RAILWAYS AND THE ENVIRONMENT
WORKSHOP
PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings of the 2nd Railways and the Environment Workshop
Held in Winnipeg, MB
October 6-8, 2003
ISBN Number 1-894218-35-3
Transport Institute, University of Manitoba
www.umti.ca
Proceedings available in French upon request
Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Conference Overview
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CONFERENCE CHAIR WELCOME
Bill Rowat, President and CEO, Railway Association of Canada
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WELCOME TO WINNIPEG AND OPENING ADDRESS
Tim Sale, Minister of Energy, Science & Technology, Province of Manitoba
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SESSION 1: CANADA’S RAILWAYS TODAY AND TOMORROW
Session Chair – Russ Robinson, Environment Canada
John Dobson, Transport Canada
Robert Lyman, Transport Canada
Gord Owen, Environment Canada
Robert Taylor, Railway Association of Canada
Lee Jebb, Cando Contracting
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ADDRESS ON BEHALF ON ENVIRONMENT MINISTER DAVID ANDERSON
Tim Hibbard, Director, Departmental Affairs, Environment Canada
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SESSION 2: RAIL IN OTHER JURISTICTIONS
Session Chair – Lionel King, Transport Canada
Robert Fronczak, Association of American Railroads
Terry Judge, Kim Hotstart Manufacturing Company
Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Harry Gow, Transport 2000 Canada
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SESSION 3: TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND BEST PRACTICES
Session Chair – Grete Bridgewater, CPR
Martha Lenz, GM Electro-Motive
Eric Panet-Raymond, Bombardier Transportation
Arnold Miller, Vehicle Project LLC
Erika Akkerman, CN
Don Eadie, Kelsan Technologies Corp.
Steve Easun, ZTR Control Systems
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SESSION 4: MODAL SHIFT AND INTERMODAL TRANSPORTATION
Session Chair – Richard Gilbert, Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Barry Craven, Canada Post
Gord Peters, Cando Contracting
Sabina Strautman, IKEA
John Spacek, Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Jim Vena, CN
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SESSION 5: ALTERNATIVE DIRECTIONS FOR MOTIVE POWER
Session Chair – John Spacek, Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
Robert Dunn, Consultant
Anthony Perl, University of Calgary
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SESSION 6 PANEL: CANADIAN EMISSION STRATEGIES:
ARE WE ON TRACK?
Session Chair – Barry Prentice, University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Robert Taylor, Railway Association of Canada
Russ Robinson, Environment Canada
Robert Lyman, Transport Canada
Peter Eggleton, TELLIGENCE Group
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CLOSING REMARKS
Bill Rowat, President and CEO, Railway Association of Canada
Russ Robinson, Advisor, Sustainable Transportation, Environment Canada
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List of Speakers and Participants
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Speaker Biographies
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This Workshop was made possible by the combined efforts and goodwill of people from
the railway industry, academia, associated organizations, the Province of Manitoba and
the federal government. Environment Canada offers its thanks to all concerned and
wishes to acknowledge the particular assistance of the following individuals and
organizations:
The Workshop Steering Committee
Joanna Bellamy – Environment Canada
Roger Cameron – Railway Association of Canada
Nicole Charron – Transport Canada
Doug Duncan - University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Harry Gow – Transport 2000
Lionel King – Transport Canada
Mike Lowenger – Railway Association of Canada
Anthony Perl – University of Calgary
John Spacek – Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Terry Zdan – Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Workshop Chair
Bill Rowat – President
Railway Association of Canada
Session Chairs and Speakers
Identified in the proceedings
Proceedings Prepared by
The University of Manitoba Transport Institute
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CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
The second Railways and the Environment Workshop highlighted the fact that the rail
industry provides the most fuel efficient and emissions friendly environment for moving
freight in North America. Significant progress has been made by the railways over the
past decade in traffic growth, productivity improvements and emissions reductions. The
locomotive manufacturers have met the challenge of developing Tier 2 compliant
locomotives. GM Electro-Motive is currently testing their SD70ACe Tier 2 compliant
locomotive. The federal government has initiated programs to help the industry develop
new technologies. Companies providing technical support to the rail industry have
developed new technologies or refined existing technologies that offer tremendous
potential for further fuel efficiency gains and emissions reductions. The rail industry has
indicated that it is “On Track” in its efforts to reduce emissions. Overall, the rail industry
has been successful in reducing CO2 emissions by 16% compared to 1980. However, as
rail freight movement is likely to continue to grow over the next few years, this may
place a strain on the energy efficiency gains the rail industry has already made.
Observations made by industry representatives suggest that even greater gains could be
achieved with the implementation of policies designed to further assist the industry.
Industry representatives and others have suggested that what may be missing is a
cohesive policy framework that maximizes the emission reduction opportunities that
appear to be there.
Canada’s Railways Today and Tomorrow
The workshop opened with a review of “Straight Ahead – a vision for transportation in
Canada.” Straight Ahead provides a policy framework for the continued success and
balance of Canada’s transportation system. Overall, the transportation system in Canada
is on track, is generally working well and not in need of major overhaul. Productivity
growth in the transportation sector has been almost double that of the economy as a
whole over the past ten years. Rail productivity has increased by up to 81% since 1981
with 75% of these gains transferred to shippers in the form of reduced rates. The system
is fundamentally competitive and efficient. Market abuse is not systemic or widespread
and most shippers are well served. One change that will be made is to enshrine respect
for the environment in the National Transportation Policy statement of the Canada
Transportation Act.
Transportation represents 25% of Canada’s GHG emissions. The modal split is as
follows: Road Vehicles - 71%, Off Road Vehicles - 13%, Aviation - 7%, Rail Freight 4%, Marine - 4%, and Bus 1%. GHG’s for all transportation sectors are up 21% from
1990 to 1999. Emissions from the whole transportation industry are definitely not on
track. However, about 63% of the increase can be attributed to road freight, while rail’s
GHG emissions are down 1%.
The Railway Association of Canada presented data on the growth in railway freight
traffic over the last 15 years. There has been an explosion in for-hire truck traffic from
1991-2001, 112% (on a tonne-kilometre basis), much of it NAFTA related, while rail
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activity grew by 38%. Over the past 20 years the rail industry has experienced a
continuous increase in activity. Total tonne-kilometres have increased 29% from 240
billion in 1980 to 310 billion in 2000. CO2 emissions are down 16% compared to 1980
and fuel efficiency has improved 38%. By 2000 rail moved about 66% of total freight
tonne-kilometres in Canada and produced only 4% of transportation GHG emissions,
with truck moving 34% of total freight tonne-kilometres and producing about 32% of
GHG emissions.
The rail industry has a key role to play in improving the overall environmental
performance of the transport sector. Despite the efficiency improvements of the rail
industry, rail is facing challenges to continue to reduce its GHG emissions and improve
its efficiency while pursuing increased activities. Transport Canada, through the Federal
government’s climate change initiatives, has put two programs in place to help the
industry in this regard. The first is the Freight Efficiency and Technology Initiative, a
program managed by Transport Canada. It is a $14 million 5-year initiative launched
under Action Plan 2000 on Climate Change. The three main components include
voluntary performance agreements, training and awareness initiatives and the Freight
Sustainability Demonstration Program. The second is the Commercial Transportation,
Energy Efficiency and Fuels Initiative, which is a four-year, $32 million program that
will complement existing FETI.
Environment Canada is responsible for Canada’s Clean Air Agenda. The Agenda was
launched in May of 2000 and includes a focus on the transportation sector as part of
Canada’s Agenda on Vehicles, Engines and Fuels. Generally, the intent is to align fairly
closely to U.S. toxic emissions standards for vehicles, engines and fuels. Environment
Canada is putting in place regulations for new on-road vehicles and engines and off-road
engines and setting new standards for fuel quality. The approach is very much
regulatory-based.
Environment Canada and the Railway Association of Canada have an agreement on
locomotive air emissions that takes effect from 1995 to 2005. The agreement sets a NOx
cap of 115 kilotonnes per year. The Memorandum of Understanding includes reporting
requirements for total fuel consumption, gross and net ton-miles, composition of the
Canadian locomotive fleet, changes in fleet emission factors, and emission reduction
initiatives. NOx emissions were exceeded in 1995, 1997 and 2001 as traffic has grown
but generally are staying relatively flat. In the U.S. locomotive emission standards for
NOx, HC, CO, Particulate Matter and smoke capacity have been set and are being phased
in between 2000 and 2007. These standards include in-use maintenance requirements, inuse testing of locomotives and record keeping.
Canadian railways have become more continental in scope. CPR has taken an approach
to continental linkages using alliances with U.S. roads, whereas, CN has acquired
American railroads to build their network. In the case of CN, 57% of revenue comes
from U.S. domestic and trans-border movements versus 45% for CPR. In terms of the
U.S. EPA, this is very, very relevant for Canadian rail. Canadian locomotives represent
about 15% of the North American fleet, in 2002 there were 3,129 locomotives in Canada
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(21,000 in the U.S.). The fleet size and continental aspect of Canadian railway traffic
suggests that the Canadian fleet should be harmonized to meet U.S. operating regulations.
Several fundamental differences between Canadian and U.S. regulatory policy were
highlighted by Robert Taylor. Firstly, a major difference in CCA rates exists. In Canada
it takes 20 years to write-off a locomotive while in the U.S. it only takes 8 years. This
places a tremendous burden on Canadian railways and has significant implications for
fleet replacement policies. The average age of Canadian locomotives is 11% higher than
the U.S. fleet. Secondly, a difference exists between U.S. versus Canadian philosophy on
modal shift. The U.S. regulations and U.S. policy makers have endorsed the concept of
modal shift and they recognize that if they bring in undue, highly prescriptive regulations
to rail, that it would have an undesired effect on overall emissions levels. From the
Railway Association of Canada’s perspective, modal shift is a cornerstone of the RAC’s
Policy Platform. They have completed an analysis that indicates that a modal shift in the
range of 15-20% could have a huge impact on GHG emissions. It has been suggested
that the overzealous regulation of rail will increase emissions due to a negative modal
shift.
Canada’s shortline railways are thriving. They are meeting the needs of shippers on lines
that have not been commercially viable for the Class 1 railroads. Shortlines are a key
link between industry and the North American rail network. They can optimize loading
opportunities, logistical controls, and customer service requirements. As well, they can
do the things that make the total rail industry effective and efficient. However, the
fundamental drivers are not in place for rail to be successful compared to trucking for
certain types of moves. Getting some of these drivers right would be the best way to
address many of the environmental issues that are the subject of this workshop.
Rail in Other Jurisdictions
In the United States, Congress has established the Clean Air Act, which requires the EPA
to reduce emissions and meet certain air quality standards. The EPA was directed to set
emission standards for locomotives and for other non-road engines. By basic design,
locomotive engines tend to be very high in NOx and relatively low in PM. Before
control, locomotives emitted approximately a million tonnes of NOx each year, which
amounts to about 5% of the total NOx in the U.S. For that reason the primary focus of
EPA rulemaking is in controlling NOx. PM and HC became more of a secondary issue.
The EPA did not regulate fuel consumption or CO2.
The U.S. standards that were set apply very broadly to locomotives. A unique feature of
the rule is that the standards apply both to the original manufacture of the locomotive and
also when each locomotive is remanufactured. It requires that the remanufactured
locomotive be certified as meeting the emissions standards and that somebody take
responsibility for the process. This is accomplished by certifying the remanufacturing
system. Also established was an in-use testing program, a two-phased approach, one for
the manufacturers, one for the railroads, to make sure that these locomotives are meeting
the standards in use. The final unique feature was a mandatory requirement for railroads
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to perform the emission-related maintenance. Under this program the manufacturer
specifies what emissions-related maintenance is needed to keep it in compliance, and the
railroads are then required to do that.
EPA indicated that it expects these programs to get very large emissions reductions, but
as there is pressure for tighter and tighter air quality standards, EPA will be asked to find
further ways to reduce emissions. EPA recently established very low emission standards
for on-road highway diesel vehicles and are proposing to introduce similar standards for
off-road. The starting point would be to consider standards equivalent to the highway
engines or to the other off-road engines that are currently being considered. The open
question right now is: can these technologies be retrofitted to existing fleets? Other
options being considered are implementation of on-board diagnostic systems to see if
they can be used for better emissions control and perhaps mandating automatic shutdown
systems.
Technological Advances and Best Practices
Among the most significant technological advances presented at the workshop was the
advance in GM Electro-Motive’s SD70ACe Engine. On emissions performance, this
engine has demonstrated significantly better than the Tier 2 standard. The fuel efficiency
projections for this locomotive are near Tier 1 levels. The key to making the engine Tier
2 compliant was that no brand new technology was required. The solutions were the
normal options available to a manufacturer for addressing fuel efficiency or emissions.
On the passenger side, Bombardier Transportation has developed the JetTrain to address
North America’s needs for high-speed rail. The turbine-powered locomotive meets the
FRA noise requirements as well as all of the EPA requirements at the power requirements
that are typical for the application. The main advantage of the JetTrain is that it can run
on existing infrastructure, while that infrastructure is gradually upgraded. Bombardier
believes that, from an emissions perspective, as the attraction for high speed rail becomes
imbedded in the marketplace and passengers move from their vehicles to the rail system,
significant reductions in emissions can be achieved.
The workshop addressed a number of technological advances across the rail spectrum
that suggests that significant improvements in operating efficiency and emissions
reduction will become available in the future. Notable in these developments are:
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•
•
•
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The Fuelcell Locomotive Project,
Top of Rail Friction Control,
Locomotive Idle Reduction Technologies,
Green Goat and Green Kid Hybrid Switchers,
Operating Practices
o Locomotive fleet renewal,
o Train handling, or locomotive operations,
o Rail gauge face lubrication,
o Freight car productivity,
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o Train length versus locomotive power.
Modal Shift and Intermodal Transportation
The session on modal shift presented five very different cases where modal shift has or
should take place. In each case the situations and the drivers of change are radically
different.
The first case looked at the shifts between the modes for Canada Post. In a direct quote
from the Canada Post Web site, Barry Craven stated that, “The pivotal turning points of
postal history generally follow soon after the appearance of new modes of
transportation.” In the mid 1800’s the railways started, and many post offices opened
along rail lines. The 1950’s saw improved road systems, the growth of trucking and
airmail. By 1971 rail mail was abolished, and by 1987 Canada Post completely stopped
using rail. The past five years have seen the shift from air to road for premium and core
products and a shift from road to rail for some products. The road to rail shift is enabled
by the growth of intermodal products on the rail systems.
The Athabasca Northern shortline railway and Alberta Pacific Forest Industries contract
to move logs by rail is a tremendous example of the benefits of modal shift. 500,000
tonnes of logs were moved from the road to the rail line with a GHG reduction forecast at
50,000 tonnes over ten years. This shift highlights the ability of the shortline industry to
improve customer service, as well as the efficiency of the total transportation system.
Sabina Strautman of IKEA presented a fascinating case study of how corporate
environmental policy is driving improvements in all aspects of IKEA’s business dealings,
particularly in its logistics operations. Carriers are being asked to meet environmental
targets and IKEA is looking at its logistics system with a mind to improving emissions in
its movement of product. Notable in the presentation was the statement that “we want to
continuously reduce the environmental impact of the transportation of our goods.” IKEA
has set a 2005 goal of reducing CO2 in transport by 15% per cubic metre. In Europe,
IKEA has acquired a railway to operate between Sweden and Germany to allow a modal
shift from road to rail that removes 60 trucks per day from the highways.
The Province of Manitoba highlighted the problems that they face with continuing
service to remote communities when the rail lines are abandoned and the costs of
replacement roads are uneconomical. This case is still under review and yet to be
resolved.
The final presentation dealt with the relocation of Winnipeg’s Intermodal Terminal from
its original location in the City to within CN’s operations at Symington Yards. The
driver of this change was the opportunity to significantly improve rail operations.
Intermodal traffic was losing a day in the city due to the additional switching
requirements of the old facility. The improved operations have resulted in better
throughput in Winnipeg, reduced fuel costs and corresponding emissions reductions.
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Canadian Emission Strategies: Are We On Track
The workshop wrapped up with a final panel discussion that assessed the rail industries
performance to date and highlighted a number of critical issues.
Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
Robert indicated that from the RAC’s perspective, the simple answer is – YES! Today in
Canada we have an emissions problem. It is not rail-related. In the case of rail, we have
seen declining or flat levels of overall emissions and declining emissions on a tonne per
kilometre basis. Rail has an intrinsic fuel efficiency advantage and it is improving.
Considerable reductions in truck emissions on a per unit basis, in the order of a
magnitude of 3-5 times will have to be gained before the situation changes. This is in the
context of the exciting developments that are being implemented and are coming in the
future. However, meeting current and future EPA standards without changes to the tax
policy, particularly CCA, will put Canadian continental railways at a competitive
disadvantage with their U.S. counterparts and North American trucking companies. In
addition to CCA, Canada must look at other policy levers such as fuel tax, infrastructure
spending, and truck size and weight.
Russ Robinson – Environment Canada
The good news reported during this workshop is that the Tier 2 standards are achievable.
They are not only achievable, but achievable with readily available technology and
know-how. The fact that engine manufacturers would be really happy to see regulations
in Canada harmonized with those in the U.S. is another positive signal. Environment
Canada favours harmonized mandatory emission standards in Canada. It is certainly
Environment Canada’s wish that we do not come up with a uniquely Canadian solution
for anything.
Russ expressed concern about the potential for allocation of the new cleaner engines to
international service rather than general service in Canada and that the shortlines could
become the dumping ground for the worst of the dirtiest of the engines. On the tax policy
perspective, Russ noted that this is a finance issue and one that Environment Canada
cannot help the industry with. On the shortline issue, clearly, the government is going to
have to be very sensitive to the nature of the shortlines and the fact that they just cannot
afford to deal with the kind of regulations being contemplated.
The final concern raised by Russ was related to the NOx rail projections, which suggests
that total NOx from rail will, in fact, be higher than all on-road heavy duty vehicles.
Given these projections, if there are no further improvements on rail NOx emissions in
the future, Environment Canada would have to carefully examine the extent to which it
could support new climate change programs that could potentially promote intermodality
or a shift from truck to rail. Such programs, while of benefit for GHG purposes, could
lead to more smog forming emissions.
Robert Lyman – Transport Canada
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Robert highlighted that rail as a transportation mode offers considerable advantages in
terms of air emissions, congestion relief and inter-city movement, and land use, from an
environmental perspective. In many ways, the industry is on track and should be
recognized for that.
There are a couple of key messages that Robert left to the rail industry. One is that the
opportunities for the rail industry to continue to have a very good level of environmental
performance in the future is not just dependent upon one strategy. There are many
options and strategies available, many of which came out in this workshop. As we heard
from IKEA, there will be shippers who will demand increasing levels of environmental
performance from the rail industry. To a great extent, corporate culture will influence
how these demands are met and the industry’s response to environmental challenges.
Does the rail industry, and rail companies in particular, see the environment as a value, as
something that is really worth pursuing and reflects that in the business plan.
Robert noted that the rail industry is in a bit of a defensive mode on environmental issues
and is quite concerned about the possibility of tighter, too rigorous regulations, unrealistic
approaches to meeting the Kyoto target. It seemed to Mr. Lyman that the rail industry
will not do more unless the federal government provides incentives. While Robert
recognized the importance of the rail industry’s taxation concerns, he suggested that
strategically, to hold forward movement on environmental performance hostage to
resolution of those other difficult issues is not going to serve the industry well in the long
term. He concluded by suggesting to the rail industry that it needs to engage
simultaneously on the environmental front and the tax front, and to take advantage of
those within government who want to be your partners.
Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
Peter Eggleton made reference to Jim Vena’s (CN) statement about getting infrastructure
dollars, “You really have got to have a good story to get the money.” This is a key fact in
encouraging industry to invest in a concept. Unfortunately, we do not find the situation
clear in Canada with respect to emissions. “It goes without saying that the unclear
situation at present, regarding locomotive emissions regulations in Canada does not
facilitate things and compromises obtaining the collateral to obtain resources to develop
and deploy emissions reductions technology in practices in Canada. Right now I would
say we are “On Track” but we are not quite sure where it is leading and what the
objective is and what the measurable goal, what the final station destination is.” Peter
believes that the train is a bit stalled and that the signaling system has to be upgraded.
Transport Canada should be asked to provide a policy statement on the issue.
Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Barry Prentice summarized the workshop by making several critical observations.
Firstly, “you can change what comes out of the tailpipe or the smokestack as it were, and
you can change the number of tailpipes.” We heard a lot about what we can do to change
what comes out of the tailpipe. But perhaps the biggest opportunity in terms of the
environment is the ability to reduce the number of tailpipes in total. The comment about
putting 200 containers on a double-stacked train and removing 200 trucks from the
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highway is a very significant change. Secondly, we have to look at the net contribution
that can be made, as opposed to the contribution that will be made for each particular
mode. Even though rail emissions are not going down, as a whole Canada is significantly
gaining. Thirdly, we must address where the emissions are occurring, where is the
concentration, and how do we reduce it to the critical point? We did not hear any
comments about this aspect in the workshop. Emissions problems are clearly focused in
a small number of geographic areas in Canada. Therefore, emissions reductions must
also be strategically planned to address these geographic areas.
Dr. prentice concluded by posing two questions for the audience to consider:
•
•
Are the incentives adequate to permit the players to make the changes that have to
be made to reach Kyoto goals?
Is there sufficient time that really allows that to happen?
