EPA Proposes Railroad Smog Curbs

Trains that spew clouds of smog-forming gases would be required to clean up their emissions under the nation’s first pollution standards for railroads proposed Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The new measure is designed to help combat smog in cities, especially in California. A single locomotive in a typical year releases as many tons of nitrogen oxides--a key component of smog--as 2,000 passenger cars, EPA officials say.

Under the proposal, railroads must gradually cut emissions from locomotives beginning in 2001, meeting targets in 2005 of reducing nitrogen oxides by two-thirds, and hydrocarbons and particulates by half. The three pollutants are the main compounds that form the ozone and sooty particles that foul urban air.

*

In addition, the railroads have voluntarily agreed to phase in the cleanest engines in California first because the state suffers the nation’s worst air pollution. In California, state and local officials for years have asked the EPA to set national smog standards for vehicles such as trains that cross state boundaries.

Unlike cars, trucks, buses and most other vehicles, locomotives have never faced pollution standards.

Re-engineering the diesel engines to cut exhaust will raise the price of a new locomotive, which costs about $2 million, by 4%, or $80,000, the EPA estimates. Nationally, about 18,000 locomotives are in use today, with perhaps 20% operating at least occasionally in California.

“It’s a tough challenge for the locomotive builders and the railroads to meet these reductions, but the railroads are committed to doing their fair share in the country and in Los Angeles, and we’re going to roll up our sleeves and make it happen,” said Kirk Marckwald, a consultant for Southern Pacific and other major freight railroad companies as well as Amtrak.

*

Marckwald said that there are no known technologies yet invented to meet the requirements for 2001 through 2005, and that it will take substantial advances in propulsion and combustion as well as electronics to keep freight and passenger trains running efficiently.

“We are concerned that any technology that is used has the reliability and performance to meet our customers’ demands. It’s critical that we get this right,” said Marckwald, who represents the Assn. of American Railroads.

The EPA’s latest proposal rounds out a trilogy of federal regulations aimed at cleaning up fumes from diesel vehicles--all three of them considered critical to help the Los Angeles Basin achieve healthful air. Under separate rules, exhaust from heavy-duty trucks and buses, and farm and construction equipment, will also be reduced.

New locomotives would have to comply with the rule, as would those rebuilt from models manufactured as long ago as 1973. Each locomotive is typically remanufactured several times and used for 40 years, amassing more than 1 million miles apiece.

Nationally, trains contribute 5% of the nitrogen oxides that pollute the air--and considerably more in hubs such as Chicago.

*

Nitrogen oxides have been a difficult, complex and costly ingredient of smog to eliminate, since they are byproducts of combustion of diesel fuel and gasoline that do not typically respond to simple changes or devices installed on engines.

“Railroad emissions are one of the last big remaining chunks of [nitrogen oxide] emissions left to be controlled,” said Mary Nichols, an assistant EPA administrator in charge of air pollution programs. “This is a very progressive rule, a technology-forcing one, and it is certainly one more piece of the overall puzzle . . . to achieve health standards not only in California but in many areas of the country.”

After a public review, the rule, which is mandated by the Clean Air Act, could become final in nine months. The rule was crafted over the past few years with the help of major railroads.