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10/7/2022
Union Pacific Railroad and ZTR yesterday announced a partnership to build hybrid-electric locomotives.
The locomotives will be built at UP's facility in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with the first prototype expected to be delivered in late 2023 and five additional units arriving in 2024.
"This pilot will help make our fleet more fuel efficient and further advance our commitment to reaching our sustainability goals, while testing the technology's capability for expanded use across our locomotive fleet," said UP Senior Vice President of Engineering and Mechanical Shane Keller in a press release.
The units work much like a plug-in car, capable of operating in multiple modes with several ways to charge the batteries.
Known as "mother-slug" sets, two locomotives are replaced with one diesel locomotive connected to an accessory or slug. UP converts older locomotives, typically with higher emissions.
The slug unit will be converted and equipped with batteries, power electronics and controls supplied by ZTR. This will help achieve fuel and maintenance savings and offers environmental benefits allowing the slug unit to operate in single-engine, battery-charging or electric-only modes, UP officials said.
As the new locomotives will be used chiefly for yard operations, the engineless slug increases traction motors available to the locomotive, boosting the pulling and braking power that is key for this kind of work.
"This initial hybrid-electric mother-slug application will be the basis of our design for future hybrid-electric, long-haul and fully electric solutions," said ZTR Control Systems President Derek Shipley.
UP began rolling out mother-slug sets with ZTR's Nexsys control systems in 2017 and currently operates more than 65 of them in yards systemwide. Depending on the mode of operation, fuel savings and greenhouse-gas emission reductions could total up to 80%, UP officials said.