By Grace Connatser, Associate Editor
Newburgh & South Shore Railroad LLC (NSR) recently purchased an all-battery electric locomotive from AMPS Traction LLC for $2.5 million. A grant from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency helped to cover 75% of the $1.9 million cost. Officials of NSR, an affiliate of OmniTRAX, expect the locomotive to be delivered in November, with testing to follow.
The AMPS Traction GP9-based all-battery electric switching locomotive is a 250,000-pound, Federal Railroad Administration-compliant unit that runs on 1,700 gross horsepower with an 80,000-pound dispatch. NSR, which “operates in the heart of Cleveland’s interstate highway system,” according to the railroad’s website. is the first Ohio short line to deploy the locomotive. OmniTRAX officials expect the locomotive’s “innovative technology” to reduce fuel consumption by half and nitrogen oxide emissions and particulate matter by 77%.
Officials at OmniTRAX and its affiliates — 21 regional and short-line railroads across 12 states — are actively looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprints, says Dave Arganbright, the company’s vice president of government affairs.
“It's no secret that our economy is looking to become more environmentally friendly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” he says. “As a railroad and business partner with the customers and communities we're in, it's incumbent upon us to continue to seek these next-generation technologies, particularly before legislation [is enacted] that might mandate it.”
NSR will serve as OmniTRAX’s testing “guinea pig” for the all-battery electric switching unit, which is “just like a Tesla on railroad track,” Arganbright says. If the locomotive meets the holding company’s environmental and performance standards, other affiliates may also purchase it, he says.
There’s another reason for testing the unit with NSR: The 5-mile short line operates in a nonattainment county, which is defined by the U.S. EPA as an area where measured pollutants exceed national air quality standards. Programs such as the Ohio EPA’s Diesel Mitigation Trust Fund, which provides grants help cover purchases of clean diesel, alternative fuel and electric engines. OmniTRAX operates in three other nonattainment counties across the country, Arganbright says.
“This locomotive has not been materially tested on U.S. railroads yet,” he says. “This is a perfect location for this test because we're a low-speed, urban short-line railroad that doesn't move a lot of cars a long distance.”
'Like making an omelet'
Based in Westerville, Ohio, AMPS Traction LLC has been building all-battery electric switching locomotives since 1998. The company was designated a zero-emissions company by the EPA, says company founder Dan Frederick.
In addition to manufacturing all-battery electric locomotives, AMPS Traction produces hybrid locomotives and other low- or no-emission vehicles for private-sector customers and the U.S. Army. A battery-electric drive train is up to 90% efficient, while an engine running on fuel is, at best, 35% efficient, Frederick says. That means that a battery-electric train wastes much less of the energy needed to keep it running.
“[Locomotive] operators were idling the engines 24 hours a day to keep up the locomotive and keep the operator cab warm. ... We just rebuilt these engines and now they're slobbering, drooling, leaking,” Frederick says. “All of this effort to generate electricity without electricity from the power company. That's what motivated us, because we were maintaining the engines and it was just a hassle.”
Developing battery-electric and hybrid products is like making an omelet, Frederick says — you need a good chef and good ingredients. And he believes AMPS Traction has the right chefs and ingredients in place. Plus, with gas prices hiking across the nation, it’s times like these that AMPS experiences higher demand for its products and services, Frederick adds.
He hopes one day to work with other railroads to hybridize unit trains by replacing conventional locomotives and assisting propulsion with battery-electric units. While going fully battery-electric currently is “impractical” for larger railroads, AMPS Traction may begin experimenting with hydrogen fuel cell units to keep onboard batteries charged, Frederick says.
“[They say] the sky’s the limit,” Frederick says. “Well, there’s a whole universe out there, so I tend to think that the sky is not the limit.”