Barry noted that, as was suggested by Peter Eggleton, allocation of scarce capital dollars
is driven by the highest returns and a very good story. The real question seems to be,
have we set the framework in Canada to maximize the potential for emission reductions
in the transportation sector.
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CONFERENCE CHAIR WELCOME
Bill Rowat
President
Railway Association of Canada
Good morning, welcome to the second ‘Railways and the Environment Workshop’ here
in Winnipeg. Over the weekend, I, as many of you probably did, saw the report from the
Conference Board of Canada and its latest assessment of various indicators right across
the board as to how well our country is doing. The Board looked at 100 economic, social
and environmental indicators for 24 countries and compared Canada within that. They
grouped these 100 indicators into 6 broad categories: the economy, innovation,
education, skills, health, society and the environment. In terms of the environment, you
will have seen that Canada slid to 16th out of the 24 countries involved. What the
Conference Board said, and I will just quote them in their press release, “Air quality is
not only poor but declining, with a rate of sulphur dioxide emissions that is three times
higher than the 12th ranked country.” In two other emission categories – nitrogen oxide
and carbon dioxide, Canada ranks 23rd and 24th out of 24 countries. Their bottom line
conclusion: there is an urgent need to make strategic policy choices. That is very clear.
The question in the context of this report, and many other reports that we have seen over
the last couple of years is ‘How can rail make a contribution?’ That should be the central
focus for our discussions over the next three days.
Turning very quickly to some of the things that we should be looking at, watching for, as
guiding principles over the next three days:
1. I think that we should consider all emissions as a package. Let’s not focus on
simply solutions to one at the expense of another. Let’s remember there are NOx,
VOx, SOx, PM, GHG’s, and so on, and make sure that we understand the
interlinkage amongst all of them.
2. Let’s focus on a standard of comparison. I noticed in reading a number of the
background documents for this workshop, that as a group, we tend to focus on
emissions per ton-mile or tonne-kilometre. That happens to be a good indicator,
for number one - it’s simple, number two - you can show the progress within any
one sector, any one mode, like rail or trucking, and so on, and it also has a certain
simplicity of being able to be compared among different modes.
3. Let’s consider all public policy approaches – solutions. Let’s not just focus on
regulation. Let’s look at tax policy; let’s look at capital cost allowances; let’s
look at pricing policies; let’s look at congestion charge, like the city of London
has put into place; let’s look at infrastructure investments, and so on.
4. And I notice that it is very clear on our agenda, let’s look at modal shift and
solutions through intermodalism.
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5. Let’s look at what works in other jurisdictions. And, again, there is a very
clear section on our agenda that focuses on that.
6. Let’s look at new technologies; let’s look at best practices. And, again, some
very clear lessons to be learned. And, again, a section in our agenda on that.
Finally, I would say – and this is something I have noticed in reading the background
documentation – we need data. We need fundamental data. We need basic data. We
need more data on origin destinations through all of the modes, so we can do the kind of
analysis, good public policy analysis, to come up with the right solution, not just any
solution. So, let’s keep these six or seven points in mind as the workshop progresses over
the next 3 days.
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WELCOME TO WINNIPEG AND OPENING ADDRESS
The Honourable Tim Sale
Minister of Energy, Science & Technology
Province of Manitoba
Bienvenue à tous. It is a lovely fall day in Winnipeg and we want to welcome you here
to our province. I know some of you are from our province but many of you are ‘from
away,’ as they say in Newfoundland, and we’re glad that you’re ‘from away’—wherever
you’re ‘from away’ from—and you’re here. It is my pleasure to welcome you on behalf
of Premier Gary Doer and Scott Smith, our Minister of Transportation and Government
Services, who is in his home of Brandon today and not able to be with you. I also bring
greetings on behalf of Steve Ashton who is, of course, our Minister of Conservation and
has environmental responsibilities; and Dave Chomiak, our Minister of Health, who is
often the proud inheritor of environmental difficulties in his health care system. So we
have an understanding that what you do has broad impacts on our economy, on our health
care system, on our environment and we wish you very good work over the next few
days.
I think that those of you who are not from Manitoba probably know a bit about our city.
We are home to three of Canada’s ten largest employers in the for-hire trucking industry,
obviously a hub that goes easily east-west, north and south, all the way down I-94 to
Texas and beyond. We are certainly, both an historic and a current home to both of our
Class 1 Railways and both have major infrastructure investments and total employment
of over 4,000 Manitobans in our province – so, a major employer, a major infrastructure,
investor and supporter. Anybody live south of Wilkes down Kenaston – anybody here?
Ah, one person at the back. Are you glad to see the end of the intermodal yards there and
all the trains that backed up along the main line? They are now out in the east end of the
city. We are glad to see the opening of CN’s new intermodal yard that has, I think, a
great opportunity for the future for intermodal integration in our Province and, I think,
relieves one area in which perhaps wasn’t the most optimal choice to build it in the first
place.
We look forward to the kind of integrated work that you are attempting to do over the
next few days. We are thinking, as your chair said, about the bigger picture and thinking
in an integrated way about that picture – finding common measures, common ways of
thinking about environment, transportation, and our economy. As well, we are thinking
about the obvious spin-off benefits in the health care system, which all of us have a great
deal of difficulty figuring out how to control costs in.
We are also, as you probably may know, North America’s leading bus manufacturer. We
have a very significant component of North America’s total bus production. And we are
well into the stage of developing the hybrid hydrogen bus, which we hope will be on the
road within a year. It is currently being fitted in California with some parts, and then it
will go to Calgary, then Toronto for more parts. Having been built in the first place here,
it will be a really interesting Canadian project that will be more efficient by a very
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significant margin than any hydrogen bus on the road. We are very proud of the work
that Canada and New Flyer Industries, Kraus and ourselves have done through that
project.
In terms of the tasks that you face – probably you know this, but I just remind you that
Manitoba was the first province to endorse the Kyoto Accord. Now that was not exactly
the most popular choice in the world at the time, and there are those parts of our country
where it still is not met with a ringing endorsement. However, most of the country, I
think, has moved from fear and loathing of Kyoto to at least accommodation and
recognizing that the first step of 6% below 1990 levels is a tiny, tiny step. We already
have Germany and England making commitments to 30 and 40% below 1990 levels in
the next Kyoto round and with plans on the books to achieve that. Many big companies –
I think of BP for example, that have already significantly exceeded their companies’
benchmark requirement of 1990. As the Vice-President of BP said during the Kyoto
debate in Canada, with a small smile on his face, “And we added $620 million to the
bottom line in doing it.” So, the opportunities to provide a cleaner environment and a
more efficient environment are also economically rewarding, if they are approached in an
appropriate way. I know that your Chairman was challenging you this morning with
some of the Conference Board findings around productivity.
We view the Kyoto Accord and environmental challenges as not particularly negative
things, but essentially an opportunity for innovation. Innovation is essentially what
Canadian railways have done over more than a century. They have added new
technology; they have become premier carriers in North America. And they have done
that by constantly innovating on every front, whether it was the technology of hauling;
the scale and components of a modern diesel/electric locomotive; whether it is the control
of the traffic through, for example, the CN centre here in Winnipeg that essentially
monitors the entire CN network throughout North America and is able to, hopefully at
least, tell you where each piece of your cargo is at any given time of the day or night.
Then to efficiently use that railway’s capacity to be as productive as it possibly can be. I
think that we view the Kyoto challenge as an innovation challenge and I think that’s how
we should view it, because every time you appropriately wed innovation to your
economy, you become more efficient. By definition, efficiency is the reduction of the
inputs that are required for a unit of output. So, I think that we should view this as a
tremendous opportunity to look, as you are going to do, at best practices and to find the
way forward using innovation in every conceivable way that we can. Because we can be
and, in fact, by most international criteria, our railways are world leaders.
I have to tell you that I grew up with Lionel Trains. I grew up with a great big Lionel
train set up in my basement that I actually had a secret wiring switch that prevented my
father from running my trains. My father and I had a wonderful relationship, but this was
one of the ways, sort of covert ways, in which a ten-year-old works out some frustrations
with his dad. But, railways and my growing up were one and the same. And I have to
say, even though I know it’s innovation and I know it’s efficiency – the saddest sight I
ever remember seeing was the bone yard in Stratford, Ontario with row upon row, siding
upon siding, of steam locomotives waiting to be scrapped. Because, as any train
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aficionado knows, you build a diesel locomotive but you erect a steam locomotive. And
it’s always seemed to me that there is so much more dignity in – perhaps this is
something I should not say in polite company, but – in the erection of a steam locomotive
than there is in simply the construction of a diesel locomotive. And I know, too, that the
innovation of the diesel locomotive essentially ended the need for divisional points 80 or
so kilometres or miles apart. That, in turn, was one of the great things that led to the end
of the branch line system, because there was no longer the requirement for the nodes
close together to support the technology of steam. So, when you bring along new
technology, you also sometimes bring along unintended consequences.
When we talk about the greenhouse gas issue, we are absolutely delighted and committed
to the notion that you don’t just talk about greenhouse gases. When you use ethanol, for
example, to power cars and trucks, you certainly significantly reduce particulate emission
– NOx and SOx go down, and GHG’s only go down a small amount. When you use
biodiesel, you get a great improvement in particulate emission and significant
improvement in GHG’s. So, we are very interested and will shortly be announcing a BioFuels Act that will support the development of biodiesels and ethanol and other forms of
bio-fuels under an umbrella of legislative and regulatory mechanisms that will, I think, be
seen as best practice in Canada. I am looking forward to the reintroduction of that
legislation very shortly in our legislature later in the fall.
I think that some of our other initiatives that have been important – we have recently
partnered with the City of Winnipeg to support the development of a light-rail transit
system. We are not a very dense city, as you probably know, and so the whole issue of
urban transportation using rail corridors is a tricky issue for us because of density and,
therefore, the implied cost structure when you have a low-density environment.
Nevertheless, we are working at that.
We also recently were the first jurisdiction to sign a government-to-government MOU
with Iceland on the future hydrogen economy which, I think, all of us know at some point
will come. Our goal as a province is to position ourselves so that as it unfolds over the
next couple of decades, we are there and that we are making a commitment to that – that
new economy.
I am glad we have been able to support your workshop financially. I welcome you all to
Winnipeg and look forward to the results of your regulatory and transportation
discussions. I will leave you with something that I think you probably heard before but
something we always have to remember. That as we work in the public sector and with
the private sector to move forward, we have to always be careful that the ‘perfect’ doesn’t
get in the way of the ‘good.’ And while we search for the ‘perfect’ solution, we have to
be open to the evolutionary ‘good’ solutions that are there and available for us to take. I
would point in particular, to some of the debate that goes on in environmental regulation
where I think very often, we are faced with situations where the ‘perfect’ is very much
impeding the ‘good’ in its progress.
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I will leave you with the dilemma that I face as a Minister of Energy – when we talk
about the coal plants in Ontario and the commitment to reduce the NOx and SOx and
particulates from them. And the difficulty we have sometimes getting a license to cross a
drainage ditch, because there might have been some fish that found their way up that
drainage ditch in a flood a couple of years ago. And we have to have the kind of
regulatory review that sometimes does not entirely make sense in order to achieve a very
significant ‘good.’ We are stopped by the vision of the ‘perfect’ that is held by some
who don’t see as clearly the children with asthma in Toronto, but see a potential ‘perfect’
solution which impedes the progress of, say, the shipping of electrical energy to eastern
Canada while it remains easier to open a coal-fire generation plant in southern Alberta.
Because it’s a provincial and very local issue until, of course, you count the NOx and
SOx that come out of the stack and flow across the entire global climate.
So, as you work, don’t let the ‘perfect’ get in the way of the ‘good.’ Bienvenue à tous.
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SESSION 1 – CANADA’S RAILWAYS TODAY AND TOMORROW
Russ Robinson – Advisor, Sustainable Transportation
Environment Canada
Session Chair
On behalf of Environment Canada – certainly, I would like to welcome you to our
workshop, our Railways and the Environment workshop, and also welcome you to sunny
Winnipeg. This is Session One – Canada’s Railways Today and Tomorrow. We will be
presenting a very broad spectrum both from government and industry on our path
forward as it relates to the environmental impact of the railway sector in Canada.
John Dobson – Senior Policy Advisor, Rail Policy Branch
Transport Canada
Straight Ahead: Vision for the future of rail transportation
The government’s intention to renew Canada’s national transportation policy was
referenced in the last speech from the Throne. As many of you know, the Minister
worked with stakeholders, industry and others for some time on a vision to serve the
transportation system over the next few years. On February 25, 2003, the Minister tabled
in Parliament a National Transportation Policy framework document entitled ‘Straight
Ahead’, a vision for transportation in Canada. He also introduced amendments to the
Canada Transportation Act and new legislation incorporating into law the existing
framework of VIA Rail. Both are contained in Bill C-26.
I would first like to take a brief moment to set the context. Overall the transportation
system is on track. While the last decade has seen an enormous evolution in
transportation, by and large, these changes have produced positive results. Productivity
gains in the transportation sector have outpaced those of the economy as a whole,
reducing the transportation costs to shippers and travelers by ten billion dollars annually.
The system is generally working well and is not in need of major overhaul. This is not
just Transport Canada’s conclusion, but the Canada Transportation Act Review Panel
made this point strongly in its report released the summer of 2001. Having said this,
however, many stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to invest more in
transportation infrastructure. In addition, we are still responding to the security
challenges that emerged since September 11th. Furthermore, priorities like cities, climate
change and innovation have become central to our overall agenda with significant
implications for the transportation sector. In short, we are on the right track but our
policy framework needs to be adjusted to reflect these issues.
Straight Ahead outlines a vision for Canadian transportation that will guide the actions of
the Federal Government over the next decade and beyond. There are a number of
fundamental principles that guide the overall vision. Many of these, such as safety and
efficiency, are already embedded in the policy statement of the Act. However, new ones
will be added, including one related to the environment. These principles underline the
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next generation of transportation policy development. Straight Ahead acknowledges that
a vision for a sustainable national transportation system must be properly defined as one
where economic and environmental considerations are fully integrated in decisionmaking.
As you may know, in April 2001, the Minister launched the Transportation Blueprint
Initiative to develop the vision being presented to you here today. Straight Ahead is the
result of two years of consultations with Provinces, Territories, industry leaders and many
other concerned stakeholders. Many of the rail policy issues were initially raised during
the Estey and Krueger consultations on grain in 1998 and ’99. Straight Ahead also
addresses the major conclusions and recommendations of the Canadian Transportation
Act Review Panel, which was set up by the Minister back in the year 2000. This
document offers a comprehensive strategic framework. While it is not a spending
package, it is hoped it will serve to guide future transportation investments.
The government’s actions and commitments are grouped into five broad direction areas:
•
•
•
•
•
Setting and maintaining frameworks for an efficient transportation marketplace,
Managing and pricing transportation infrastructure,
Reducing the adverse environmental impact of transportation,
Improving safety and security, and
Encouraging innovations and skills development.
I will focus on the marketplace framework as it relates to rail transportation, but also
touch briefly on a couple of the other areas.
Straight Ahead proposes that we continue to pursue a market-based regime for the
transportation industry. Experience has clearly demonstrated that this approach has
stimulated performance in the transportation sector and contributed to Canada’s
prosperity. Productivity growth in the transportation sector has been almost double that
of the economy as a whole over the last ten years. We also need to provide for those
cases where the market fails, or cannot of itself achieve the desired economic or social
outcomes. In those instances, we should be prepared to intervene but with carefully
targeted interventions. Straight Ahead identifies specific actions to strengthen the current
framework.
Rail shippers have access to a number of tools designed to constrain the market power of
railways. Inter-switching and competitive line rates give shippers access to two railways
by regulating rates to interchange points. Shippers can complain to the Canadian
Transportation Agency if they are not satisfied with rail service. There is a Final Offer
Arbitration (FOA) process that shippers can use if they do not like the rates offered by a
railway. Confidential contract provisions allow shippers and railways to negotiate the
best deals. The Revenue Cap on Western Grain replaced regulated maximum rates in the
year 2000 and provides more flexibility to use price signals to encourage efficiencies.
Running rights allow railways to operate trains on the tracks of another railway. I will
have a bit more to say about running rights later on.
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Everything indicates that the policy framework has achieved a reasonable balance
between shipper and carrier needs. Railway productivity has increased by up to 81%
since 1981, which is good in itself. But, more importantly, 75% of these gains have been
transferred to shippers in the form of reduced rates. A large part of the remaining gains
have been reinvested in plant and equipment. We have also seen the development of the
shortline rail industry in Canada. This is also good news to shippers. Without dwelling
on it, we can all recall the times when railways not only were not reinvesting, but were
also deferring maintenance of some of their assets, with the negative consequences for
service to shippers.
In assessing potential changes to the policy framework, the government agreed with the
conclusions of the Canada Transportation Act Review Panel that the system works well.
It is fundamentally competitive and efficient. Market abuse is not systemic or
widespread and most shippers are well served. Furthermore, this success has been
achieved with virtually no government subsidies for rail freight operations. The
government concluded that the Policy Framework only required some fine-tuning, not
major reforms.
There have been substantial consultations involving shippers. The CTA Review Panel
consulted extensively throughout its exercise, including the organization of a symposium,
in Winnipeg, specifically dealing with shipper issues. As part of their series of blueprint
stakeholder round tables, the Minister hosted a shipper session in Toronto in June 2001.
All of this was in addition to the numerous one-on-one shipper meetings with Transport
Canada officials and the Minister over the last two years. It is in light of this that the
government has determined that there is not a need for a major overhaul of the system.
However, we have heard from shippers and we are making changes in response to their
specifically identified needs. We will make remedies more easily accessible for shippers
by removing the requirement that the Canadian Transportation Agency must be
convinced that shippers would suffer substantial commercial harm before relief can be
granted. We will expand the availability of Final Offer Arbitration and we will improve
the conditions under which a shipper can ask for traffic to be transferred to another
railway. At the same time, we will maintain all of the other existing remedies. The
government believes that this achieves the right balance.
I would be remiss if I did not say a few words about running rights. It was clearly the
most contentious rail freight issue that was discussed, dating back to the Estey and
Krueger exercises. In recent decisions, the Canadian Transportation Agency concluded
that the existing running rights provisions were of limited scope; for instance, they did
not provide for the running rights railway to solicit traffic over the host railway’s lines.
Many shipper groups supported expanding running rights to encourage more effective
competition between railways. They are asking for three main things: that any
competent railway be allowed to apply for running rights; that running rights railways
have the opportunity to solicit traffic; and that there be a reverse onus, in other words,
that the host railway must demonstrate that it is not in the public interest to grant the
running rights.
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As already noted, the government felt that the current policy framework was working
well and did not warrant major changes. It decided not to expand running rights because
of a number of concerns. It was worried about the adverse impact on railway efficiencies
from splitting traffic between two or more railways. It was also concerned about the
potentially significant regulatory oversight required to ensure that the host railway did not
abuse the rights of the guest railway. And, finally, it was concerned that expanded
running rights would provide a disincentive to railway investment and to shortline
creation. In other words, the government was satisfied that the system was not broken
and did not need to be fixed by expanding running rights
A few comments on passenger rail. A series of legislative amendments will strengthen
publicly-funded passenger and commuter rail services, including: giving publicly-funded
passenger rail service providers recourse to the Canadian Transportation Agency when
commercial negotiations are unsuccessful with respect to the terms and conditions of
operations on federal rail lines; making contracts of publicly-funded passenger rail
services public to improve transparency; and maintaining the integrity of rail quarters for
possible public transit needs by improving the rail line discontinuance process in urban
areas.
These legislative amendments support rail as a viable choice for passengers, thereby
contributing to both the government’s climate change and city’s agenda. As mentioned
earlier, VIA Rail’s existing mandate and powers will also be confirmed in new
legislation. This follows on the government’s 2000 commitment of $400 million in
capital funding to revitalize VIA services. Overall, these initiatives demonstrate the
government’s continued support for passenger rail services.
Railway noise can often be an environmental concern in urban areas. Bill C-26 contains
a new provision to regulate railway noise. However, the preference will continue to be
on voluntary solutions between railways and local communities. The railways are
currently working with municipalities and municipal associations to develop appropriate
guidelines. In the event that they are unsuccessful, there will be new provisions in the
Act that allow the Agency to regulate noise disputes. Railways will be required to
minimize noise, bearing in mind their operational requirements and community interests.
A complainant must exhaust voluntary mechanisms before approaching the Agency and
the Agency will have the authority to resolve disputes.
Bill C-26 also includes amendments to deal with transportation sector mergers. The
existing provisions on the airline industry will be extended to other modes, including
railways. The existing review process under the Commissioner of Competition will
continue. However, the Minister of Transport will have the authority to appoint someone
to investigate public interest issues, if necessary. The Minister would receive the
recommendations from the two bodies and put a proposal forward to Cabinet for
consideration.
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Bill C-26 – Next Steps
As indicated earlier, the Bill was tabled on February 25, 2003. It received a second
reading and was referred to the Standing Committee on March 25. The Committee heard
from some witnesses before the summer recess and the Bill remains with the committee
right now for consideration. It is uncertain when and if it will go anywhere at this stage
given the politics in Ottawa.
A few brief words on the environment from the Straight Ahead document. I am sure Bob
Lyman will get into some of the details about the department’s environmental initiatives,
so this is just a very high-level overview. The environment is an issue for all Canadians.
