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7/6/2017

Power Drives fuel management testimonial: Buffalo Southern Railroad powers up the PowerHouse

The "Snowvember" storm that plagued the Western New York region in mid-November wreaked havoc across counties and businesses for nearly an entire week.

And when it was over, Power Drives Inc. received an interesting story about its PowerHouse™ DWS-120 unit from Patrick Connors, the chief mechanical officer of the Buffalo Southern Railroad, which installed the unit on one of its locomotives.

"As you are probably aware, Buffalo was pounded with as much at seven feet of snow over a four-day period in November. Our leased-out locomotive #93 sat just inside of that white wall of snow and no one was able to reach it for the duration of the storm," Connors stated. "The customer that leases it transloads aggregates from lake to rail there, and was awaiting their final shipment of the year.”

He continued: "I stopped to check the locomotive on Monday afternoon just before the snow started. Once the snow started, [the locomotive] disappeared. The customer had a crew in on Tuesday morning to begin clearing snow, which became a lost cause. Even their massive bucket loaders were no match. In fact, they ended up being stuck in the area for two days.”

Connors went on to say that one snow blower crew passed the locomotive on Thursday and there was no snow at all on the top of #93.

"Finally by Friday afternoon, I received a call from the customer stating that #93 still had fuel and the heater was running,” he said. “When I made it down there over that weekend amongst the mountains of snow, there was no snow around the locomotive! The PowerHouse operated flawlessly throughout the whole storm. We are very happy with the PowerHouse unit."

Power Drives is appreciative of the valuable feedback Connors provided on the test of the PowerHouse unit against the elements, company officials said.

For more information about PowerHouse, see this Rail Product News item, or visit dieselwarming.com or powerdrives.com.

To learn how freight railroads are reducing fuel consumption, and the products and services they're using to work toward that objective, read this article in the July issue.