Emmission Standards - How Much Longer Before?

Hendo · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 2:28 am

Noting how smokey most loco's are getting, how long before the states and feds institute heavy emmission standards, like the Californians on loco's?
Would those standards force new loco builds with only one or two classes? say a 48/T replacement and a SCT style loco. With heritage loco's having to be fitted with scrubbers.

cheers,
Chris

MBAX · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:28 am

Hendo · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 4:42 pm

MBAX,

I appreciate standards are in place, but if you look at the exhaust cloud from many of our older loco's they wouldn't be allowed on the road if it was a truck. How many 50 yr old trucks are running around in revenue service? I accept the inherit longevity of a loco over its competitor, but does the average punter? No, and how long before fingers start getting pointed at the old fleet we have running on mainline service?

cheers,
Hendo

42101 · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 4:53 pm

You will find that the older loco's are exempt from these laws as they have what is called Grandfather rights due to being built way before the current standards started.

GM Diesels Rule. 3801ltd Quality right to the end. Hands off the large sartor. DFTT.
All spelling errrors blame my tom cat meggs.
Optus suck

Hendo · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 5:17 pm

42101,

No worries, I appreciate that and it is important for the historical societies that they can get some revenue out of them, and for us enthusiasts, of all forms, get to see and appreicate them, just like our steam. But really how long before they get banned from standard commercial service? Look at some of the clunkers getting around that really should be reitred for spare parts.

cheers,
Hendo

BDA · Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 6:04 pm

Bring on Tier 2 I reckon , no excuses for masses of unburnt fuel smoke nowdays .

derekmorton · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 10:57 am

Keep in mind that each train of containers keeps 200 trucks off the road.

Hendo · Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 6:09 pm

Derek,

I really do appreciate the amount of trucks each train keeps of the road, QR quotes 150 trucks for their QRN intermodal service and that rail is three times more energy efficient than road. But that energy efficiency cannot be applied to fifty year old diesel motors.

Rather than defending the use of such inefficient old loco's how about some investment by the industry in new loco's and get the clunkers of active freight and works revenue service?

cheers,
Hendo

Edith · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 10:14 am

I think that you have ALL got it wrong. There are NO exhaust emission standards for locos in Australia. We have emission standards for road-based transport (cars, buses, trucks, and the like), but not for ships, planes, locomotives, power stations, pumps, mining equipment. The people who set the standards see the problem as a small one. Although if you live near an iner city shunting yard you might think otherwise.

While manufacturers are releasing Tier 2 models, there is no compulsion for Australian companies to buy them, nor is there any requirement to re-engine very old locos with newer model engines, although fuel efficiency requiremets might lead owners in that direction.

Can anyone tell me whether Tier 2 approximates to Euro 2 or something later ? With the Euro 5 trucks now coming, the exhaust (apart from CO2) will be cleaner than the ambient atmosphere.

Living well is the best revenge

Draffa · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 2:19 pm

The Diesel particulate scrubbers that Volkswagon (?) has implemented on their new range of road vehicles is a fascinationg piece of equipment. I wonder if it can be 'upgraded' to handle locomotive exhaust volumes...

bulldozed · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 3:26 pm

M636C · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 3:50 pm

derekmorton · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:00 pm

>Rather than defending the use of such inefficient old loco's how about some

An old loco has to be very bad to pollute more that 200 trucks!!

Was the point I was trying to make.

derekmorton · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 6:04 pm

>The old EMDs use fuel as if it were going out of fashion, but having been >recently overhauled, they are quite reliable and in constant use.

Given that the (old) EMD's are 2 stroke, they will always use more fuel that a 4 stroke.

The boating world is moving away from 2 strokes because of economy and pollution.

mjja · Posted: Mon May 12, 2008 7:29 pm

It is true that under some circumstances (ie worst possible locos vs best possible trucks - maybe quad 80s on a port link train vs a fleet of new Volvo FH12s) a train can cause more direct pollution than the number of trucks required to do the same work. Road lobbyists have on occasion pointed this out and tried to encourage the government to (for instance) upgrade the Newell a bit more.

For this reason it is important for rail companies to keep their equipment in good nick and just plain replace it when it's getting old. The trouble is, we don't have off-the-shelf locos like there are off-the-shelf prime movers. This is due to the intransigence of the NSW government in creating Pacific National and reducing the Australian rail freight industry to two or three massive players and a bunch of tiny ones, rather than having a few more medium-to-large players who would give UG and EDI a chance to make a long production run of locos instead of doing short runs and losing all the economies of scale.

Happy Gunzelling and remember, "Go by rail!"

Michael Angelico
President, Smart Passengers Inc
Councillor, ARHS Vic Div
(My opinions are my own unless specifically stated.)