, locomotive technology has allowed trains to become greener. BNSF’s website says that freight trains have increased fuel efficiency by 80 percent in the past 25 years and “By 2000 we had the newest, most fuel-efficient fleet of all Class I railroads in the United States.”
The trucking industry is no slouch either. All-electric semi-trucks will soon be a viable option for shipping companies. California appears to be a catalyst for low- and zero-emission technology both on interstates and rail routes. An article by Marybeth Luczak in Railway Age (railwayage.com) last month highlights the “BNSF/Wabtec BEL Pilot.” The two companies conducted a three-month pilot of a battery-electric locomotive (BEL) that reduced fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 11 percent in a revenue service train, the article says.
The BEL operated with two regular diesel-electric locomotives in California’s hilly San Joaquin Valley saving the equivalent of more than 6,200 gallons of diesel and reducing CO2 emissions by about 69 tons. The article concludes with positive predictions from Wabtec for a second-generation locomotive that “could be commercialized and enter service ‘in the next few years.’”
The BNSF/Wabtec partnership was funded by a $22.6 million grant from the California Air Resource Board. Also in California (reported on cleantechnica.com), Sierra Northern Railway received a $4 million grant to build a zero emission hydrogen fuel cell switch engine.
Like passenger and cargo vehicles on America’s roads, the technology is coming of age so the mile-long trains we watch from behind our dashboards should be environmentally friendly within a generation. What better place for solar panels to charge batteries or power electrolysis for fuel cells than thousands of miles of railroad right of way?