CPKC and CSX plan to chop greenhouse emissions with hydrogen locomotives
Freight rail operators Canadian Pacific Kansas Metropolis (CPKC) and CSX Corp. at the moment mentioned they may type a three way partnership to construct and deploy hydrogen locomotive conversion kits for diesel electrical locomotives, saying the transfer might assist scale back greenhouse fuel (GHG) emissions.
The announcement got here lower than every week after two rail business teams sued the state of California to cease a rule that might require freight locomotives in-built 2035 and afterwords to function in zero-emissions configurations whereas within the state, saying the know-how to allow that was not but prepared for business markets.
Practically your complete freight locomotive fleet of all railway operators in North America consists of diesel-powered models, representing the business’s most important supply of greenhouse fuel emissions, CPKC and CSX mentioned. They added that meaning rail has an necessary position to play in a decrease carbon financial system and the business wants a long-term, efficient different gas resolution.
As an preliminary step within the collaboration, CSX plans to transform one among its diesel locomotives utilizing a hydrogen conversion package developed by CPKC. The conversion work can be executed at CSX’s Huntington, West Virginia, locomotive store.
“This revolutionary collaboration expands our hydrogen locomotive program past a single railroad and represents an thrilling subsequent step in proving the long-term viability of hydrogen as an answer to emissions discount for our business,” Keith Creel, CPKC’s president and CEO, mentioned in a launch. “Our hydrogen locomotive went from idea to actuality in 24 months with the primary zero emissions hydrogen locomotive having already pulled freight in income service. We look ahead to this collaboration as we work to create a decrease carbon future.”
The CPKC and CSX initiative is the most recent rail business step to develop cleaner burning locomotives. In December 2020, Canadian Pacific (CP) introduced plans to develop North America’s first line-haul hydrogen-powered locomotive by retrofitting a diesel freight locomotive with hydrogen gas cells and battery know-how to drive the locomotive’s electrical traction motors. That prototype, designed and constructed by in-house CP engineers, made its first motion below its personal energy in late 2021. By the tip of 2022, the locomotive had made its first income strikes and now has collected greater than 1,000 miles of testing in income service.
CPKC has additionally deployed a second hydrogen locomotive for testing in terminal operations, a program growth supported by funding awarded by Emissions Discount Alberta and the Authorities of Canada Low Carbon Economic system Fund. The second hydrogen locomotive is anticipated to enter service later in 2023.
The brand new partnership follows earlier efforts to design inexperienced locomotives together with a January announcement by California regional rail operator Sierra Northern Railway and its companion Valley Imaginative and prescient that they deliberate to construct a “zero emission hydrogen switching locomotive.”
One other hydrogen initiative comes from Pittsburgh-based Wabtec Corp., which introduced plans in 2021 to collaborate with automaker Normal Motors on commercializing GM’s Ultium battery know-how and HYDROTEC hydrogen gas cell programs for Wabtec locomotives. In an announcement on the time, Wabtec mentioned that the rail business “is on the cusp of a sustainable transformation with the introduction of batteries and hydrogen to energy locomotive fleets.”
In 2022, Union Pacific Railroad introduced the acquisition of 10 of these FLXdrive battery-electric locomotives from Wabtec, marking the biggest funding in battery know-how by a North American railroad on the time.
Nevertheless, many of the funding in reducing freight practice emissions so far have come from “modernizing” present locomotives. For instance, Norfolk Southern Corp. mentioned in 2022 that it might make investments $275.6 million in funding from inexperienced bonds to transform locomotives from DC to AC electrical energy, thus enhancing gas effectivity. And Wabtec itself in 2021 celebrated its 1,000th locomotive modernization in North and South America—likewise citing DC-to-AC conversions—saying the upgrades delivered higher gas effectivity, reliability, haulage skill, and upkeep.