Transportation is the largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, so progress
on Kyoto commitments will require real gains in transportation. This year’s budget
announced an additional funding of $1.7 billion over 5 years, to be made available for the
measures that were announced as part of the government’s climate change plan and for
the renewal of existing programs under Action Plan 2000. Transport Canada will provide
leadership in our sector and encourage reliance on innovative solutions and will work
with industry to better understand the environment and social costs of transportation.
As I mentioned earlier, as a clear signal of our commitment to the environment, we will
enshrine, for the first time, respect for the environment in the National Transportation
Policy statement of the Canada Transportation Act. Straight Ahead directly supports and
is closely aligned with the government’s approach on how best to address climate change.
Innovation in the transportation sector, clean air, clean water, improved fuel efficiency
standards, and increasing Canadians’ awareness are among the many elements of our
strategy to contribute to the government wide environmental agenda.
Finally, I have a few words to say about full-cost accounting for transportation. The
objective of this initiative is to better understand the full cost implications of different
transportation modes. This will help Transport Canada and the government in policy
analysis and planning, investment decisions and assessing regulations. Eventually,
information and analysis from this initiative could be considered in pricing policies for
the various modes. Transport Canada officials will be working on this project with
representatives from the Provinces and industry. Transport Canada has initiated Phase
One of this project in-house and is assembling financial costs for all modes. Completion
date for this is 2004. The Department is also contracting for review of methods of
evaluating environmental and other social costs. A Federal/Provincial Committee of the
Transportation Policy Assistant Deputy Ministers is considering a collaborative approach.
The views of industry and other stakeholders will be sought on methods and processes.
In conclusion, Straight Ahead provides a policy framework for the continued success and
balance of Canada’s transportation system. Building upon a strong safety and security
record in a sector that has out-performed the economy as a whole, Straight Ahead sets a
bold strategic direction for a safe, secure, efficient and environmentally responsible
transportation system. It is also a vision that recognizes the importance of emerging
issues, such as the environment and climate change in infrastructure development. A
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solid economic framework will contribute to achieving Canada’s objectives, including
those related to the environment. The key to the ultimate fruition of this vision, though,
will be the constructive forging of strong working relationships with all our partners,
including the Provincial and Territorial governments and industry. Thank-you.
Robert Lyman – Director General Environmental Affairs
Transport Canada
Addressing Canada’s Kyoto Commitments – Canada’s Climate Change Plan
Climate change presents for Canada and other countries, one of the most significant
issues from an economic, political and environmental perspective that we have ever had
to address. The majority of climate change scientists believe that the world is at risk of
experiencing major and, perhaps, traumatic changes in climatic patterns, eco-systems, sea
levels, and temperature, as a result of the progressive build-up of greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere. Yet, mitigation of this danger will require us to reduce significantly the
emissions from fossil fuels – oil, natural gas and coal, upon which the world relies for
about 90% of its current energy resources. It is, indeed, a major challenge.
My presentation today will deal in four parts. I am going to describe for you the climate
change process that Canada has followed, what the challenge is for the rail industry, some
initiatives that have been undertaken by the Government of Canada, and I will draw some
conclusions.
Let’s start with an overview of Canada’s climate change process. Figure 1.1 illustrates
the magnitude of the so-called emissions gap. In December 1997, Canada signed the
Kyoto Protocol, with a reduction of 6% below 1990 levels to be achieved between the 5year period of 2008 to 2012. The total reductions required to achieve that goal is 240
megatonnes, or almost 30% from project levels. Considerable work has been done by
governments, industry and non-governmental groups to identify different measures that
could cost-effectively reduce emissions to meet this challenge.
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Figure 1.1 Climate Change Background
In September 2000, the government announced an early contribution through Action Plan
2000 on Climate Change. This $500 million program outlines specific measures to
reduce GHG emissions and it included five transportation measures. This was followed
in November 2002 with the Climate Change Plan for Canada. The Plan is intended to
provide a framework and propose a further range of initiatives for reducing GHG
emissions. That plan will continue to evolve as time goes on.
Following ratification of the Kyoto Protocol in December 2002, the Federal Government
2003 budget this February announced $2 billion in funding over 5 years to help
implement the Climate Change Plan for Canada. It includes an investment of close to
$283 million to help business and industry reduce emissions using available technologies
in areas such as buildings and transportation sectors.
For GHG emissions by sector in Canada, transportation is the largest single source of
Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, comprising 25% of the total. Figure 1.2 illustrates
that 70% of all transport emissions come from road vehicles; 44% come from cars and
light trucks, another quarter comes from commercial trucking. The next largest source of
emissions is the off-road sector. This sector includes everything from farm tractors to
logging skitters to personal equipment, such as lawn mowers. It is currently responsible
for a larger portion of GHG emission than aviation and it is continuing to grow. Rail
represents 4% of emissions.
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Figure 1.2 Relative Contributions of Modes to Transport GHG Emissions (1997)
Passenger
car
27%
Bus
1%
Passenger
Light Trucks
17%
Aviation
7%
Marine
4%
Rail Freight
4%
Off-road
13%
Commercial
Trucks
27%
I must point out that no one has said that each sector of the economy must cut emissions
by 6%. In fact, the Climate Change Plan for Canada estimates that roughly 21
megatonnes in reductions will come from transportation. Our goal and our challenge is
to shrink total transportation emissions through a combination of measures that address
behaviour, travel choices for passengers, and movement of goods, technology take-up
and best practices. The target, however, is so ambitious that no sector of the economy
and no transportation mode can be overlooked in our national search for effective means
to reduce emissions. Note that you could completely eliminate passenger car emissions,
or you could completely eliminate commercial trucking emissions and, if that were all
you did, you would not achieve a 28% emissions reduction.
Let’s talk a little bit about the challenges for rail. Over the past 20 years the rail industry
has experienced a continuous increase in activity with accelerated growth occurring
primarily in the 1990’s. Total tonne-kilometres for rail freight increased from 240 billion
in 1980 to 310 billion in 2000, an increase of 29%. In context, it should be noted that
there has been rapid increases in other modes as well, and particularly in trucking. The
rail sector has maintained but not significantly increased its modal share of activity.
Overall, the rail industry has been successful in reducing its CO2 emissions by 16%
compared to 1980. Transport Canada recognizes that the spikes in fuel use that occurred
in 1997 and 2000 are a reflection of the growth in traffic that has been very welcome to
the industry after some sluggish years in the early ‘90’s. However, as rail freight
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movement is likely to grow over the next few years, continuing energy efficiency gains
will be needed to compensate for the growth in volume.
The rail industry fuel efficiency, measured in terms of litres consumed per tonnekilometre, has shown very strong improvement. Since 1980, efficiency has improved by
38%, with the highest gains coming before 1987. The graph in Figure 1.3 was developed
based on Tri-Max estimates of trucking costs and illustrates why rail needs to be engaged
in the climate change process to reduce GHG emissions. It also demonstrates why much
of our focus, to date, has been on reducing emissions from the trucking sector. These
lines represent comparative estimates of the average GHG per tonne-kilometre for each
mode. A note of caution: the lines in the graph reflect average industry GHG intensities.
They do not reflect the intensities of specific market segments. They show that, on
average, trucks are considerably more emissions-intensive than rail or marine, although
some truck configurations are much better than the for-hire truck average.
Figure 1.3 Truck Configuration vs Other Modes
Grammes CO2 per tonne-kilometre
For-hire Truck
2-Axle Gasoline Truck, General Cargo, load 6.1 t
2-Axle Gasoline Truck, Bulk Freight, load 9.2 t
2-Axle Diesel Truck, General Cargo, load 6.1 t
2-Axle Diesel Truck, Bulk Freight, load 9.0 t
5-Axle Semi, Van, load 19.0 t
5-Axle Bulk Dry Tanker, load 29.8 t
8-Axle Super B, Van, load 32.3 t
8-Axle Super B, Bulk Dry Tanker, load 43.8 t
Freight Train
Marine (domestic)
0
50
100
150
200
For example, the new 8-axle super B vans with a total load of 43.8 tonnes are far more
efficient than the industry average shown on the slide for for-hire trucks, and their
emissions are in the range of 30 grams per tonne-kilometre. Similarly, the emissions
intensities for shortline railways can be expected to be higher than that shown for the rail
industry as a whole.
We need technologies and operating practices that can improve both the energy
efficiency of modes and help us achieve integrated transportation systems, so as to make
the best use of each freight mode. From a public policy perspective, the rail industry
must continue to improve its fuel efficiency in order to provide a more emissionsefficient alternative for freight transportation into the future.
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As I have demonstrated, the rail sector has clearly made major improvements in fuel
efficiency over the past 20 years. There is a possibility that these efficiencies may be
overtaken by the continued growth of the rail industry. So, how can the rail industry
achieve its activity growth targets without increasing GHG emissions? To answer this
question, we must look at the full range of opportunities, which include: operational
improvements, technology improvements and better infrastructure.
Let’s have a look at some of the initiatives that the Federal Government has put in place
to help the industry in this regard. The first is the Freight Efficiency and Technology
Initiative, a program managed by Transport Canada. It is a $14 million 5-year initiative,
launched under Action Plan 2000 on Climate Change. It is, as I said, being led by
Transport Canada, with cooperation from Natural Resources Canada. There are three
main components:
•
•
•
First, voluntary performance agreements with industry associations, which will be
discussed next.
Training and awareness initiatives to assist industries in reducing their GHG
emissions. For example, we organized in November 2002, in Ottawa, an aviation
workshop on the best operational practices to reduce fuel use and emissions. We
are also co-funding this rail workshop.
Third, the Freight Sustainability Demonstration Program (FSDP), which funds
demonstrations of efficient technologies and best practices in all freight modes
plus intermodal transport.
Voluntary performance agreements are being developed between the Federal
Government and industry associations within each mode of transportation: rail, marine,
aviation and trucking. These agreements represent a unique promotional tool for
participating associations to publicly promote their contribution towards Canada’s GHG
reduction objectives. Under these agreements, each of the associations is asked to
identify and commit to a target of GHG reduction or fuel efficiency; and to undertake
voluntary actions set out in an action plan that will lead to measurable GHG emission
reductions. Progress reports on the agreements will also be requested on a yearly basis
from the participating associations. The agreements are intended to encourage
continuous improvement within each mode and industry leadership on GHG reductions.
We hope that the Railway Association of Canada will follow the example of the
Association of American Railroads in the United States in signing a voluntary agreement
with the Federal Government.
The Freight Sustainability Demonstration Program (FSDP) is a $4.5 million program that
provides funding to projects that can improve fuel efficiency through the take-up of
technology or best practices. All demonstrations are selected through a competitive
process that involves an independent selection committee. Projects can receive up to
50% of eligible costs to a maximum of $250,000 over a 2-year period. If funding from
other departments is available, the ceiling on Federal Government funding is 50% of the
projects. The eligible funding recipients are carriers and shippers, as well as non-profit
organizations. A key element of the demonstration is its monitoring function, so that the
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energy efficiency impacts of the technology or best practice can be reliably assessed.
This often involves having both a test group and a control group operating under similar
conditions. There are two rounds of project submissions per year and, for those who will
be interested, the next opportunities will be April 1st, 2004 and October 1st, 2004.
So far, the Freight Sustainability Demonstration Program (FSDP) has funded a number of
projects, including three rail projects. One of these is a project by Kelsan Technologies
Corporation, which develops and manufactures friction management solutions for the
railway industry. Through the FSDP, it is demonstrating a new Top of Rail friction
control system that applies a thin film of Kelsan’s patented lubricant to the rail. This is
expected to achieve a lower level of friction that reduces fuel consumption, wear and
equipment failure, but does not significantly affect traction. You will hear more about
this from Don Eadie tomorrow morning.
The other rail project being funded by the FSDP is Athabasca Northern Railways’
demonstration of the Kim Hotstart diesel-driven heating system. Its purpose is to reduce
idling time. Gord Peters of Athabasca Northern will be speaking to us tomorrow about
their organization’s recent activities.
Finally, the third rail project being funded by the FSDP involves Southern Railways of
British Columbia. Through Southern’s project, the SmartStart automatic shutdown
restart program will be demonstrated. The purpose of the technology, again, is to reduce
idling. Steve Easun of ZTR Control Systems will be speaking tomorrow about this
device.
The Resco truck is a lightweight, steerable railway truck that has the potential to improve
the economic performance of bulk commodity rail service. The Resco truck
outperformed other designs in all technical measurements, including reductions in
resistance and yielded fuel savings approaching 20%. Reduced resistance should also
translate into lower rail and wheel wear, making the truck commercially very attractive
for unit train operations.
I would like to describe a new program that was just announced on August 12th as part of
the implementation of the Climate Change Plan for Canada. The Commercial
Transportation Energy Efficiency and Fuels Initiative is a four-year, $32 million program
that will complement our existing programs in the area of freight and commercial
transportation. It has two distinct components: a commercial road transportation
program that will be delivered by Natural Resources Canada and a commercial non-road
freight transportation program that will be delivered by Transport Canada. An important
new component of this program will be to provide financial support to industry for the
purchase and installation of energy efficiency enhancing equipment in all modes. This
will complement the demonstration program that I referred to earlier. It will also
introduce a new focus on shippers, to help improve their understanding and awareness of
their transportation decisions. The details of this program will be announced by the
Minister shortly.
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Transport Canada is also undertaking quite a lot of work on intermodal in support of rail.
We are undertaking a major literature review, which should be completed in November
of this year. And we have commenced a national consultation process with provinces
and stakeholders to identify barriers, opportunities and partnerships in intermodal freight.
The Department is currently exploring eight potential projects on intermodal freight, and
I will provide some examples.
There is the Westminster Rail Bridge and Corridor project for which Transport Canada
has made a contribution of $100,000 to conduct a detailed assessment of the rail corridor
extending from the Burrard inlet port complex which serves the commodity and container
terminals to the U.S. border. There is also an intermodal freight terminal survey at
marine freight terminals in Canada. Finally, we are working with the Railway
Association of Canada, CN and CP as well as the major ports, to identify barriers and
potential partnerships. Through this particular initiative, a profile of each terminal will
be developed.
Now, for the conclusion. The rail industry has a key role to play in improving the overall
performance of Canada’s transportation sector. Rail will face a challenge to reduce its
GHG emissions and improve its efficiency while pursuing increased activity. Will the
industry be able to continue its efficiency gains at the same level as it has achieved in the
past as we move into the next decade and beyond? The Federal Government is offering
opportunities through existing and new programs to assist rail and other freight modes to
reduce their GHG emissions. It is not suggesting regulation, but rather voluntary
cooperative agreements based on the principle of continuous improvement. Our hope is
that the rail industry will take advantage of this opportunity. Thank-you very much for
your time.
Gord Owen – Director General Air Pollution Prevention
Environment Canada
Canada’s Clean Air Agenda
I would like to speak to you about the plan that Environment Canada has around clean
air: the Clean Air agenda, our Federal Agenda for Vehicles, Engines and Fuels,
Environment Canada’s forecast of criteria air contaminants, Environment Canada’s
Memorandum of Understanding with RAC, and some of the other ongoing air priorities
that we have.
The Clean Air Agenda is distinct from climate change. When we say clean air, what we
are really talking about for the most part are what are called criteria air contaminants.
These are pollutants such as NOx, SOx, and particulate matter. Now, it is not to say that
the two are not related – they are, of course. But they are a little bit different, and the
approach to them has been a little bit different. In this case, I am going to talk to you
about the clean air side.
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The Clean Air Agenda was launched in May of 2000. It was quite clear that there are
health impacts related to these pollutants and that we needed to move ahead to be able to
deal with these. We have five major components. The five are:
•
•
•
•
•
Reducing transboundary emissions – you can well appreciate that for most of
Canada and most Canadians of whom the majority of us live very close to the
U.S. border and especially in the East, there is a significant amount of pollution
that comes North to Canada from the U.S. On the West coast as well, there is a
certain amount that goes back and forth, and all along the Prairies, as well. So,
that is an important part for us.
Another sector of great importance is transportation, of which rail finds itself a
part.
Reducing major industrial emissions – for example, from the electricity sector and
other sectors is another part.
Advancing the science so that we have a clear understanding of how the
pollutants get released, how they get dispersed, and how they get received by
humans.
Lastly, engaging the public. In some instances, it is the public who actually is
making decisions about things that contribute to air.
Some of the things that we have done overall are, in December 2000, the Ozone Annex
was signed, which is an annex to the 1991 Canada/U.S. Air Quality Agreement. That
was quite a significant step for us. What it does is it commits Canada to certain actions to
reduce ozone; as well it commits the U.S. to take actions. This is a very important piece
for us and deals predominantly with the transboundary side.
In February 2001, the Federal Agenda on Cleaner Vehicles, Engines and Fuels was
released that outlines our intentions in these areas. Generally, our intent is to align fairly
closely to U.S. standards, for vehicles, engines and fuels, and we will talk a little more
about that later. More recently, in June, the government announced with then EPA
Administrator Governor Whitman a border air quality project, under which we have
specific projects related to southern Ontario that will focus on the air exchanges in that
part of the continent, and on the west coast, where there is a significant amount of
polluted air going back and forth in the Georgia Basin.
Lastly, I would point out to you that we actually work quite closely with the Provinces on
developing Canada-wide standards for PM and ozone and other air pollutants. We are
working through the Canadian Council of the Ministers of the Environment. You can
well imagine, for an issue as large as air, there is a Federal role but there is also a very
significant Provincial role.
One of the reasons we focus on air quality is because there are direct health links – it is
clearly a health problem. There are deaths that are directly attributable to smog and its
constituents. There are days off work, there are hospital days – there is a clear link.
There is some debate around what the numbers are, but certainly the number of deaths is
in the thousands. There is a real health driver to make sure that we, as a country, move
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ahead and deal with our air pollution. As our Conference Chair pointed out in his speech
earlier, the Conference Board of Canada just released a report that indicates that we do
have air problems. However, I will come back to that in a little bit. It is not all bad news
in that respect.
With respect to the actual Agenda on Cleaner Vehicles, Engines and Fuels, which was
announced in Canada Gazette in February 2001, we are looking at regulations for new
engines. And those drive the on-road vehicles and off-road engines, as well. We will
come back to discuss what those mean a little bit later. We are also looking at fuel
initiatives covering gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, and there are other related programs in
which we engage ourselves.
If we move specifically to actions that we have already taken prior to the announcement
of our more comprehensive agenda, we have the current vehicle emission standards from
1997, which have now been changed. We have existing diesel fuel regulations, benzene
and gasoline regulations, gasoline and dispensing flow rate regulations, Memoranda of
Understanding (MOU) providing for the introduction of low emission vehicles and
MOU’s respecting various off-road applications, such as handheld and non-handheld
outboard engines. As you can see from this list, as distinct from some of the other
initiatives of the Federal Government, this is very much a regulatory-based approach. It
is very much an agreement-based approach rather than a financial approach.
I would like to describe some of the processes related to developing new regulations.
Once a regulation is published in Canada Gazette Part II, this means that it is becoming a
regulation and will take effect on the date stated within. This is the case for the On-Road
Vehicle and Engine Emission Regulations which were released in January 2003. If you
look at the next group of proposed regulations, where we talk about Canada Gazette Part
I, this is when the Government publishes its intent. It is predominantly a consultation
period, but it is a very formal process, and after Canada Gazette Part I, then one moves to
Canada Gazette Part II. The off-road, small-spark ignition engine regulations were
published in Canada Gazette Part I in March 2003. As well, we are proposing further
regulations which cover the off-road engines, including farm tractors, construction,
recreational vehicles and marine engines in development. In addition, we are working on
the large spark ignition engines. The general process is that we develop discussion
papers that we release for public consultation. After that consultation, then we move to
Canada Gazette Part I and, lastly, we end up in Canada Gazette Part II.
In terms of fuel quality regulations, our general policy is to align with the U.S., taking
into account the European Union standards, which are an important supplier of fuels to
Canada, to ensure that we protect the health of Canadians. The Sulphur in Diesel Fuel
Regulations were released in 2002, covering the on-road application, and Sulphur in
Gasoline in 1999.
In terms of sulphur content in diesel fuel for off-road applications, we are proposing to
have a regulatory limit establishing the same time frame and approach that is being used
in the U.S. The U.S. has proposed regulations as announced in April 2003, which would
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limit the sulphur content 500 parts per million in June 2007, including rail, and then
would drop to 15 parts per million in June 2010. However, this latter requirement would
not include diesel fuel used by rail. Environment Canada released a discussion document
in August 2003, which basically proposes the same approach as the U.S.
If we look at Figure 1.4, we see the projected decrease in NOx emissions from 2000 to
2020. As you can see, the data is broken down by sector, including aviation, marine, rail,
off-road, off-road diesel, on-road heavy-duty, and on-road light-duty. The important
thing to notice in this graph is that it does not include regulations that are not actually in
place yet. So, evident in the graph is a significant drop in terms of the NOx emissions
from on-road heavy-duty and on-road light-duty vehicles. That is because those
regulations are through Canada Gazette Part II, meaning that they are now law.
Therefore, we know that those changes will take place.
