Railway Age, 5/7/24
Commentary
BIG Reason to Blow Up CARB’s Unrealistic ‘In-Use Locomotive Rule’
Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief
Report from California, courtesy of the Victorville Daily Press: “Barstow Leaders Rally Legislative Support to Save BNSF’s $1.5 Billion Railway Project,” the headline read. “Barstow city leaders traveled to Sacramento to gain legislative support for construction of BNSF’s Barstow International Gateway (BIG) project. Construction of the $1.5 billion state-of-the-art rail facility is in jeopardy of being halted by a state rule (the “In-Use Locomotive Rule”) mandating BNSF use ‘zero-emissions’ (ZE) or all-electric locomotives by 2035.
Is BIG in big trouble because the California Air Resources Board (CARB) wants to snuff out diesel locomotive exhaust, which accounts for an almost negligible 1% of all GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions nationally? Force BNSF—and all other railroads operating in the state—to move, within a few years, to ZE motive power—battery-electric, HFC (hydrogen fuel cell) or catenary-electric—which is either a) in its very early stages, in limited test-case use in captive environments (like Pacific Harbor Line, where an EMD Joule unit is deployed as a switcher), or impossible for an intermodal operation, for the simple, shocking reason that 25Kv AC catenary, lift cranes and double-stack containers don’t mix too well?
Seems to me that the folks at CARB have been inhaling smoke from funny cigarettes while trying to cut down on other types of smoke. There’s nothing inherently wrong with cutting diesel locomotive exhaust emissions, but let’s be practical. Would CARB rather see all that intermodal traffic shift from rail to truck? What would that do to emissions in the State of California? And even if all the big trucks running on California’s highways were to go 100% electric (which they won’t in the foreseeable future), what about traffic congestion and pavement/bridge damage?
Continue here.
Cross-posted in BNSF Barstow International Gateway (BIG) Proposed and
California Passes Ambitious In-Use Locomotive Emission Regulation