Figure 1.4 NOx Emission Forecast - Transportation
1800
N O x (k ilo to n n e s /y e
1600
1400
1200
A V IA T IO N
M A R IN E
1000
R A IL
80 0
O F F -R O A D G A S O L IN E
60 0
40 0
O F F -R O A D D IE S E L
20 0
O N -R O A D H E A V Y -D U T Y
O N -R O A D L IG H T -D U T Y
0
20 00
20 05
2 0 10
2 015
2 02 0
Note: includes effect of current regulations (i.e., not off-road engines/fuels)
If you look at the emissions from other sectors, there are no changes predicted in off-road
gasoline and no change in off-road diesel, but as I said before, those sectors will be
addressed through regulations currently in development. We released a discussion paper
on off-road diesel in July of 2003, and we fully expect to see a significant drop in
emissions from both off-road diesel and off-road gasoline sectors. The off-road gasoline
regulations were published in Canada Gazette I in March 2003, as I said before, because
they were only published in Canada Gazette I we do not reflect that change within this
chart. If we were to do so, you would see a very significant drop.
Another item to note is that the Conference Board of Canada report indicated that Canada
ranks 23rd of 24 countries in the developed world, predominantly in terms of NOx
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emissions – that is the bad news. The good news is that the report does not take into
account these coming changes, so we are certainly hopeful that as the changes begin to
take effect we will move up the scale.
If we look at particulate matter, it is a similar situation. We see some variation as well,
but I would point out again that when the planned regulations come into effect we will
see significant drops within those blocks.
Looking at projections more closely by sector as shown in Figure 1.5, the top line shows
what the situation would have been had we NOT introduced these regulations. Then, the
next line shows the changes that have occurred, or that we project will occur as a result of
having put in place these regulations. If you notice, heavy-duty on-road – we have
broken that out from the on-road so that we could see it a little more clearly – projected
NOx emissions drop quite significantly as the fleet turns over and as the regulations take
effect. I will point out to you that the regulations cover new vehicles.
If we look at the Environment Canada-RAC projection, based upon our Agreement, that
line would stay roughly stable relative to the rest. So, what this means is that NOx
emissions from rail, if they were to continue along these lines, would actually exceed, we
believe, NOx emissions from all on-road heavy-duty vehicles by 2017. The bottom line,
for rail, actually includes a very conservative growth rate of about 1%. Similarly for PM,
it is basically the same pattern and the same trend.
Figure 1.5 Forecast of NOx Emissions from On-Road Vehicles - Canada
Forecast of NOx Emissions from On-Road
Vehicles - Canada
Source: SENES & AIR Inc. October 2002
NOx (tonnes
per year)
1,000,000
800,000
ALL ON-ROAD VEHICLES
– BASE CASE
HEAVY DUTY
ON-ROAD VEHICLES
600,000
400,000
200,000
)
LOCOMOTIVES (RAC/EC Projection
0
1995
2000
2005
ALL ON-ROAD VEHICLES
– NEW REGULATIONS
2010
2015
2020
Year
In terms of the agreement between Environment Canada and RAC, it is in effect from
1995 to 2005, and it sets a NOx cap of 115 kilotonnes per year. RAC provides to us
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annual locomotive emissions monitoring reports estimating the total emissions from the
sector. Basically, these estimates are derived from fuel consumption, some assumptions
and some emission factors. The MOU includes reporting requirements for total fuel
consumption, gross and net ton-miles, composition of the fleet, changes in fleet emission
factors, and emission reduction initiatives. It is quite clear that as the locomotive fleet
turns over there will be significant changes, both in terms of efficiency and NOx, but of
course, your rolling stock turnover is significantly slower than for the on-road fleet.
Therefore, some of those changes will take a little longer to come into effect.
The highlights of the 2001 LEM report is that the 115 NOx cap was marginally exceeded
in 2001. You can compare that to 109 kilotonnes in 2000. Part of the increase is the
normal growth, I would expect, but part of it is that the emission factors, of course, are
changed as the vehicle fleet changes, and that is a better reflection of the number. The
CO2 emissions were estimated at 5.46 megatonnes in 2001, and that reflects a steady
increase in efficiency from 11.4 litres per thousand net ton-miles in 1990 to 8.7 in 2001.
Now that is a pretty significant improvement. We estimate there are 2,792 locomotives,
down from just over 3,000 in 2000. The distribution is:
•
•
•
•
•
•
CP
CN
BC Rail
VIA
GO Transit
Other
41%
39%
4.4%
2.8%
1.6%
11%.
Additionally, this year, a number of new EPA Tier 0 locomotives have been purchased,
and a certain number of upgrades have been done. I believe that the numbers are about
179 of the locomotives of this fleet now are Tier 0 and another 500 or so are to be rolled
over.
Figure 1.6 shows the NOx emissions again, in graphical form over the years. We note
that it has tracked relatively closely to the target. A couple of exceedances have popped
up in several years, recognizing that there has been a huge amount of growth within the
sector itself.
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Figure 1.6 2001 LEM Report: NOx Emissions from Locomotives in Canada
NOx Emissions
(kilotonnes)
140
new
factor
Total Rail
115
Total Freight
90
1990 1991 1992
1993
1994
1995 1996
1997
1998
1999 2000
2001
Year
NOx cap exceeded in 1995, 1997 and 2001
Emission factor updated in 2001 to reflect fleet changes resulting in
higher emissions level
If we look at the projected NOx emissions from rail as shown in Figure 1.7, what we
would expect on a pretty rough projection based upon trend by fuel is that there will be a
growth in NOx emissions. As shown in the top line, we would expect to see an increase
in total emissions. If one were to follow the cap set under the current MOU, that would
give us a straight line at 115 kilotonnes per year. If we were to follow what the EPA has
put forward and what is in place in the States, we would see a pretty significant drop in
NOx, remembering that rail accounts for about 9% of the NOx in total.
Figure 1.7 Future NOx Emissions from Rail in Canada - 3 Scenarios
200
150
Kilotonnes
NOX Cap
Trend by fuel
EPA Reductions
Historical Data
Trend by fuel
100
EPA reductions
50
20
20
20
10
20
02
19
99
19
94
19
92
19
90
0
What the U.S. has put forward, of which I am sure most of you are well aware, sets
locomotive exhaust emission standards for NOx, HC, CO, PM and others. These
requirements will be phased in between 2000 and 2007. The U.S. standards include inuse maintenance requirements, in-use testing of locomotives and record keeping. I
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believe that we will hear more tomorrow on the EPA program. I understand that for
locomotives manufactured between 1973 and 2001, they would move to Tier 0 when they
are put in for refitting. Locomotives originally manufactured between 2002 and 2004
would be purchased at Tier 1 and locomotives manufactured in 2005 or later would then
be at Tier 2. So, if we look at the expected results of the EPA regulations, NOx will be
reduced significantly. There will also be a significant decrease in PM and HC emissions.
So, I think we can say that we are certainly hopeful that Canadians and that Canada
would be able to see the same sort of reductions in NOx from this sector in the end. But
that is not to say that significant progress has not been made – it has – both within this
sector and across the board. Reducing NOx and PM from rail remains a priority for us.
Once the other Canadian regulations come into effect and the on-road and the off-road
emissions decrease significantly, rail’s relative contribution will, of course, increase. Our
overall policy is to maintain alignment with the United States.
Addressing marine and aircraft is also a priority for us and we are working very closely
with Transport on moving ahead on those sectors as well. So, our overall goal would be
to match the requirements and the results that one would expect from the EPA’s
locomotive emission standards.
I would just add one last point. The Minister, when he was speaking, pointed out that one
of his first connections with rail was when he owned a train and that he had the little kill
switch on it so that he could prevent his father from using it. I wish I’d heard that many,
many years ago, because in my house we also had a train set, but it belonged to my
brother and I was not allowed to touch it. Had I known about the kill switch, I would
have certainly put it on! Thank you all.
Q: Chris Jones – Railway Association of Canada
It is a question for Gord. Thanks for your presentation. I guess what was quite striking
about your presentation was this very significant market reductions in diesel NOx
emissions from trucks that you forecast taking place by about the beginning of 2010.
And, I guess our question is, what kind of assumptions are you making about truck
activity growth rates going forward between now and 2020? What we saw 1990-2000
was a virtual explosion in trucking activity which essentially grew by about 100%. Is it
not possible, despite those engine-specific reductions that you are mandating, that the
overall aggregate growth in trucking activity will probably erase those potential gains?
A: Gord Owen, Environment Canada
That is a good question. Projections are that – without having the graph up, of course it is a
little bit hard to discuss – any projections are based upon numbers. They are based upon
assumptions, which can of course, be wrong. When I finish, I will ask Russ if he knows or
if there is another one of our staff here that could tell you the actual number that was used
in terms of growth for trucking. But if you recall the graph, the reduction was in terms of
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magnitudes – I mean it is a huge drop. In other words, trucking would have to go up 1,000
times and I don’t think any of us believe that it would go quite that far. That’s my sense.
Russ Robinson, Environment Canada
Session Chair
That data is also information that has been pulled from a Senes Consulting Report from a
couple of years back, and we can certainly make that report available to anyone who is
interested. It is a public report.
Q: Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
My question has to do with the changeover to the more efficient locomotive technology
and to compare us with the United States. This is laudable and, I guess, you could do it
with a big stick. Doesn’t this put an exceptional burden on the Canadian railways, given
that they have a slower depreciation rate? Or are there plans to put in some incentives so
that the Canadian railways would be on an equal ground with the American railways in
terms of replacing equipment faster? Or is that a concern?
A: Gord Owen, Environment Canada
This is an important question and it relates to both NOx and efficiency. When you ask
about efficiency, generally that relates a little more to climate change, in terms of the clean
air. Fundamentally I guess, it is a similar point and, if I understand your question correctly
and interpret it correctly, it has to do with capital cost allowance and the changes in the tax
structure. You are probably not going to like my response much – I appreciate it’s
extremely important and, frankly, for achieving the objectives that we want to, both offroad and on-road and rail, the faster the fleet turns over in terms of NOx emissions, the
better off we are. So, as a principle, that would be our view at Environment Canada.
However, as you are probably aware, taxes don’t fall to the purvue of Environment Canada
– they fall to the Department of Finance. As such, it is not possible for me to answer your
question more than to say that anything that would expedite fleet turnover for us would be
a good thing.
Q: Malcolm Cairns – Canadian Pacific Railway
This is another question for Gord. I would like to know where I can find the information
that relates the volume of emissions in terms of tonnes of NOx, PM, and so forth. One
always sees the analysis of where and how these figures are created, but one never seems
to find – and I’ve not been able to find it in Canada – the link between the quantities of
pollutants that are actually emitted and the actual cost in terms of human health. You
pointed out on your chart that there is a link and everyone automatically just jumps to the
link because you show us or point to where we could find the information that actually
quantifies the link between the amount of pollutant and the actual cost to the economy.
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A: Gord Owen, Environment Canada
I think that the best place I can suggest for that is the regulatory impact analysis statement
that is required any time the government moves forward with a regulation. It has
everything from the effect on the industry to the effect on the public. Within that has to
be the economic consideration of the cost of moving forward with the initiative versus the
savings from health costs. And there is quite an extensive calculation that has to go into
that, involving ourselves, air modelers and Health Canada to come up with that number.
The government weights the costs and benefits before making a decision to move
forward with the regulation.
Q: Bill Rowat – Railway Association of Canada
I just wanted to follow up on Barry Prentice’s question. When I opened up with my
remarks this morning, I talked about having available to us all of the public policy tools
to deal with the Government of Canada priorities in these areas. And, probably for both
Gord and Bob Lyman, the capital cost allowance is one of the key issues in terms of what
you want to do. Gord, your very last point was to match requirements of the EPA’s
locomotive exhaust emission standards. It takes 8 years to write off a locomotive in the
U.S., it takes us 20 years in Canada. An intermodal comparison – it takes 8 years to write
a truck off in Canada, and it takes us 20 years to write off a locomotive in Canada. The
numbers are very big. The investment numbers are very big and if we want to turn
around and introduce in rail the kind of technologies that will be required to achieve these
Government of Canada objectives, and I stress Government of Canada objectives – these
are not Department of Environment objectives or Department of Transport objectives,
these are Government of Canada policy objectives – I think all of us, and certainly we
will do our part, but I think even within Government, we have got to really work on our
Department of Finance colleagues to say – there is one issue, one very big issue, that is
blocking the achievement of a Government of Canada objective in this area. I think we
should really do something about rectifying that 8% versus the 20%, so – that was more a
statement rather than a question but I thought I’d clarify it.
A: Robert Lyman, Transport Canada
Well, Gord’s original response, of course, is exactly right. Having formerly, at one stage
of my career, worked for the Department of Finance, I can assure you that anyone who
does not work for the Department of Finance puts his life in severe danger by
commenting on tax policy. But, the issue that you’re raising is clearly a matter of tax
policy. Tax policy, generally speaking, as you know is essentially driven by economic
policy objectives, but not exclusively by economic policy objectives. What is the
appropriate capital cost allowance for any sector of investment is often a very hotly
debated issue within the Department of Finance and there may very well from your
industry’s perspective be very solid economic arguments for why you should have a
difference capital cost allowance rate. To date, capital cost allowances have not been
driven, primarily, by considerations of environmental policy. There is a very significant
issue and just with respect to climate change across the economy as to whether one would
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have another look at capital cost allowances that promoted turnover of capital in areas
where we expect that the technology improvements are such that accelerating them would
have an important effect in terms of reducing emissions. If the issue is to be addressed
properly, it will be addressed by Finance – first, in the context of tax policy and then, at
least with respect to climate change, with respect to all of the different sectors of the
Canadian economy. I guess my advice to you is to continue to make your argument,
based first and foremost on the economic policy arguments that you can come forward
with.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
In the very last statement where it said, ‘Federal goal – to match the requirements of the
EPA’s locomotive exhaust emission standards’ – I’m trying to understand what that
means. Does it mean that we will put in place in Canada, a sort of regulatory regime, that
mirrors the EPA emission standards or does that mean something else? And how would
it be implemented and what verification requirements would take place?
A: Gord Owen, Environment Canada
Our objective would be to move into alignment with the U.S. on the requirements and
would be seeing environmental benefits equivalent to those. To suggest that we are
talking about moving in a regulatory is quite far ahead. I think our preference is, at this
point, to work towards a voluntary agreement, if possible. In many instances, in other
sectors, we’ve worked with associations, we’ve worked with entire sectors and we’ve
moved towards a voluntary arrangement and that has worked. The question is – will that
work? Well, I don’t know. I don’t think we’ve sat down and discussed it enough about
what we would, in fact, see as outcomes from a voluntary agreement. So, I guess an
answer is our preference would be a voluntary approach.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000 Canada
We have observed, with increasing frustration, the attempts of various ministries and
non-governmental organizations to get a hearing from Finance for consideration such as
those that have been discussed. I can think of other programs that have been suggested or
asked for in the field of transit. One is always informed that anything that will improve
transit efficiency, or use, is somehow not a level playing field with the automobile user.
The sensitivity to this issue, at Finance, was illustrated by the Minister of Finance in
response to David Jeans, our President, who asked for some kind of tax reduction for
transit pass users – just an exemption from income tax payment if the employer provided
a benefit or a credit as Quebec had proposed and then dropped for transit pass purchasers.
The response from the Minister was, “Transit increases sprawl.” End of discussion. I
think that going to Finance for changes is going to be a very long-term process; about the
length of time it took to write the Bible, perhaps. That being the case, could I ask the
gentlemen from the Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Transport whether
alternative scenarios might be thought of to provide some kind of incentive for more fuel-
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
efficient locomotive purchase other than simple improvements to the depreciation
measures?
A: Gord Owen, Environment Canada
Well, from our perspective, we would like to be able to work broadly with as many of the
tools that we can, to which we have access. There are a variety of tools that change
actions, and voluntary agreements are one, planning is a whole other one. There are
some levers over which Environment Canada has direct control, certainly in terms of
voluntary agreements, certainly in terms of cooperative efforts. Those are the ones which
reside within our authorities under our Act, and using the Acts some of the provisions
which exist within Transport. It becomes much more difficult for me to suggest to you
that there are other tools which I might not prefer to actually have access to. Some of
these things, I guess, will need to be discussed as we move forward – as to how we can
implement the environmental agenda, what some of the best levers are. I’m not sure if I
can add more than that. Bob, do you want to add to that?
A: Robert Lyman, Transport Canada
Well, to some extent, the incentives are already there. As I mentioned earlier, we have
our Freight Efficiency and Technology Initiative, which is a $14 million program that
includes the $4.5 million Freight Sustainability Demonstration Program. I described a
new program, which is $32.2 million. It is not all directed to the rail industry, but the rail
industry is eligible, and in fact, we have been strongly encouraging rail companies to
participate in these programs.
Is a much higher level of incentive than that available? I think, as the Government
develops its climate change agenda, going forward to 2010, there will be a number of
new measures that will have to be considered because we have not yet identified the
measures that will be necessary to achieve that 240 megatonne reduction, and we
certainly will have to look at incentives where that’s required. The general issue with
incentives, of course, whether they are delivered through the tax system or whether they
are delivered through contributions, relates to their cost and visibility. The public,
obviously, has a very elevated sense of wanting to have value for their money, and
contributions to business get a lot of scrutiny. I mean, I don’t have to tell you that. So,
when we look at it, we have to demonstrate to our Ministers that the funding is
worthwhile and that it will serve a public policy purpose and that there is a good sense of
accountability and performance associated with it. I think that there are broad issues of
competitiveness. I mean, it would be difficult to design a program that was specific to
one industry that was clearly in a highly competitive situation with another. If the goal is
to achieve emissions reduction, then the incentives should be related to emissions
reduction without focus on any one particular mode.
I take the point very much, I assure you that, while there is always a lot of discussion
about level playing fields, there are a lot of bumps in the playing field currently. It is a
very difficult issue to come to a good understanding of how the current system of taxes
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
and incentives and regulations, ultimately, place one industry relative to another. There
was an earlier discussion, somewhat, about the extent to which the government is trying
to get an understanding of full costs, because we would like the costs of the transport
system to be reflected broadly in the prices that people pay, in order to promote a more
efficient system. But getting to the point where you fully understand what those costs are
and to what extent they are already currently reflected in the system is a tall order. I
mean, there’s a tough analytical task there. And I think we are going to have to make a
little bit more progress in that direction before we are going to have a really strong case
for arguing that there should be balancing incentives, if you will.
So, in summary, I would not say that it is impossible that there would be incentive
programs and, in fact, as the Government looks for new measures on climate change, I
would encourage the industry to come forward with proposals that it thinks would be
quite appropriate. But I caution that there is a lot of scrutiny that would be put on such
proposals and the departments would have to work very closely with you on that.
Robert Taylor – Executive Director, Policy Development and Economic Analysis
Railway Association of Canada
The Role of Rail in Addressing Canada’s Kyoto Objectives
I have got a fairly dense presentation here. I am going to run through it quite quickly and
follow with a bit of a lighter video. I am going to talk about GHG’s, NOx, particulate
matter, SOx and the continental nature of Canadian Rail, talk about U.S. EPA and our
RAC-EC MOU, talk about some exciting new developments and conclude with some
remarks.
GHG’s
First I will focus on Canadian GHG’s from 1990 to 1999. Transportation represents
about ¼ of Canada’s GHG production. It is up 21% from 1990 to 1999. As we heard
earlier today, our Kyoto commitment is 6% below 1990 levels by 2010. Transportation is
definitely not on track, and I am going to tell you why.
If we look at the share of change in transportation GHG emissions – if we look at the
quantum of increase, it is about 26.4 megatonnes, using NRCan’s numbers. About 63%
of that can be attributed to road freight, and that is heavy-duty trucking. Rail’s GHG
emissions are actually down, so we have contributed -1% to the 26 megatonne growth in
transportation emissions.
Figure 1.8 really drives Canada’s transportation GHG emission problem. It shows the
growth rate in for-hire truck traffic in Canada and, as you can see, we had an explosion of
truck traffic in Canada in the 1990’s. This is remarkable. The American situation is
different, the European situation is different, and a lot of it is NAFTA-related. If you
look at the 1994 and 1999 bars on this chart, they coincide with peak GDP levels for that
period. We had growth in for-hire trucking in Canada at rates of 20% in 1994 and 15%
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in 1999. Overall, I think we are up about 112% to 2000. So, a HUGE explosion in truck
activity in Canada, and a lot of it related to NAFTA traffic. If you look at the breakdown
between domestic and cross-border, the large proportion of this growth is cross-border
truck activity.
Figure 1.8 Growth Rate in For-Hire Truck Traffic
25
Percent Change
20
By 1999 truck traffic had grown by 104%
15
10
5
1991
0
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
-5
-10
Source: Statistics Canada, Trucking in Canada, 2002
On emissions by Province, Manitoba has done very well and has a lower GHG intensity.
I think it relates back to Manitoba being one of the first provinces to endorse Kyoto. A
big part of the problem is Ontario, Quebec and Alberta. Ontario and Quebec alone
represent about half of Canada’s GHG emissions.
For Canadian activity, total freight activity in the decade from 1990 to 2000 increased by
56% on a tonne-kilometre basis. For-hire truck activity, as I said before, grew by 112%,
which is more than double – it is an extreme growth rate. Revenue grew by 110%, so
revenue more than doubled from $6.6 billion to $14 billion in the for-hire truck sector in
Canada. For rail, our activity grew 38%, which is remarkable given the highly regulated
state we came from. Our revenue grew by 24%, so you can see that a lot of productivity
improvements have been passed on to shippers. If we look at the percentage kind of
modal share on an activity basis – in 1990 about 75% of tonne-kilometres in Canada were
moved by rail. That is remarkable from a freight perspective, much higher than any other
jurisdiction I think in the world. By 2000 rail moved about 66% of tonne-kilometres,
with truck moving the remaining 34%.
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If I compare this to U.S. activity you see quite a different story. Total freight activity in
the U.S. grew by 43%, slightly lower than Canada, and for-hire truck activity grew by
50%. So, the U.S. had about half the growth rate of for-hire truck activity compared to
Canada. Their revenue grew by 39%. If we look at U.S. rail, U.S. rail activity grew by
39% – 9% greater than Canadian rail activity, and revenue was up by 20%. So again,
U.S. rail has passed on considerable productivity improvements to shippers. If we go
back to modal share you see the U.S. is lower than Canada in terms of the importance of
the rail sector, the truck sector is higher. I think it is probably about a 10-15% difference
in terms of modal share. These numbers are going to make a difference when I get a little
bit further into my presentation, in terms of relating the U.S. experience back to Canada.
I have taken this information from the Centre for Sustainable Transportation, I find this
very, very interesting. It shows that in Canada from 1990 to 1999, freight energy use has
tracked GDP very closely, and passenger energy use has tracked population very closely.
So, I think what it shows is that in Canada, we are still very much driven by a
manufacturing sector and those goods need to be moved. If this trend continues I think
we see further reinforcement of the freight side being the major component of Canada’s
GHG problem and our Kyoto problem. We must break that link between freight use and
economic activity to become sustainable in transportation.
Figure 1.9 shows our GHG performance in terms of intensity between modes from 1990
to 1999, you see trucks improve their intensity by about 27%, and we improved our
intensity by 24%. These are NRCan numbers and you are going to see some different
numbers. The LEM Report is numbers which are a little bit different, but it shows that
both modes have been very active in reducing GHG emissions per tonne-kilometre. It
also shows that rail is still vastly superior to truck in terms of GHG intensity.
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Figure 1.9 GHG Emissions per Tonne-Kilometre Freight Transportation
Total
1999
1999 grams/t-km
grams/t-km
1990 grams/t-km
grams/t-km
1990
Marine
Rail
Truck
0
100
200
300
400
grams/tonne-kilometre
Source: Environment Canada, Fact Sheet #3, Jan 2002
If we look at overall emissions – something that we did not cover earlier this morning,
this is really the situation in Canada right now, in terms of road diesel, rail diesel. The
growth in road diesel GHG emissions or CO2 emissions are approaching about 40
megatonnes – we are at about 5.5 megatonnes right now. We have had a declining
performance and truck has had a considerable increase in CO2 emissions. I think that
many people in this room realize – I doubt if the population totally realizes – that GHG’s
are a little bit different than the other emissions. If you burn a hydrocarbon, you have to
produce a GHG; you cannot put anything in an engine which is going to cause CO2 not to
be produced. So if you burn fuel, you have to produce a GHG. I think we look at
production in terms of NOx and VOx, which show some really considerable
improvements on the truck side. That does not relate to GHG’s. Those GHG’s would
continue to increase if activity increases.
Figure 1.10 is a DOE chart which shows rail and truck in terms of the baseline best – the
best truck that is on the road today compared to the best locomotive, and looks at
advancements for trucks and for locomotives. So you see something like a 70 compared
to a 20 for a baseline best, and you see something like a 50 compared to a 12 for the
advanced locomotive compared to the advanced truck. I come back to some numbers
that were put out this morning, and John Lawson and I have had many discussions about
these numbers. It shows a truck getting to an efficiency of something like 30 grams per
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
tonne-kilometre. That is a double-B train, the 140,000 pound Canadian
an truck. That is not
the NAFTA truck. Truck size and weight limits are much lower in the U.S. – right now
at 80,000 pounds for a U.S. interstate truck. All Canadian truck traffic that goes into the
U.S. is at that standard. So, I think that NAFTA truck does not have a GHG intensity
approaching the 30 grams per tonne level. I would think it would be much higher.
Figure 1.10 Energy Use and Emissions for Trucks and Trains
80
grams/tonne-km
Truck
70
Rail
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Baseline Best
Advanced
Source: Life cycle Analysis for Freight Transport, SE Technical Paper Series # 982206, December 1998
U.S. Department ofEnergy Report, Dec. 1998
In summary, just on the GHG side – rail carries about 65% of surface tonne-kilometres
and produces only 4% of transportation GHG emissions. That is quite remarkable. That
is not a function of engine technology; that is a function of steel-on-steel and no grades,
very reduced friction. That is why we can have these mile-long trains with much less
horse power than what you would have with rubber tires on asphalt with much more
considerable grades. The truck comparisons – trucks carry about 35% of surface tonnekilometres and produce about 32% of GHG emissions. Both rail and trucks have
decreased GHG intensities, although rail is still about 8 times lower than inter-city truck.
So, I come back to look at Canada’s GHG problem and I see very much a modal silo
approach. I think the way to really affect this problem is to look at transportation
globally, and look at the modes that have the best profiles and the best intensity. As I
said before, due to the explosion of truck activity, truck emissions are up about 50%, and
rail emissions are down.
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NOx
When I talk about NOx, I have added the smog precursor because NOx is a little bit more
complicated in terms of its effect on the environment, and it comes back to GHG’s as
well. I do not think you can look at NOx purely in isolation because ozone smog is
formed at higher temperatures and climate change definitely has an impact on ambient air
temperature, which has a significant impact on NOx formation. If we look at NOx in
Canada for 1995 (this is the latest data that is available which looks at global emission
standards) you see that rail produced about 5% of NOx emissions in Canada; I think it is
tied for sixth place here. Electric power generation, which comprises a big chunk, is very
relevant in Ontario. Industrial sources are 29%, that is the oil and gas industry. We have
heavy-duty diesel vehicles at 17%, light-duty gasoline vehicles at 12%, off-road diesel at
9%. Then we come to rail, marine and light-duty gasoline trucks. I also have to add that
these numbers exclude open sources of NOx, and sources of NOx that would come from
forest fires and the like, so this just looks at man-made generated NOx emissions. About
57% of Canada’s NOx emissions are from transportation, and that is why NOx is very
relevant for us here today.
If I look at just the transportations forces – if I look at mobile sources only – in 1995,
looking at the global data I see that rail contributed about 9% of those total NOx
emissions, and that is in the context of 65% activity. We have road vehicles accounting
for 60% of NOx transportation emissions. So if we look at 1995 - and I wish I could
have for you today data which showed 2000 – you will see that even though we talk
about projections which show considerable decrease in these emissions, that is not the
case today. I hope those emissions come to fruition because it is very important for the
quality of the air we breathe, obviously, but today we still have a problem.
If we look at our overall level of NOx emissions on a kilotonne basis, as we have seen
this morning, we are around the 115 kilotonne range, and I think in 2001 about 118
kilotonnes. Essentially, we have been flat over the last 12 years in terms of our overall
NOx emissions. On a grams per tonne-kilometre basis, which I feel to be very relevant
given that we want to minimize the overall emissions of NOx but continue to increase
activity, given that it is core to our economic activity - we see numbers which show that a
23% decrease in our grams per tonne-kilometre emissions of NOx. So we are doing
more, and producing less NOx when we are doing it. On a per unit of work basis, which
I think is very relevant as I have said before, we have had a 23% reduction, and I am
going to get into some of the reasons and how we have been able to do that.
Now, what I have done here in Figure 1.11, I know it is a little bit crude, but given the
unavailability of overall emissions data in Canada, I have had a look at the U.S. situation.
I think it is pertinent from the perspective of similar engines, similar technologies and
similar truck sizes in terms of our NAFTA traffic, which is really the driver for our
exploding traffic. Based on U.S. data, truck NOx emissions have increased about 6%
from 1990 to 2001. What has happened here is – yes, trucks have become cleaner, which
is a very good thing, but the reductions in overall emissions has not made up for the
increase in activity. This is in the context of about a 40-odd percent growth in activity as
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we have had 110% growth in activity in Canada. You can see U.S. Rail emissions, NOx
emissions, are on that same chart. They have tracked very much our emissions.
Figure 1.11 U.S. NOx Emissions
4,500
kt
4,000
5.9%
3,500
3,000
Heavy-duty diesel vehicles
Railroads
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001
Source: Environmental Protection Agency
What I have done is taken the U.S. numbers and looked at U.S. overall fleet efficiency
improvement. So, based on Canadian 1995 truck efficiency - which is 18% higher than
the U.S. by the way, and that is because of bigger, heavier trucks in Canada – I have
taken the Canadian number and then I have applied to it the assumed fleet improvement
of 6.5% in terms of overall NOx emissions for U.S. trucks from 1995 to 1999. That
would give me a number, in 1999, of 611 kilotonnes for heavy-duty diesel truck NOx
emissions in Canada, which is an increase of about 35%. Just to be fair, I have made
another assumption - 1999* - I have given them another 25% improvement. Saying that
they have improved not 6.5%, but 8.5% or something very close to that, would show that
NOx emissions in Canada from heavy-duty diesel trucks are about 24% higher in 1999
than they were in 1995. The bottom line here is – we have yet to see, I think, declining
overall NOx emissions from heavy-duty diesel trucks. We are flat, declining on a gram
per-tonne basis. I think if you spend time in Toronto these days you get some empirical
evidence to kind of back this up. Figure 1.12 shows I have just charted the same numbers
– 1999* and 1999 – so, you see Canadian rail versus truck NOx emissions – we have
been flat where we still see increases in NOx emissions. I really look forward to the new
numbers to see if I am close in my estimates here.
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Figure 1.12 Canadian Rail vs. Truck NOx Emissions (estimated)
700 kt
Truck 1999
600
Truck 1999*
500
400
300
200
Rail
100
0
1999
1995
Source: RAC
There is a lack of recent data on NOx emissions by source in Canada, not for rail, but for
other modes and other sources right across the board. Very likely, based on the U.S.
experience that heavy-duty diesel vehicle NOx emissions have increased significantly in
Canada because of an explosion of activity – rail NOx emissions are flat on a significant
decline per unit of activity. New Tier 0, 1 and Tier 2 locomotives have significantly
lower NOx emissions and we look forward to getting some of those in our fleet. We are
challenged by the capital cost allowance situation and the current economic climate
which is a little less robust than we would like. But we definitely have plans to
incorporate these in our fleet. I would like to reinforce that there is a link between NOx
and temperature in the creation of smog. Therefore, GHG emissions are very relevant
from an air quality perspective back to NOx.
PM
Particulate matter is less of a transportation problem. If I look at particulate matter in
1995, excluding open sources, and open sources are huge for particulate matter, I think
about 90% of particulate matter comes from open sources, dust being a significant
component of that. But I have excluded open sources. Just looking at man-made
industrial sources, you see that rail is about 3%, and as I said before, transportation
accounts for 17%. Industrial sources are a large source of PM10 emissions and a lot of
that is in the forest products, in pulp and paper production. Non-industrial fuel
consumption – significant electric power generation. So, you see it is less of a
transportation problem. However, it does not mean that it is not important to deal with
these emissions, even though it is less relevant to transportation. In terms of our overall
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PM emissions, we produce about 2.5 kilotonnes of particulate matter emissions. Those
have been flat from 1990 to 2001 and, on a gram per tonne basis, down about 22% in
terms of our PM10 emissions.
I looked at the U.S. experience, the U.S. fleet based on new U.S. numbers for PM10 and
applied it back to the Canadian reality. You can see on the particulate matter side, U.S.
trucks have improved considerably. Hopefully when the new PM10 numbers come out,
they will show a reduction in overall emissions from heavy-duty trucks. About a 45%
improvement in U.S. particulate, PM10 emissions from, I think, 1995 to 1999, which is
remarkable.
As like NOx, there is a lack of recent data on particulate matter emissions by source in
Canada. I think we are going to get those numbers at the end of this year, and they will
be very welcomed. In the case of heavy-duty diesel trucks, emission improvements may
have outpaced activity, so they have shown decline in overall emissions. Rail, overall
emissions are flat, a significant decline per unit of activity. Tier 2 locomotive emission
standards cut PM emissions by 80%. I am going to talk a little bit more about that later,
but we have got the new locomotives really targeting PM10, which is a good thing.
SOx
In terms of rail, sulphur dioxide emissions per tonne-kilometre, we have shown some
significant improvement, down about 26% on an activity basis since 1990. We are using
an average sulphur content now of about 1,500 parts per million, and we are committed
to making best efforts to lower our sulphur diesel content. I think some new regulations
are going to force us in that direction. Discussions have been initiated with fuel suppliers
to guarantee a supply of lower sulphur fuel without a price premium. That is important
and we hope we can get there. Sulphur dioxide emissions are also relevant from a
particulate matter perspective, so to get sulphur out of the fuel would be a good thing.
Canadian Railways are Continental
I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about how continental Canadian railways
have become. I do not think we really can do justice to the Canadian rail sector if we
look at it just from a Canadian perspective. CPR has taken an approach to continental
linkages using an alliance model. They have alliances with UP and other railways and
are very continental. I will show some numbers to reinforce that. As you know CN
acquired the Illinois Central and now CN is east-west across Canada and north-south
right into the Gulf of Mexico. A core part of CN strategy was to become more
continental in reach.
If we look at overall data in terms of Canadian railways importance of trans-border
activity, you see about half of Canadian rail is trans-border. CN is a little bit higher than
CPR. In the case of CN, 57% of revenue comes from U.S. domestic and trans-border
movements. In the case of CPR, 45% of revenue comes from U.S. domestic and transborder activity. So, in the context of the EPA, very very relevant for Canadian rail. If
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you look at our domestic activity compared to our trans-border activity, a large part of
our growth, just as in the case of trucks, has been related to NAFTA and cross-border
activity. You can even bring that up another level. I think the Canadian economic
expansion in the 1990’s was NAFTA-related and being derived demand, transportation
providers have definitely piggy-backed off that.
Locomotives in service, and I think this is relevant from an EPA perspective – we have
about 15% of the North American fleet here. In 2002, there were 3,129 locomotives in
Canada, and almost 21,000 in the U.S. So we are a small part of the locomotive market.
The average age of locomotives – and this comes back to the discussion that we had this
morning about CCA rates – the average age of the Canadian locomotive is 11% higher
than the U.S. locomotive. A lot of that is linked to lower CCA rates in Canada. It takes
us about 20 years to write-off a locomotive, whereas it is fully written off in the U.S. in 8
years. That has a considerable impact on your capital budget, especially if you are in a
taxable range and we are in that range now.
EPA regulations
Now before I get into the actual detail related to the EPA regulations, I just wanted to
throw out a quote. This quote I got out of the preamble to the Act in 1997, and it shows a
little different U.S. versus Canadian philosophy, and that goes right across the board. It
is reflected in TEA 21 and it is reflected in regulation, as well. The U.S. regulators and
U.S. policy makers have endorsed the concept of modal shift. That does not mean that
there will be no trucks on the road and that does not mean that everything will be moved
by rail, but there is a range and there is definitely activities that trucks can move than can
be moved by rail. I am just going to read this quote:
“Information currently available to the EPA shows that truck based
movement generates more pollutants (NOx is what they are talking about)
per tonne-kilometre of freight than current unregulated rail-based forms of
freight movement. Estimates quantifying the difference indicate that
locomotives are on the order of three times cleaner than trucks on an
emissions per tonne-kilometre basis. Any freight carried by trucks instead
of by rail would increase overall emissions, even at current levels.”
Right in the preamble of the Act, they recognize that if they bring in undue, highly
prescriptive regulations to rail, that it would have an undesired effect on overall emission
levels.
In terms of the detail related to EPA regulations, which came in January 2000. It is
applied to newly manufactured and remanufactured locomotives. By 2005, that is the
Tier 2 standard, it should be a 48% reduction in NOx and an 80% reduction in PM. I
think the 28% just pertains to Tier 1 going to Tier 2, and does not apply to shortline
railways. The initial target was NOx, and when you look at NOx being important from a
transportation perspective, that is why the EPA initially focused on NOx. They left the
more stringent PM criteria to be introduced later in Tier 2 locomotives.
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As I said, going from Tier 0 to Tier 2 in NOx is about a 48% reduction and going from
Tier 0 to Tier 2 in PM is about an 80% reduction. So, these are considerable reductions
in emissions. I look forward to hearing from the locomotive manufacturers tomorrow, in
terms of how they got to these numbers.
When I first joined the RAC, and it was I think around the time EPA came out, there was
a view in the industry that these numbers might not even be attainable. I think with
several hundreds of millions of dollars and some creativity, locomotive manufacturers
managed to be able to get to these levels. They have also done it with a projected
reduction in fuel consumption as well. Which is a challenge given that some of the ways
you can reduce your overall NOx emissions will cause you to burn more fuel.
To sum up, EPA regulations apply to Canadian locomotives using cross-border service,
and I have just shown you how important cross-border service is to our industry. Class 1
railways need to have locomotives to be compliant for operational flexibility, given the
high percentage of cross-border activity. So, we cannot have a bunch of these
locomotives that are being used and being optimized – and we have done a lot to increase
our overall asset utilization – that are not flexible for operation in the U.S. Both
locomotive manufacturers have new locomotives, which meet stringent EPA Tier 1 and
Tier 2 standards. More efficient, new and rebuilt, high horsepower locomotives are used
in highly intense, dense main line operations, and that represents the vast majority of our
fuel consumption, maybe as high as 90%.
I just wanted to touch on something else, too. Passenger rail is important, definitely,
from RAC’s perspective. I have not focused much on passenger rail in this presentation
because I think passenger rail produces about 250 kilotonnes of GHG’s – it is very very
small. So about 90% of our fuel consumption is on a highly intensive dense operation.
Other ways we have reduced emissions and ways we have managed to keep our overall
NOx and particulate matter flat are:
•
•
•
•
•
SmartStarts to reduce idling;
Heavier car loadings – we are going to a 286,000 pound car loading in Canada;
Track lubrication which lowers friction;
Co-production and bi-directional running, which is being used out west. The
video is going to get into this, in which the empty lighter trains go on the higher
grade and the heavier trains go on the lower grade. CN and CPR share access to
track which has, I think, taken a full locomotive out of service for a lot of CPR
movements; and
Increased asset utilization.
Just to talk a bit about the MOU, which has been a very good thing. It expires in 2005. It
has some real benefits, and I think the lack of data for other sources and other modes is in
contrast to what we have for rail today, because we have very good data. We collect and
report data on annual traffic volumes, annual diesel fuel consumption for mainline,
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branchline, yard switching and passenger service. We include emissions in NOx, CO2,
hydrocarbons, sulpur dioxides and carbon monoxide. We also calculate and report on
fuel consumption in three Tropospheric Ozone Management Areas (TOMAs) and those
are areas where smog is a bigger problem, such as: Quebec-Windsor corridor, Lower
Fraser River Valley and the Saint John, New Brunswick area. The report also details
locomotive fleets and measures being taken to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
There are many benefits of the MOU model versus other approaches. The target is
overall emissions, which allows us to minimize emissions per unit of work. Our overall
emissions, which is very important from an air quality perspective. Annual reporting and
data, which is very valuable, allows us flexibility to meet our cap and our requirements in
the best way possible, and the way which minimizes our overall economic impact. It is
very simple from a regulatory perspective and is providing the desired results.
Exciting New Developments
We will hear more about the new GE evolution series locomotive – very remarkable, and
the new GM locomotive, which is Tier 2 compliant. The JetTrain, which can offer some
advantages, definitely, from a passenger perspective, and the Green Goat, a hybrid
locomotive for rail switching operations. This is a hybrid locomotive (which shows some
real promise) it is very similar to a hybrid car, which has a very small diesel engine which
is used to charge a battery bank. This may be the intermediate step, as in automobiles, in
hydrogen vehicles because hybrids are on the road today and they offer some real
advantages.
Conclusion
Recent data on Canadian emissions are not available for other sectors and other modes,
and I think that is really important. We cannot look at these things in silos. We cannot
look at policy in a silo. Tax policy is very very relevant from an emissions perspective.
The fact that government is not set up very well to deal with these over-arching issues
should not be the problem – we have to deal with that. Also, before we look at regulation
and negative impacts in modal shift, we need to look at the sources of overall emissions
right across the board. For example, in Ontario, coal-fired generation is way more
relevant from a NOx perspective than a rail NOx emission, that is for sure, and maybe not
truck.
Emissions from rail represent a small proportion of emissions at a given activity level and
are flat or declining. Overall GHG emissions from heavy duty trucks are increasing with
a corresponding increase in NOx. There is definitely a link between global warming and
smog. Our MOU is providing desired results in reducing already low levels of emissions.
EPA is setting the standard for the new locomotive fleet. New locomotives have
significantly lower NOx and PM emissions. They are being brought to Canada and will
be brought to Canada in the future, because we need to be EPA compliant for transborder activity. Lower CCA rates in Canada are a problem for us. It is a competitive
disadvantage, not only with Canadian truck but also U.S. rail and is affecting our ability
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to have a solid capital budget. Overzealous treatment of rail will increase emissions due
to a negative modal shift.
Q: Chris Gotmalm – EcoTrans Technologies
I am Chris Gotmalm, from Eco-Trans in Sioux Saint Marie. We have observed, both
heard and seen the speakers talking about the flat NOx curve, and that it will be better in
the future. We have about 2,000 APU’s which you will hear about later on. In places in
the United States and there are very few up here. The driver in this development is, of
course, the fuel savings and emission savings which are related to that, but even more so,
the emissions trading, the emissions threat. So I want to ask a question here to the
organizers – are we going to have any discussion about emissions trading during these
two days?
A: Robert Taylor, Railway Association of Canada
The Government of Canada has not endorsed emissions trading for – I guess it depends
on what emission you are talking about – it is definitely for GHG’s, so we are looking at
a voluntary approach across industries. So I think that is one that is very relevant for the
Government, and being part of the rail industry it is hard for me to answer that question.
I think it is a public policy question and it is another tool which can be used to lower
emissions – any emission – and it can be used very effectively if set up in the right way.
It can minimize overall emissions per unit of work, which is the goal. The problem with
emissions trading usually relates to its complexity and how you deal with different
anomalies in the marketplace, but it is a public policy question, and it is another tool that
has some real merit.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
Is one of the conclusions from your very well-presented series of explanations on the
different emissions, relative to other modes and other sources, that we do not have to
worry too much about the rail sector, or do too much about the rail sector? I am sort of
concerned about that.
A: Robert Taylor, Railway Association of Canada
No, I think probably the choice of words – thank-you for the compliment – I think that
we are on track, to use a pun that we use a lot in the rail sector. You can expect in the
future for our emissions to come down, and on a gram per tonne-kilometre they are
coming down now and I think the fact that we have increased activity and have not
increased the overall level of emissions is very relevant. I think that we have got a good
framework in place which could deal with some tinkering, maybe, in terms of our ECRAC MOU, then we have got essential compliance with EPA Tier 1, Tier 2. So, I am not
saying it is not relevant. I am saying that we are on track, but I am also saying, “Be
careful, because we are not the problem.” Unless you look at everything globally and
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know exactly that you are dealing with the right problem, do not do anything because you
can affect overall emissions in a negative way if you look at it in just a silo approach. I
think that is what I am saying.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
We were just involved in an American Society of Mechanical Engineers presentation in
Erie a couple of weeks ago. One of the emphases in the sector session like this was how
a very little change, a small increment in the railway sector, by modal transfer from the
trucking sector, could make a significant reduction overall in the emissions. I am sort of
wondering what the Railway Association of Canada is doing to promote this relative to, I
mean – you can’t make some inferences of the iron highway and a few others, but one
would think that you could promote this significantly in a contribution to reducing the
overall transportation emissions issue.
A: Robert Taylor, Railway Association of Canada
Yeah, well, it is a cornerstone of, I guess, the RAC’s Policy Platform, and given that the
Federal Government especially, and a number of the provinces have signed on to Kyoto
and have committed to reducing – I will just take GHG emissions – that we use it as a
cornerstone outcome for a number of our public policy desires. It is right to the core. We
have completed analysis which shows – and I know John and I have had a number of
discussions about it and we have presented in other circles – that a modal shift of
something in the range of 15-20% can have a huge impact on GHG emissions. The NOx
and particulate matter is a little bit more complicated, if you assume that trucks will be
NOx-free by 2007. Then you get into fringe land but if you look at ratios of emissions
right now, I would also suggest that you could reduce NOx and particulate matter
emissions right now by shifting to rail, just because of our intrinsic fuel advantage. We
have pushed hard with all levels of government to get that message out that some
considerable savings in emissions can be had by moving to steel-on-steel from rubber-onasphalt. As I said earlier, the U.S. has been more receptive and it is part of TEA 21.
They have also been more fulsome in infrastructure spending related to modal shift and
again, like the EPA, I find many more examples in the U.S. I think in Canada, just to
sum up, part of the problem is jurisdictional issues. Provinces are involved in trucking
and the Federal Government is involved in rail. I think that is one of the major
challenges we have at the RAC. You look at the proliferation of heavy trucks and large
trucks, which have negatively impacted GHG emissions because they are still not as
efficient as rail. They evolve at provincial decisions. So I think the jurisdictional issues
are very relevant.
Lee Jebb – Vice-President Manitoba/Saskatchewan
Cando Contracting
The Role of Shortline Railways in Canada
Proceedings withheld at speaker’s request.
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SESSION 2 – RAIL IN OTHER JURISDICTIONS
Lionel King – Senior Engineer, Environment, Rail Safety
Transport Canada
Session Chair
As the first event for this afternoon – we are going to hear from Tim Hibbard, who will
give us a few remarks and address on behalf of David Anderson, the Federal Minister of
the Environment
ADDRESS ON BEHALF ON ENVIRONMENT MINISTER DAVID ANDERSON
Tim Hibbard
Director, Departmental Affairs
Environment Canada
Thanks very much and welcome to Winnipeg. For those of you who aren’t from here, it
is like this most of the time and days like today when it’s sunny and 25º in October, I am
very pleased to be with Environment Canada. It looks like you are going to have more of
this for the next couple of days for your field trip as well, so get out and enjoy. But
attend the sessions, as well.
Unfortunately the Minister is out of the country. He is in Helsinki today, still continuing
his tour of Russia and Helsinki and so on at the World Conference on Climate Change.
So, his regrets at not being able to be here today, but he did want to thank Conference
Chair, Bill Rowat, for the invitation for him to attend this second workshop.
Our department is very pleased to have been one of the sponsors of this event. We are
expecting that the next 2 ½ days will allow for some stimulating exchange on some of the
best practices, technological developments and other initiatives that can help to address
air emissions from locomotives. It will be important for participants to hear about the
contribution rail can make to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation in
Canada. Clean air and climate change are very very clear priorities for the Government
of Canada, and we are excited about the potential for rail to contribute to our country’s
Kyoto objectives. Equally, we believe that similar progress can be made in achieving
Canada’s clean air objectives. We would like to commend the railway industry for the
steps that it has taken towards reducing emissions and improving energy efficiency in its
operations over the last decade. We know that reports submitted to our department by the
Railway Association of Canada, under the MOU we have regarding locomotives, indicate
that while railway traffic has increased nearly 28% in the last decade, fuel consumption
by the locomotive fleet is down 2%. Clearly a very impressive achievement. Improved
fuel efficiency is a key component to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and we would
like to encourage the industry to work for continuous improvement in this regard.
Environment Canada also believes that more work needs to be done to reduce the
pollutants that create smog. We know that the industry shares this belief and that it
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wishes to uphold its environmental achievements in the context of advances forthcoming
from other modes. Projections carried out by our department, with input from the
Railway Association, indicate that the existing rate of regulatory and technological
progress will result in nitrogen oxide emissions generated by locomotives exceeding
those of all on-road heavy-duty vehicles by 2020. We are looking to the Canadian
railway industry to align with U.S. emission standards for individual locomotives. South
of the border, these standards will achieve a 66% reduction in nitrogen oxide, and
hydrocarbon and particulate emissions will be reduced by 50%. The Minister’s view is
that Canadians deserve no less.
The railways opened up this country and have been a part of our history and our culture
for nearly 150 years. Clearly, the railways will also be a key part of our ongoing
prosperity into the future. On behalf of the Minister, I encourage you to enjoy the next 2
½ days and wish you a very productive workshop. Thank-you very much.
Robert Fronczak – Assistance Vice-President Environment & Hazardous Materials
Association of American Railroads (AAR)
AAR Emissions Issues
A few observations before I get started. One is that I came here from Washington, D.C.,
and in my geography, that is a lot further south than Winnipeg is. When I walked off the
airplane, it was actually warmer in Winnipeg than it was in Washington when I left.
Secondly, the one thing I did notice is that I am glad I am not any later in the agenda
because all the good presentations this morning covered a lot of the material that I am
going to be covering today, so hopefully that will make my presentation a little bit shorter
and get us through the afternoon agenda. Third, we in the United States are still on that
old English system of units and I did not convert my presentation to metric, I’m sorry. I
looked for the PowerPoint feature to do an auto-conversion – I couldn’t find it. If
anybody knows it, come up after my presentation and we’ll talk.
The outline of my presentation:
•
•
•
•
•
•
I want to cover railroad fuel efficiency and some of the environmental benefits of
rail that we have heard a lot about this morning already,
What AAR has done to improve energy or fuel efficiency, as well as emissions in
general,
Some fuels regulation that is going on, and we have already heard a little bit about
that,
Something that we haven’t heard about, yet – the EPA Smartway Program – it is a
voluntary program to facilitate energy efficiency in the U.S. Land Transportation
industry,
I will talk a little bit about a new locomotive emissions initiative that EPA has got
going on,
And then, finally, talk about a commitment that we have made to the White House
Council on Environmental Quality to reduce our greenhouse gas intensity.
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
You have heard some of this, this morning already. We have increased the amount of
revenue ton-miles that we have transported since 1990 by 44%, and yet during that same
time we have only increased the amount of fuel to make that happen by 19%. A lot of
that has to do with our fuel efficiency; we have improved fuel efficiency in the U.S. by
71.4% since 1980. Figure 2.1 shows that there is a little steeper curve from 1980-1990
than there is after 1990. But we continued to improve our emissions and our fuel
efficiency in the U.S. rail industry.
Figure 2.1 Fuel Efficiency in Revenue Ton-Miles Per Gallon
Fuel Efficiency in Revenue Ton Miles Per Gallon
20
00
19
90
19
80
450
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Rail double-stack transportation is approximately three times more fuel-efficient than
truck transportation. That came out of an FRA report. If just 10% of freight moving by
highway were diverted to rail, the nation could save 200 million gallons of fuel annually.
That goes to the point that the gentleman made about ASME earlier today. One doublestack train can carry the equivalent of 280 truckloads, thereby reducing highway
congestion as well as wear and tear, with approximately 20% of the horsepower. We
have heard this morning, about the fact that the rail industry does maintain its own rightof-way, owns and maintains and pays taxes on its own right-of-way. So we do that
without, actually, having to spend the government’s money to do it. Over the past three
years, railroads have invested billions of dollars, several billions of dollars, to acquire
2,500 new, more energy-efficient locomotives that reduce emissions, and we do that on
our own nickel.
Here are some things that you are probably familiar with; this came out of an
Environment Canada report done in 1994. It shows rail as being the number one choice
from an environmental perspective, on NOx, VOx, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide,
and we were a very close second to air in particulate matter. If you look at it on a
constituent-by-constituent basis, we were 4.5 times better than truck on carbon dioxide
emissions; 6.6 times better than truck on NOx emissions; 9 times better than truck on
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
carbon monoxide emissions; and 9 times better than truck on volatile organic compound
emissions.
EPA Regulations – and we heard this, this morning also – require a 60% reduction
compared to 1990 levels on NOx emissions, starting in 2005. So I think, if you add up
what Robert Taylor mentioned this morning, you are going to come up with about 60%
improvement overall in the Tier 0, Tier 1, Tier 2 regulations. Perhaps Chuck will get into
that a little bit more later.
Railroads operating in the State of California have voluntarily agreed to accelerate the
introduction of low-emission locomotives in the State of California. That is something
that we have done on a voluntary basis to help California with some of their severe
pollution problems that they have got.
Robert Taylor mentioned this one already – that EPA has observed that locomotives are
three times cleaner than trucks on an emissions per ton-mile basis. We talked about
ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) – they are saying that if 10% of
intercity freight moved by highway were shifted to rail, 2.5 million fewer tonnes of
carbon dioxide would be emitted to the air annually.
We take up less space than highway, also. Currently, I am sure that you are all familiar
with highway delays – nobody likes it. In the U.S., we exceed two billion hours
annually, which cost tens of billions of dollars per year in lost wages, due to highway
congestion. Building more highways is not always the answer. Each new highway
claims more scarce land, invites even more punishing traffic, wastes additional fuel,
increases air pollution, contributes to accidents, and exhausts publicly-funded road
maintenance budgets.
Concerning land use – we are far more efficient than highways. This statement again
came out of the Environment Canada report where two railroads can carry the same
number of people in an hour as 16 lanes of highway, demanding a right-of-way of only
59 feet wide versus 400 feet, which is required by highway transportation.
We do not receive any federal money at all, so we are paying taxes on our property and
we are also completely paying for the upkeep and maintenance in operation of the
railroads. A single freight train operating on privately owned tracks can carry 200 trailers
and containers that otherwise would be going on the highways; again causing the
government to spend money to fix and build those highways. By shifting freight from
truck to rail, highway congestion can be eased – and ease the pressure to build new
highways.
Now I am going to go into some of the AAR activities. We have worked fairly closely
with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) over the last couple of years, on a multi-year
research plan for improving locomotive fuel efficiency. DOE has established, or is in
the process of establishing, a budget to help assist in that research. It is looked at as a
public-private partnership, where we are looking at a 50% DOE contribution and a 50%
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
railroad industry contribution. Right now, there is only about five or six hundred
locomotives per year manufactured. If you compare that to the hundreds of thousands of
automobiles and trucks that are produced each year, it does not give you a lot of units to
distribute research over. So we are looking for some support from the federal
government to help do some research to get to the next level in the railroad industry.
We developed the railroad and locomotive technology road map that was published in
December of 2002. That road map looks at:
•
•
•
•
Engine research – that is something that will be done primarily by locomotive
manufacturers, and we will probably hear more about that tomorrow, when they
talk.
Locomotive systems – again, that would be things that take energy off of the
locomotive engine, ways to improve the efficiency of that – again, the locomotive
manufacturers will be primary on that.
Train systems – and I will talk more about that, but things like aerodynamics, or
just the way trains are operated. We will be looking at that.
And then, finally – advanced power plants and fuels. Again, I think that we will
hear more about that tomorrow when we talk about fuel cells and other
technologies.
There are some EPA grants that have been awarded to improve railroad fuel efficiency.
There has been some idling reduction technology that was introduced in Chicago and, I
believe, Houston, also, where the EPA is funding some of the introduction on that
technology. There is a voluntary emissions program in both Los Angeles and Houston,
where the railroads have come together and agreed to do some things like introduce some
of the newer locomotives or idling reduction technology in those areas to help those areas
that are fairly – have some severe impacts. The one thing that is not up here, EPA is also
looking to come up with some sort of emissions-trading program, a credit program. They
have drafted a program, they have asked us to take a look at it, and it is in the fairly
preliminary state. EPA is looking at our comments to that at the present time –
something that has been done quite a bit for stationary sources, but has not been done a
lot for mobile sources.
You have heard about the “Green Goat” and its benefits and the evolution series
locomotives and I know the other engine manufacturers are also working to improve fuel
efficiency and reduce emissions.
One of the things that we also have ongoing with the State of California is a program that
BNSF and Union Pacific are funding – that is to look at particulate matter from Switcher
locomotives. The Norfolk Southern Corporation actually donated a Switcher locomotive
engine that is out at the Southwest Research Institute. The initial part of that research
focused on oil consumption – trying to make the engine tighter, so that we can take
advantage of some of the after-treatment technology, which includes particulate traps.
We have done all of the oil consumption testing and right now we are looking at
implementing the after-treatment testing. That is something that is fairly far along in the
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highway market – after-treatment devices for emissions, but it isn’t very far along in the
railroad industry.
I am not sure if everybody has heard of it, but AAR has a Transportation Technology
Centre out in Pueblo, Colorado. It is a very large facility where we do real time testing of
rail equipment, track, as well as cars and locomotives. We have a Strategic Research
Program where we sink – the industry sinks about $10 million a year into research to
improve efficiency, and also, for improved safety. One of the things that we have looked
at is Top of Rail (TOR) lubrication. It is fairly well known that it does improve fuel
efficiency, but the idea is to try to make that equipment hardened enough to withstand the
railroad operating environment, and then to develop the implementation strategies for that
equipment.
Another piece of research is wheel rail profile. I am not sure if you have heard of it, but a
real big part of our strategic research right now deals with stress state, what stresses the
industry? 286,000 pound rail cars stress the rail environment, and that is a real issue with
the shortline industry. Well, one of the things is just the wheel rail profile and just
getting that right has the potential to reduce emissions or improve fuel efficiency between
one and two percent.
In addition is the Advanced Truck Program. Just making that truck more efficient and
prevent it from hunting – which is very inefficient – also has the ability to increase fuel
efficiency.
What we are doing currently this year is, again, Top of Rail (TOR) lubrication. We are
looking at different types of friction modifiers. One of our railroads – the Norfolk
Southern Corporation, worked with a soybean-based supplier and they feel like they have
got a really good product that will help improve or be able to be used for Top of Rail
lubrication. And then, again, facilitate the development of Top of Rail applicators that
can withstand the railroad operating environment.
We are going to continue to work with the Department of Energy on this multi-year
program and submit proposals as that money becomes available. Right now, Congress
has authorized up to $25 million a year over a 3-year period. This compares to,
historically, $75 million a year that has been spent on highway research. We would just
like to get a little part of that. Now, the administration has appropriated last year, I think,
$5 million for off-road research and part of off-road research is locomotives. So, we are
just getting a very small percentage of what Congress felt was appropriate for the
industry.
We are going to continue monitoring the California Emissions Program (CEP) and work
on the after-treatment technology that is currently ongoing.
Regulations – you have already heard what the caps are and what the years were. I think
what was not stated this morning was that it has the potential – going to 500 parts per
million – to cost our industry $92 million per year. That is based upon a 2.5¢ per gallon
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increase in cost. Going to 15 parts per million is $178 million in extra cost. Now, EPA
has recognized that railroads, right now, do not have the technology to utilize the 15 parts
per million diesel fuel and that is why they are saying that it would not apply to the
marine and railroad industries until after 2010. I guess they are trying to figure out when
after 2010 the technology might be available that we could take advantage of – things
like the particulate trap technology. There were three hearings and we testified at all
three hearings on that regulatory initiative.
One thing that you did not hear about this morning is the Smartway Program and that is a
voluntary program the EPA has. It is similar to – I am not sure if you are aware of the
Energy Wise Program, but on certain appliances that you can buy in the United States,
they have a little Energy Wise sticker and it shows that it has met some sort of EPA
criteria on energy efficiency. This would be something similar where it would try to give
incentive to the ground transportation industry in the United States to make
improvements on fuel efficiency. That includes the shippers, the manufacturers and the
carriers. One of the strategies that EPA is talking about and has in their program
currently, is the use of railroads as a Smartway strategy. In other words, they recognize
the benefits of rail transportation being more fuel-efficient than highway. So, that is an
actual strategy that the shippers can use and other highway carriers can use to meet their
Smartway goal.
Railroads have been asked to meet a certain percentage increase in fuel efficiency by
some year. The year we are talking about is fairly short-term, probably 2006 and 2007,
and we are trying to figure out what that ‘x’ should be in improvement in fuel efficiency,
keeping in mind that we are not quite sure we are going to be able to get improvements as
we implement the Tier 1 and Tier 2 locomotive emission standards. Then each railroad
would be able to determine how they would get to that standard. They could implement
idling reduction technology, operating controls, whatever.
The EPA does plan on implementing new locomotive emissions regulations. There is an
Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM) that is due out some time early
next year. EPA has asked us to participate and come up with what that locomotive
emissions regulation ought to be. We formed a committee just recently, to try to put our
heads together and figure out what that new locomotive emissions regulation ought to
look like. There will be a lot more work done on that in the near future.
Finally, AAR did commit to the White House, at their suggestion, to reduce or improve
energy efficiency or intensity by 18% by the year 2012. Now, what we did is we looked
at the DOE Road Map that I talked about earlier and we felt that, if we could do the
research that is indicated in that road map, we could increase fuel efficiency by 25% in
2012 and by 50% by 2022. So, we felt that the 18% was do-able, but it is contingent
upon getting some research money, and right now, it is unclear whether the government
is going to be coming through with that research money or not.
In conclusion, I wanted to say that railroads are part of the solution. You should be able
to look at the total emissions from highway or ground transport and develop ways to
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move some freight off of the highways, onto a more energy-efficient means of
transportation and be able to reduce emissions as a result. EPA recognizes that, and they
have got it built into one of their programs. The railroads are going to continue to work
on fuel efficiency improvements and emissions reduction technology on our own and we
hope that we can get some money from the Federal Government to help us with that.
Q: Ash Olesen – Canadian Pacific Railway
Just two questions, which are somewhat related. With respect to the 18% reduction in
greenhouse gas intensity by 2012 – could you give me the definition of greenhouse gas
intensity? And the related question is that, in the Smartway Program, you were looking
for a railroad industry target of ‘x’% by ‘y’. Would that be related to our target of 18%
by 2012 or can you give me a sense of that?
A: Robert Fronczak, AAR
Well, the answer is, or the definition is, revenue ton-miles per gallon and that is what we
are looking at as far as an intensity measure goes. As far as ‘x’ by ‘y’, we looked at the
18% by 2012. We looked at the 25% by 2012 and the 50% by 2022 and there was a lot
of discomfort committing to a straight line – using the 18% for instance, because of the
short-term effect that we saw that might be occurring due to the Tier 1, Tier 2 standards.
So, we are trying to come up with what a short-term goal can be, knowing that we have
got some issues with the Tier 1, Tier 2. That is why we are having a hard time figuring
out what that number ought to be.
Q: Daniel Hammond – Transport 2000
Are there any moves to harmonize the environmental rules for railways between Canada
and the U.S.? I understand you have some Canadian members.
A: Robert Fronczak, AAR
Yes, I don’t know if I heard it this morning or not, I think I did hear it at the last Railways
and Environment workshop a couple of years ago – I think that the Canadians realize that
most of the locomotives that are going to be built are going to be built to the U.S.
standards. I think that – I am not sure if the Canadian government needs to go through a
regulation because I think they are going to get it anyway. So, as far as what the
Canadian government is actually going to do, you are going to have to ask them. I do not
know that, but here is a good guy to ask.
Q: Daniel Hammond – Transport 2000
Just one final point – although Canada is officially metric, when you ride our railways,
you will find that they still use mile posts. They probably have 4 foot, 8 ½ inches
between rails, too.
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Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
I would just like to raise a point. You have projected that one of the main attempts now
is to get some research and development funding from DOE, FRA and anyone else in the
U.S. There is a mirror image of that on the Canadian side too. You probably have heard
of a number of individual initiatives that have occurred in Canada, that are also being
recognized in the States. One would think that – if we go back to the 1970’s, and one of
the most successful trans-border cooperative research and development programs was the
so-called AAR-RAC Train Track Dynamics Program – 10 year, $10 million effort that
was coordinated by the AAR’s Dr. Bill Harris that involved the Federal Railroad
Administration financially assisting AAR, and in Canada, it was Transport Canada
through the Transportation Development Centre, financially assisting activities of the
Railroad Association of Canada. They were coordinated and they reinforced each other,
and I think there were tremendous results that have occurred from the, sort of,
contribution to the safe and present way that the railways operate.
One would think that there was a similar opportunity in the area of locomotive energy
efficiency and emissions reductions technology development. I just sort of put that to
you because we have a precedent of a mechanism that worked for a problem that was
similar because of the integration of the Canadian and U.S. railway network. And we
have a similar recognition of current need, which is to reduce emissions and improve the
energy efficiency of the locomotives and the railway sector. So I sort of put it to you in
that regard, if you have any comments.
A: Robert Fronczak, AAR
Well, I think that is a very good suggestion, and there is no reason why that can’t happen.
I mean, we have a group right now that developed and worked with our government on
the Road Map. The Canadians were right there at the table with everybody else. So I
guess, the key is trying to get the governments to both agree on what ought to be done.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
If I could just add one more point, I was involved in some of the governmental activities.
Once I recognized that the other side was putting some money in, that was, sort of a
technique that was used by each side to stop the chances of getting their budgets cut two
and three years downstream, which is very very common. Because, if they did, they may
have caused an international incident, and everybody wanted to avoid that at that time. I
don’t know if the U.S. Administration has the same strategy as now but that did work, at
that time.
A: Robert Fronczak, AAR
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
We do this fairly extensively on tank car-related research and hazardous material safety
kind of research. And we have a project that is ongoing right now where Transport
Canada and FRA are contributing money to one project.
Q: Daniel Hammond – Transport 2000
Bob, I should just mention – in respect to Peter’s question – that, in fact, somebody
referred to it. There are some Canadian members of your organization at AAR. Two of
the big members in AAR are CN and CPR. But RAC itself is another big member in
AAR and, instead of conducting a lot of activities on our own, we pay something like a
pass-through of $2 million a year to share in the kind of research and development
programs that they are running. A lot of either our members or employees of RAC
actually sit on a number of the committees and so on that Bob was referring to. So there
is quite a close linkage in terms of the kind of programs that you are talking about.
A: Robert Fronczak, AAR
And that is how to make it happen.
Terry Judge – Director of Sales and Marketing
Kim Hotstart Manufacturing Company
EPA’s First Project to Reduce Locomotive Idling
The most qualified person to talk on this subject is Mr. Paul Bubbosh, at the U.S. EPA in
Washington, D.C. Paul could not be here but gave me his blessing and much
encouragement to go ahead and discuss the project with you.
I am going to first talk briefly about Kim Hotstart so you know a little bit more about our
company. We will then talk about locomotive idling, the problems, the solutions that are
out there, get into the project itself and how it worked and the technology that was used
and what we have learned at the conclusion of the project.
Kim Hotstart is based in Spokane, Washington and has 100 employees all working from
our 80,000 square foot manufacturing facility. We are certified to ISO 9001-2000 and
many of our products are CSA approved. Our sole mission is to develop innovative
diesel engine heating solutions that reduce emissions, improve fuel conservation and
improve operating efficiencies. The company was established in 1942 with the first
patent on engine coolant heating. Our first product was used to heat diesel engines in
school buses so they could start easily without idling. Still today, Kim Hotstart is the
preferred supplier to Blue Bird Bus and Thomas-Built Bus for their block heaters.
Kim Hotstart diesel engine heaters are also used in heavy-duty trucks, construction and
mining equipment, pipeline compressor stations, military applications, ships, locomotives
and standby generators. We can all relate to standby generators after all the power
outages we have had recently. In gen-sets, our heating systems are used to keep the
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
engine temperature above 100ºF, so in the event of a power outage, the diesel engine can
start quickly and ramp up to full power quickly keeping that office building, factory,
prison, or hospital in continuous operation.
Our first locomotive application was done in 1965. This system allowed an idling
locomotive to be shutdown by using external electrical power to heat and circulate the
water in the locomotive engine. In 1977, Kim Hotstart brought forward the first
combination system that heated and circulated both the water and the oil of the
locomotive engine. Over 2,000 of our electric plug-in systems have been installed on
locomotives. One of the things a few railroads brought back to us, especially the Class
1’s, was that sometimes it wasn’t convenient to bring the locomotive back to a power
pole when they wanted to shut it down. Also, there were a few locations where power
was just not available or too expensive to bring in. The railroads asked us to develop a
stand-alone system that would allow the locomotive to be shut down anywhere. We
worked on the system for several years before bringing it to market in 1998. We call it
the Diesel Driven Heating System, or DDHS for short. This is the technology that was
the subject of the EPA project.
The EPA studied locomotive idling and estimated that 38% of the time a road locomotive
is idling. In a switchyard application, the number is even higher, 59.8%. I believe the
RAC statistics are higher yet; 60% for a road locomotive and 80% for a switchyard
locomotive. Perhaps one of the reasons that the RAC idle times are higher is because of
the amount of cold weather here in Canada.
Why do locomotives idle? Freeze protection is the biggest reason. Locomotive engines
do not use antifreeze so you cannot shut down a locomotive in freezing temperatures.
The next biggest reason is difficult start-ups. When the engine is 50ºF it is not easy to
start, even with good batteries, and most of the time the locomotive batteries are weak
and start-up is even more difficult. Most of our customers require that the locomotive
engine temperature be maintained above 100ºF for easy re-starts.
The problem with idling, as you might guess, is that it is a very wasteful activity. Idling
results in a lot of emissions and wasted fuel consumption. There are other problems with
idling as well, but these are the two biggest problems.
Figure 2.2 shows the fuel consumption at idle for a few different locomotive models.
From this data, we can see that locomotives consume from 3.7 to 5.1 gallons per hour
while at idle.
Figure 2.2 Excess Fuel Consumption (gallons/hour at no load)
Model
SW12/SW15
GP7/GP9
GP38-2/SD38-2
GP40-2/SD40-2
Idle
3.8
3.7
4.5
5.1
Notch 3
9
8
11
11
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Fuel consumption at notch 3 is also shown because this occurs when idling in cold
weather. A typical railroad policy will state that when the ambient temperature drops to
40ºF, leave the locomotive idling, and if the temperature drops to 10ºF, bump up the
throttle to notch 3. Notch 3 idling jumps fuel consumption up to 8-11 gallons per hour.
In even colder temperatures, Alaska Railroad idles at notch 5 where fuel consumption is
even greater. Idling in cold weather is especially wasteful.
Using EPA estimates and average fuel consumption figures, we can easily calculate that
an average locomotive consumes 21,000 gallons of fuel a year while idling. If we were
to factor in some notch 3 idling for cold weather, fuel consumption at idle is 24,000
gallons a year. What pollutants are emitted at idle? The average switchyard locomotive
emits 265 pounds a year of particulate matter and 4.5 tonnes a year of NOx.
There are many idle reduction solutions that have been developed over the years and are
commercially available. The two main generic categories are auto start/stop systems and
engine heating systems. Which way to go depends on the ambient conditions. What are
the lowest ambient temperatures experienced year-round?
Considering these
temperatures, what will it take to maintain the engine at 100ºF? How much time during
the year does ambient temperature force idling for freeze protection?
Figure 2.3 is a slide that was borrowed from BNSF. When BNSF studied what kind of
idle reduction technology to apply in their different yards, they looked at a couple of
extremes. They looked at the average low temperatures around the year for a yard in
Houston, Texas and a yard in Havre, Montana. They concluded that engine heating
systems would not be fully utilized in Houston given the year-round warm weather. To
reduce idling of locomotives in this environment, they would use auto engine start/stop
systems like SmartStart. However, in the Havre environment where sub 40ºF
temperatures forced idling nine months of the year, engine heating was definitely
required to shutdown the locomotives.
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Figure 2.3 Engine Heating Needed in Havre, but not Houston
80
80
Houston
Houston
Havre
Ave rag e L ow Tem p e ratur e (F)
70
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Jan
Feb
Mch
Apr
May
Jne
Jly
A ug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Most of Canada is similar to Havre with plenty of cold weather. Before I came up here, I
asked the question, “Where is our closest installation to the conference?” It happens to
be right here in Winnipeg. The City of Winnipeg has three locomotives that are used to
help service the aqueduct. They use our electric plug-in engine heating systems to
eliminate idling, reduce fuel consumption and reduce emissions.
The EPA project was the first demonstration project to reduce locomotive idling. It was
driven by the idle reduction directive that is in the President’s National Energy Policy.
Our newest system, the Diesel Driven Heating System, was the idle reduction technology
selected by the EPA for the project. The EPA Office of Transportation and Air Quality
provided the funding and leadership under Paul Bubbosh. The City of Chicago
Department of Environment, also put forth funding. The railroads involved in the project
were the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) and Wisconsin and Southern Railroad.
Kim Hotstart was the technology supplier. Three DDHS’s were installed on BNSF
locomotives and four were installed on Wisconsin Southern all within the Chicago area.
The goal of the project was to study the technology and quantify reductions in fuel
consumption, emissions and noise.
The project kicked off in April 2002, after all the partners agreed on the scope of work.
The technology was studied over a year’s period and the EPA should be releasing a final
report shortly.
Let’s look at the technology studied in the project. The Diesel Driven Heating System
does four things: 1) It heats and circulates the locomotive water, 2) It heats and circulates
the locomotive oil, 3) It charges the batteries, and 4) It powers the cab heaters.
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How does it do that? It starts with a small diesel engine which is coupled to a centrifugal
water pump. This circulates the locomotive’s water and at the same time allows the
engine to operate at multiple speeds to generate the necessary heat. The engine’s waste
heat is captured through heat exchangers and transferred to the water and oil of the
locomotive. The system operates automatically once the locomotive is shut down by the
crew. It is small enough to install easily on the walkway of a switch engine. This is
important since the switch engines are the ones that do the majority of the idling.
The fuel consumption of the DDHS ranges from zero, when dormant, to 1.23 gallons per
hour, a fraction of the fuel consumed by the locomotive when it idles. The DDHS runs
off the same diesel fuel supply that is used by the locomotive engine. It heats and
circulates the locomotive water and heats and circulates the locomotive lube oil.
Early on in the project, one concern came up from BNSF. They said that in their
initiatives to reduce idling during warm weather, they did not have good success getting
the crews to shut down the locomotives. They said, “We have been beating our crews
over the head for 40 years that you never shut down an idling locomotive, especially in
freezing weather. How are we now going to get them to shut them down in freezing
weather allowing your system to be utilized?” We put our heads together and rather than
developing our own system that would allow the locomotive to be automatically shut
down, we partnered up with ZTR Control Systems, who has been making a system called
SmartStart, which automatically shuts down the locomotive. We signed a strategic
alliance with them, allowing both companies to share proprietary engineering data and
come up with a solution that worked nicely together. We then installed the first
combination “Hotstart-SmartStart” system on the BNSF 2133. Not only did SmartStart
automatically shutdown the locomotive, but it also gave us data logging and fuel savings
reports that could be accessed over the Internet via satellite. This was very nice for the
project partners to be able to monitor actual idle reduction results directly from our
respective desktop computers.
The DDHS was installed on two types of locomotives; GP38’s, like the BNSF 2133, and
SD40-2’s, like the Wisconsin Southern 4001. Three systems were installed on each
model type. Only one, the 2133, had both the DDHS and the SmartStart. All of the
installations were inside installations. There was plenty of room inside the engine room
for installing the system. The EPA held their launch event in September of last year with
several dignitaries that witnessed a demonstration of the DDHS.
Let’s get into the results. What did we learn? We tracked idle reduction by hours – how
many hours we were able to take off the locomotive engine through idle reduction. If
you look at Figure 2.4, on the left hand, the y-axis, we have cumulative idle hours
reduced. The locomotive with the most idle hours reduced was the 2133 with 2,500
hours. The other units paled in comparison. It is no coincidence, we felt, that 2133 had
the combination Hotstart-SmartStart system and the others did not. It was being
automatically shut down; the others relied on the crews, and the crews were not shutting
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them down. This despite a bunch of training we did with the crews and applying stickers
all over the cab.
Figure 2.4 Idle Hours Reduced
2,500
2,000
2133
1,500
2195
2194
4005
4001
1,000
4002
500
0
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Jan
Feb
Mch
A pr
May
June
July
Aug
Sep
From BNSF’s perspective, they were looking at their three locomotives back in the
November/October time frame and they were starting to see this huge difference in idle
time and wondered, “Is this just an anomaly? Is this just an isolated case, or do we really
have something here?” To further investigate it outside the project on their own, they
purchased and installed three additional systems; two combination “Hotstart-SmartStart”
systems and one with just a stand-alone DDHS. This now gave BNSF six equipped
locomotives, three with combination systems and three with the stand-alone DDHS.
Over the remaining months, the three locomotives with combination systems proved to
have more idle reduction than those with the stand-alone DDHS due to the automatic
shutdown capability.
The data logging we did on 2133, as of September 7th, 2003, showed that the locomotive
was in service for 298 days, shutdown time was 2,500 hours, fuel savings was $11,465,
and the average fuel savings was 42.7 gallons per day. Additional potential fuel savings
was $2,126. In estimating the emissions reductions, we came up with 119 pounds of
particulate matter and 2.2 tonnes of NOx. One thing to note is that we are ignoring the
higher notch level emissions so all the emissions reduction data is conservative.
The FRA conducted noise testing and concluded that the DDHS is significantly quieter
than an idling locomotive. This can be a big benefit and a great solution when citizens
are complaining about idling locomotives.
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What about cold weather performance? The locomotives experienced freezing
temperatures between November 7th and April 6th and the coldest ambient we saw was
0ºF on January 27th. The DDHS showed no problems in being able to keep the
locomotive engine hot during cold weather and allowed it to be easily restarted. BNSF
asked us the question, “Since we are going to have colder temperatures than 0ºF in many
of our yards, what IS the coldest temperature that the DDHS can maintain the locomotive
engine at 100ºF?” Our theoretical answer was -66ºF. How did we come up with that?
First, we tried to pick the coldest day in Chicago, but we missed it by a couple of days
and instead of getting that 0ºF day, we ended up with a 29ºF day. Then, instead of
allowing the system to maintain the water temperature between 100ºF and 120ºF as it
normally does, we changed the controls to allow unlimited heating. The DDHS drove up
the temperature of the locomotive water to 195ºF and the oil to 180ºF. If you take 195ºF
and subtract it from the 29ºF ambient, that gives us a 166ºF rise over ambient, subtract
out the 100ºF lower limit of where you want your engine temperature to be and that is
where we come up with a theoretical answer of -66ºF. Since this is just theory, the next
logical question is; what is the coldest ‘real world’ temperature that the DDHS has
maintained a toasty locomotive engine?
Outside of this project, up in Fairbanks, Alaska, Alaska Railroad has been utilizing the
DDHS. They witnessed a day last year of -38ºF. They went through a normal 16-hour
shutdown using the DDHS. The engine water was maintained at 100ºF, the batteries
were charged and the locomotive restarted easily. Our “real-world” answer is -38ºF.
Some of the lessons we have learned is that the DDHS is a reliable method to reduce
locomotive idling, even in very cold weather. As a stand-alone system it is limited by the
human element, the crews shutting down the locomotive. Also, a DDHS with a
SmartStart system can provide the greatest idle reduction.
That wraps up the EPA project. To give you a look ahead, we are now right in the midst
of launching our Transport Canada project with Athabasca Northern. There will be two
DDHS units installed on two of their GP9’s operating up north in the Fort McMurray
area. We are excited to be a part of that project and expand our work in Canada.
Considering the amount of cold weather there is up here in Canada and the amount of
idling that is still being done out there, we think there is tremendous opportunity to
reduce idling, conserve fuel and reduce emissions. Please feel free to give me a call if we
can help you.
In closing, I would like to give special thanks and recognition to the EPA project partners
namely the EPA, especially Paul Bubbosh, the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and
Wisconsin Southern Railroads, the City of Chicago Department of Environment and ZTR
Control Systems. Thank-you.
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Lionel King, Transport Canada
Session Chair
Since we are doing very well for time, and I thank both of you for that – it gives me the
chance to exercise a small amount of privilege in just throwing a gratuitous observation
here, that having sat behind a government desk for awhile, I have observed and it occurs
to me that one of the points of annoyance, at least for the common folk, with railways is
the noise and the fumes from parked and idling locomotives in freight yards and dispersal
yards and what have you. That is an area which, for one reason or another, does not
always seem to get adequately addressed to the satisfaction of all concerned. I would just
throw out the thought and invite you to give some thoughts of that, perhaps, yourselves.
Since I do not think we have any formal content on that particular topic in this workshop,
just something that sprang to mind as a result of Terry’s excellent presentation there.
Chuck Moulis – Environmental Engineer
United States Environmental Protection Agency
U.S. Emission Standards for Locomotives and Locomotive Engines
For those of you who are not familiar with how emission regulations are developed in the
United States – Congress has established the Clean Air Act, which requires the EPA to
reduce emissions and meet certain air quality standards. In the last set of revisions for the
Clean Air Act, Congress directed the EPA to set emission standards for locomotives and
for other non-road engines. Our focus was on the criteria pollutants of ozone and PM and
their precursors. If you want details on the regulations, they are available on our web site
along with supporting documentation.
By basic design, locomotive engines tend to be very high in NOx and relatively low in
PM. This has to do with factors such as engine speed. Before control, locomotives
emitted about a million tonnes of NOx each year, which is about 5% of the total in the
U.S. For that reason, the primary focus of our rulemaking was on controlling NOx
emissions. PM and HC were really more of a secondary issue initially. We did not
regulate fuel consumption or CO2. Our initial projection was that our standards were not
going to affect fuel consumption at all. It turns out, now, that new technologies are
actually resulting in some net reduction in fuel consumption.
The standards that we set apply very broadly to locomotives – virtually all locomotives in
the U.S. One of the unique features of the rule is that we set the standards to apply both
at the original manufacture of the locomotive and also when each locomotive is
remanufactured. I will talk about that a little bit more later.
I just want to briefly mention the few locomotives that are not included in our
rulemaking:
•
Locomotives that were built originally before 1973. These represent a relatively
small fraction of the U.S. fleet and are owned mostly by the small railroads.
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
•
•
•
Steam locomotives.
Small locomotives, which are regulated under our general non-road engine
program.
Exported locomotives, or locomotives from Mexico or Canada that are used
solely for border traffic.
I want to clarify something that was said in an earlier presentation. We DO regulate
locomotives owned by shortline railroads, unless the shortline railroad is a small
business. Although, many of the shortline railroads that are not small businesses actually
own the older locomotives, which are excluded from our program.
The exemption for border traffic was intended to be fairly limited. In general,
locomotives that would come across the border could be considered imported, and if they
were imported, they would be subject to our standards. During the rulemaking, the issue
was raised about locomotives that are used just to come across the border and go back.
The RAC requested that there be an exemption for that. We tailored a narrow exemption
that would limit it, but it is limited only to locomotives that do not operate extensively in
the U.S. – where their U.S. operation is incidental to their primary operation. This is
clearly not something that is intended for Canadian locomotives that compete with U.S.
locomotives.
The standards that we set were set in three tiers which are currently being phased in. The
first tier, Tier 0 was for the existing fleet. Tier 0 standards achieved some marginal
reduction in NOx – about 34%. These would probably be met with mostly calibration
changes and some redesign. The second tier is an interim tier that requires a little bit
more redesign of the engine, achieves a little bit more emission reduction, NOx
reduction, but also relies heavily on calibration changes. The third tier is the one that was
expected to be a major redesign of the locomotive, resulting in significant hardware
changes, as well as calibration changes. Tier 3 is projected to reduce emissions by about
2/3 for NOx, and HC and PM emissions by about half.
In order to ensure that we got good broad control of emissions over all operations, we
established two duty-cycles. One of them, a line-haul cycle is a high-power cycle that
emphasizes the high-power notches. The second is a low-power cycle or a switch-cycle,
which emphasizes idle and low-power operation. By requiring locomotives to comply
with standards over both cycles, we ensure that the manufacturers design the emission
controls to work effectively at each notch.
With respect to the test procedure, our primary goal was to make sure that we could test
the engine when it is installed in the locomotive and that we could get good
representative emissions testing. It is nominally, a steady-state test procedure, but we do
measure changes during power changes and we also set up a broad range of test
conditions so that we could test outdoors.
Figure 2.5 is a table of the standards, and the first thing I want to mention is that these are
actually the standards, not the emission levels. What I will show later is that the actual
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
emission levels tend to be a little bit below the standard and the manufacturers build into
them a compliance margin to make sure they comply in use.
Figure 2.5 Emission Standards (Line-Haul)
E m is s io n S t a n d a rd s f o r H ig h - P o w e r ( L in e - h a u l ) D u ty c y c le (g / b h p - h r )
NOx
PM
HC
CO
A vg .
B a s e l in e
T ie r 0
S ta n d ard
1 3 .0
0 .3 2
0 .4 8
1 .3
9 .5
0 .6 0
1 .0 0
5 .0
T ie r 1
S ta n d ard
7 .4
0 .4 5
0 .5 5
2 .2
T ie r 2
S ta n d ard
5 .5
0 .2 0
0 .3 0
1 .5
Another thing that I want to point out is that if you look at the initial baseline emission
level for NOx of 13.0 grams per brake horsepower hour, that is significantly higher than
the uncontrolled baseline level for highway engines. This has to do with the locomotive
design. But, conversely, the hydrocarbon and PM emissions are significantly lower than
the uncontrolled highway. I guess the last thing I want to point out on this chart is for
Tier 0 and Tier 1, you will notice that the emission standards are higher than the baseline.
This was done to make sure that our hydrocarbon and PM control did not, in any way,
hinder the feasibility of the NOx control. I will show what the actual emission results are
in a little bit.
Figure 2.6 is the Switch Standards. The only thing I want to mention here is that the
standards are quite a bit higher than the line-haul standards. This has to do with the
brake-specific emissions at idle and low-power being higher. This represents comparable
technology or comparable emission reduction.
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Figure 2.6 Emissions Standards (Switch)
E m is s io n S t a n d a r d s f o r L o w -P o w e r ( S w itc h ) D u t y - c y c l e
( g /b h p -h r )
NOx
PM
HC
CO
A vg .
B a s e l in e
1 7 .4
0 .4 4
1 .0 1
1 .8
T ie r 0
S ta n d ard
1 4 .0
0 .7 2
2 .1 0
8 .0
T ie r 1
S ta n d ard
1 1 .0
0 .5 4
1 .2 0
2 .5
T ie r 2
S ta n d ard
8 .1
0 .2 4
0 .6 0
2 .4
Figure 2.7 displays the actual certified emission results. This is an incomplete set, but
you will see that most of the NOx emissions are around 8.5 or so and this is a little bit
below the standard. That is the compliance margin I talked about. You notice the PM
emissions vary quite widely but most of them are clustered right around the baseline level
of about 0.3. You will see, in the lower left corner, the next generation of locomotives
meeting the Tier 1 and Tier 2 standards.
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Figure 2.7 Certified Locomotive Emission Levels
Certified Locomotive Emission Levels
NOx (g/hp-hr)
11
10
9
8
7
6
5
0.0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
PM (g/hp-hr)
The result of the standards is that in the near term, we are projecting a 30-40% reduction
in NOx emissions. NOx emissions will gradually reduce further beyond that. But for
hydrocarbon and PM, the emissions reductions do not really occur until Tier 2 kicks in.
While these reductions are good and we are very pleased with them, there is still, if you
will notice, quite a bit of emissions left out there 20, 30 years from now. I will talk
about our next steps to address these emissions at the end of my presentation.
Our locomotive rulemaking was very different from our previous rulemaking for other
sources. I am not sure how many of you are familiar with those programs; I will talk
briefly about these differences. The most important difference is the requirement that
remanufactured systems, remanufactured locomotives, be re-certified. These other
differences are just shown to give you a feel for how hard we worked to make sure that
these locomotives actually comply in the field:
•
•
•
Minimum useful life,
In-use testing,
In-use maintenance requirements for operators.
In most of our programs, for highway engines, and for other non-road engines, we require
a one-time certification. The manufacturer is only liable for the performance during the
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Railways and the Environment Workshop / L’Industrie Ferroviaire et L’Environnement
first period to rebuild, within the period we call the ‘useful life’. However, this is not an
effective program for locomotives, which can be rebuilt six times or more and can last 40
years or more. One of the interesting things about locomotives is that, when they are
remanufactured, they really become almost like a brand-new locomotive again or like a
new engine. That characteristic enabled us to set standards that were equivalent for the
locomotive when it is remanufactured, equivalent to what we would have set for the
brand-new locomotive.
The way we do this is that we require that the final product, the remanufactured
locomotive, be certified as meeting our emission standards and that somebody take
responsibility for its emissions. They do that by certifying a remanufacturing system,
which is often referred to as a remanufacturing kit. However, this is a little bit
misleading because the system may not include any parts at all, there may actually be no
physical kit. It could just be specifications for parts or calibration instructions. We set it
up as a market-based program where the market decides who certifies and we opened it
up broadly to the manufacturers, to companies that make emission-related parts, to people
who actually install the parts, or to the locomotive owners. It is my understanding that
we are actually getting some of each that are certifying their systems right now.
The ‘useful life’ period I talked about is the period in which the manufacturer is
responsible for emissions. Normally in our old programs, we would set a single value
that would apply to all engines and it would be fixed. Well, this does not really work for
locomotives, because the applications are so variable. There is no single number that
works best, and if we set a number that is too small, then we are encouraging
manufacturers to not design durable emission controls. If we set it too long, then we are
forcing them to design controls more durable than are needed. So what we did instead,
was set a minimum value and then require manufacturers and re-manufacturers to specify
longer useful life periods if they actually are designed to operate longer. The minimum
value we set was about 750,000 miles and we make some rare exceptions for engines that
are not designed to last that long, but those are intended to be fairly rare exceptions.
We also established a very robust in-use testing program, a two-phased approach, one for
the manufacturers, one for the railroads, to make sure that these locomotives are meeting
the standards in use. The first one is the manufacturer requirement to test during the
useful life. They test at least two locomotives and as many as ten. If that testing shows
that the engines are not compliant with the standards, then we could order the
manufacturers to recall the product and fix the non-conformity. The second program, the
railroad program, is really more of a monitoring program to make sure that the emission
controls of those locomotives that operate beyond the useful life period, beyond the
period in which the manufacturer is responsible, are still functioning reasonably well. As
you recall, I said the useful life period is the average period to rebuild. By definition,
many locomotives operate longer than that period, and this is just a way for us to stay on
top of the performance of the locomotives in that period. The amount that the railroads
have to test is a relatively small number, maybe 5 or 10 locomotives a year, and we allow
them to use some short-testing procedures to simplify the program.
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The last unique feature of this was a mandatory requirement for railroads to perform the
emission-related maintenance. This is something we had never done before in our
previous programs. Under this program, the manufacturer specifies what emissionrelated maintenance is needed to keep it in compliance, and the railroads are then
required to do that. If they do not perform the maintenance, there is a possibility of
significant fines. But, because we know the railroads are going to need flexibility in
implementing this, we give them the option of specifying equivalent procedures and
demonstrating to us that they have a reasonable basis for believing they are going to get
equivalent control.
Probably the most important question here is: what are our next steps? The program that
I have just outlined gets very large reductions, but as we get pressed for tighter and
tighter air quality standards, the EPA is asked to find more and more ways to reduce
emissions. We recently established very low emissions standards for on-highway diesel
vehicles and are proposing to set similar standards for non-road. Those standards for
non-road that we are considering right now are 0.4 grams per kilowatt-hour NOx, and
essentially a zero PM level. The PM mass would only be the sulphate PM. In that
proposal where we talked about the NOx standards for non-road, the EPA did propose to
lower the sulphur level to 500 ppm for locomotive fuel. We also stated our intent to
consider very low emissions standards for locomotives. The starting point would be to
consider standards that are essentially equivalent to highway engines or to other non-road
engines that are currently being considered. Those standards are projected to require
sulphur-sensitive after-treatment for NOx and for PM. To go along with that, we
proposed for non-road engines, and are considering for locomotives, requiring that they
use 15 ppm fuel.
The open question right now is: can these technologies be retrofitted to existing fleets?
We would really like that to be the case, but there may be packaging constraints in some
cases. We are not sure of the extent to which these technologies can be retrofitted. The
other issues that we are looking at are trying to implement an on-board diagnostic type
system, where we take advantage of all the new advancements in on-board monitoring of
emissions and engine performance to see if we can use that as a way to better control
emissions in use. Also, to perhaps mandate the automatic shutdown systems that we have
heard so much about.
The next step in this process will be an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, which
would then be followed by a proposed rulemaking and a final rulemaking, probably some
time in 2006. There is information, a little bit of information, available on the EPA web
site at this address on these next steps, http://www.epa.gov/nonroad/f03009.pdf. Right
now we are in a fairly early stage in the process of trying to sort all this out and figuring
out what is the right level for locomotives and what is achievable.
Q: Normand Pellerin – CN Rail
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Just a bit of clarification on your slides about the exporting locomotive and cross-border
traffic. Most of the two major railroads in Canada, because it was too complicated
basically to try to time the number of hours that each locomotive goes across the border
and comes back into Canada, we have embarked on the program of complying with the
Tier Program system, the same way as we were in a U.S.-based company. Therefore, all
our new locomotives and all of the locomotives that are going across the borders are
always Tier-compliant so we would not have to be worried about the time-line and the
duration of their trip down to the U.S. Because most of our operations are so much
integrated with what is going on in the U.S., it would not be feasible for us to try to
comply with a regulation like that.
A: Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Right. Yes, I think when we originally were looking at this rulemaking, the number of
Canadian locomotives that were essentially used in U.S. fleets, and vice versa, was much
smaller than it actually turned out to be. And so, yes, I think that this exemption is
probably not all that valuable.
Q: Lionel King – Transport Canada
Do I understand it that there is a gradual deterioration in the performance of all
locomotives, over time of use in terms of the emissions that are actually coming out? In
other words, is it automatic that there is going to be deterioration or can just regular
maintenance keep it at, basically, a new standard?
A: Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Unfortunately, there is no yes or no answer to that question. NOx is formed because of
high temperatures and high pressures in the engine, in the cylinder. With wear,
sometimes you lose compression, and that actually lowers NOx emissions. So, there may
be little or no deterioration in NOx emissions as a locomotive ages. With PM – a lot of
the PM controls require very fine control of the fuel droplets, the spray patterns, things
like that, and those controls, when they wear, actually do not work as well. So the PM
emissions are more likely to deteriorate, and hydrocarbons as well. Once the locomotive
is remanufactured, in our opinion, there is no reason why it should not be as good as new.
Its emissions should be no worse than they were when the locomotive was originally
manufactured. For the new technologies I am talking about, the after-treatment for NOx
especially, that is probably going to be a different story. Those will likely deteriorate
with use.
Question:
Two questions: number one, when you talk about responsibilities of railways to make
sure they do the maintenance over the period, the life period of a railway engine – what
happens with the trucking industry? Will there be the same kind of follow-up for
highway and other non-road diesel engines?
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A: Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Right now, there is no plan to do that for users. I get these kinds of questions quite a bit,
especially from the trucking companies. One of the things they did not like is that our
standards are less stringent for locomotives than they are for trucks. They do not like that
in the U.S. The States are completely pre-empted from regulating locomotives, whereas
they can regulate trucks. And what I tell the truckers is, that the railroads are required to
do maintenance and in-use testing. I think it is not obvious that either one of them is
better than the other. We considered that in our rulemaking. The railroads let us know
that they thought the pre-emption was so important that they were willing to do additional
maintenance requirements and in-use testing; they thought that was a fair exchange in
order to get complete pre-emption of state controls, and have it be a federal program
only.
Question:
The second question is somewhat related. I think earlier today, a number of people
quoted the fact that you do not want to discourage rail. In fact, if anything you want to
encourage rail overall as a policy because, on a per ton-mile basis, it is more efficient and
less emitting. But, under your first bullet under the second item, there may be similar to
new standards for highway and other non-road diesels. On a per ton-mile basis, is that
not going to discourage the use of rail? In fact, on a per ton-mile basis, if you implement
that, if I am reading it correctly, you are going to be far more stringent, on a per ton-mile
basis, than you would be, say, with the trucking industry?
A: Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
I would encourage all of you to read the word ‘similar’ there loosely. I do not mean that
to be the exact same standard, but the technologies could be similar. We haven’t figured
out what the level will be. We certainly would not set it at a level that we knew was
going to cause modal shifts. That is not our goal. At this point, we do not know what the
costs are going to be of various emission levels. It may be similar in terms of technology,
but it actually may be higher numerically.
Q: Malcolm Payne – Engine Systems Development Centre
Chuck, you related to that database you had earlier. What was involved and how long did
it take to establish that database?
A: Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Those are the certification emission test results. For every manufacturer and
remanufacturer who submitted data electronically, those data were automatically entered
into the EPA database. I requested that our compliance folks give me some of that
information; they sent me a huge spreadsheet. I just went through and pulled many of
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those numbers out. It is an incomplete set and there are some glitches in it. That is
probably about half, maybe a little bit more, of all the certification emission tests we
have.
Q: Ash Olesen – CPR
Hi, Chuck. Just wanting to take off a bit on what Normand had brought up with respect
to the cross-border traffic issue and your, I think it’s the, ‘incidental use’ clause. I
believe, when you were speaking, you had used the phrase that, “if the locomotive were
in competition with a U.S. Class 1 railway, then it would be considered to be subject to
the requirements of the locomotive regulations.” I thought that was really a good piece of
wisdom in evaluating that clause. I mean, if you are in competition, then clearly, you
should be playing by the same set of rules. I just wanted to take this opportunity to make
the point that, yes, indeed, the Canadian Class 1’s are complying with the EPA
locomotive regulations by virtue of moving into the U.S. and competing with the Class
1’s in the U.S. And just wanting to make the point, maybe for the benefit of some of the
folks here from Environment Canada and Transport Canada that, with respect to
competition and a level playing field, it is very important to the Class 1’s in Canada that
we be given the same kind of tax breaks that some of our U.S. colleagues get for when
they do remanufacture their locomotives. Currently, the Class 1’s in Canada are not
enjoying, perhaps, the same benefits as the U.S. Class 1’s. I just wanted to take that
opportunity to make that point.
Harry Gow – Founding President
Transport 2000 Canada
Rail in Other Jurisdictions
Well, “Rail in Other Jurisdictions” is a little pretentious because I have had to limit my
scope. I would have liked to talk about the Asian sub-continent, in particular India,
which is a subject of fascination for me. But I decided to stick with some comparable
continental-size railway systems and throw in Japan very briefly, simply because of the
image of the railway system there.
Greener pastures, “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” When I
am talking with journalists and the public, I’m always hearing this: “Oh, if we only had
railways like those in Europe, those in Japan, those in here or there.” They are held up as
examples of modernity. Does this really mean, then, that our railways are underequipped and ineffective? Not so sure they are. We have the broken-up, privatized
Japanese national railway system with JR East, JR West, and so on and you can see that,
on a very large system of islands which are more than the equivalent in size of the
Canadian corridor, you have, on a very strung-out high-speed railway system, trains
running at 270-300 kph, at frequencies that would leave you gasping. More like
GoTransit, than like VIA Rail, and yet people will say, “Well, that’s all very well. Japan
is very densely populated, and so on. We don’t have the population base.” That may be
so. On the other hand, a lot of the people that say this cannot have visited Vancouver,
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Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, or Ottawa, recently. There seems to be
population there, unless the places are only populated by cars popping around under radio
control. It seems to me that there IS a population base; maybe not enough to do THAT (a
Japanese-style high-speed system) but, perhaps, to do something.
So, having compared us with something which is really very, very different – I will go on
to things that are a little closer to home. For instance, the United States, Europe and
Australia, with a little bit about Russia. The sources are: UIC (Union Internationale des
Chemins de Fer), the RAC, AAR, trade journals, personal observation, including field
trips and seminars known in the business as ‘gold-bricking,’ railway tourism of a kind.
Let’s look at some data. I am afraid I haven’t had the time to put this stuff into graphs, so
bear with me. In Figure 2.8, what we are seeing here is that, while the European railways
have large freight volumes, they are barely more than half the volumes of the total
volume in NAFTA. Europe here is bigger than just the European Union, what we are
talking about is ‘Europe Plus’ – going east to, at least, the border of Russia. So the scale
is continental and, in a sense, it is roughly comparable with what we have here.
Figure 2.8 International Data – Railways
Passenger millions km, Freight million
tonne/km
n Europe:
Pass 575,326
Frt 1,861,023
n N. America: Pass 10,740
Frt 2,465,236
n Canada:
Pass 1,564
Frt 220,000 RAC
n Australia:
Pass 1,350
Frt. 38,525
n World:
Pass. 1,906,597 Frt. 7,471,720
Source: UIC 2001
Proportions of passenger to freight vary greatly!
The thing I want to underscore is that passenger kilometres are much higher, overall, in
Europe and, taken country by country, they usually are notably higher in places like
Switzerland but, also, in France and Italy, and so on. In North America, on the other
hand, what really dominates is freight. You can see massive amounts of freight being
moved by rail in North America. If you go on a percentage basis comparing the USA
with Canada, a country with about 10% of the population of the United States, you can
see that these figures factor out rather nicely. In passenger field per capita, we actually
have a slightly higher use of trains than they do in the States, but that is arguable when
you start getting into what is a commuter railroad. I will not get into that issue. The idea
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is to give you a bit of scope, so sorry for the raw data. I hope it gives you some idea of
the scale of production on various continents. I would say, as we go through this, let’s
keep a close eye on Australia, because in many respects, as my brother, who does
consulting in Australia from his base in Thailand says, “Australia, of all the countries I
have visited so far, is the one that most closely represents Canada.” He includes the
railways in that comparison, with, of course, some squiggles. There is for instance, a lot
more narrow-gauge trackage and (there is) some broad-gauge trackage.
In Europe, railways run off 7% of all the passenger-kilometres produced; in other words,
the car, the airplane, and so on are still very important in Europe. I think the critical thing
is, where are these travel patterns occurring? Usually in and between major urban centres
in Europe and they have invested heavily in this. In the U.S., by comparison, 0.6% of the
passenger-kilometres executed are done on rail. In Europe, on the other hand, railways
only have 15% of the tonne-kilometres, and this includes countries in the east where rail
is dominant. So, you have to bear that in mind that, if that is the average, then it is very
low indeed in countries like Great Britain. Finally, in the United States – and this is very
conservative, this is from the Union Internationale des Chemins de Fer, UIC – 40% of
tonne-kilometres are executed by rail. I do not know if the difference in their percentage
with the figures advanced by the AAR is explainable by, possibly, the addition of marine
freight, or something like that. There are inconsistencies here, at times, even within my
presentation. What I want you to note is the broad trends. Not too daunted by the
avalanche of raw data? I know I am, at times.
Now, we come back to Australia. Their rail freight share is a bit lower than here,
particularly in the southern part of Australia in the Sydney to Brisbane belt and the
Sydney-Melbourne-Adelaide belt. Truckers have taken a very large share of a highervalue freight and there is, as here, a feeling among railways that they have been slagged
by unfair regulation and rather loose regulation on trucking. You have the same debates
in Australia that we have here about this issue. You can see that their freight tonnekilometres is impressive and their passenger rail kilometres seem fairly high in
comparison with Canada’s, if you account for the fact that they have 1/3 less population.
An interesting figure that I got from the Australian transport statistics for 2003 was that
0.3% of Australian GHG emissions come from rail. That may be surprising and I thought
about it a bit and I realized that a lot of the ton-miles are being run off in places like
Queensland, where the Queensland Railways are heavily electrified. That may be a part
answer. Another is, very efficient, heavy haul railroads, like the Hammersley Iron
operation up in the northwest, which are producing huge amounts of ton-miles in very
ideal circumstances, fairly equable weather, recent railroads with good grading and not
many grade crossings. That kind of thing tends to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions.
If this is true, if the Australian government is reporting correctly, for the amount of tonmiles they are getting out of their freight railways, they have a really inconsiderable
greenhouse gas problem, with respect to railways, even better than here.
In Canada, we see a slight drop in carryings. Rather, you have ups and downs in
carryings, 2001, yes a little less than 2000, but very, very small percentage drop. What I
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really wanted to underline was that 32% of the ton-miles being run off are not bulk, it is
not potash, it is not coal, it is not grain, it is widgets. I think that is probably a little
higher than most people would think. The chit-chat I hear from reporters, and I get a lot
of them calling me runs like this: “Well, don’t railways mostly just operate on coal
traffic?” Well, maybe in some places, but it is not necessarily the case all over Canada
and not all the time.
In summary, in Europe, rail passenger is a greater factor. Rail freight is lessened to the
point that the European Commission is a bit despairing about it. In the U.S.A., Australia
and Canada, rail passenger is less and rail freight traffic is greater. When you hear the
environmentalists talking about the poor performance of Canadian railways as compared
with European railways, they are only referring to the passenger sector. They never seem
to bring up the freight sector, and in fact, they have a myth: that somehow railways must
be disciplined and brought under control, because supposedly they are producing huge
amounts of greenhouse gas emissions or their bearings leak oil onto the track or they are
using too much in the way of Chipman Weed Destroyer, or whatever. I sometimes
wonder where this is coming from.
Moving on to Japan, Russia and China again. Japan shows a freight million tonnekilometre profile that resembles some of the worst performances in Europe. It is possibly
explained by the three-foot-six gauge system that handles pretty well all the freight. It is
a rather antiquated railway, even if they do have modern locomotives and microprocessors and all that stuff. The alignments and the curves, and so on, are not that good.
Russia is something more of a North American-type railway, if you allow for the fact that
they do have rather large passenger volumes. And again, China is not that far from
Russia, but with their huge population, they obviously have enormous passenger
volumes.
What does all this mean for greenhouse gas? What it means is that the continental-sized
countries, generally, except Europe, are doing very well in the freight sphere and most of
them, except Canada and the United States and Mexico, are doing quite well in the
passenger sphere in carrying significant loads and producing reductions in greenhouse
gas emissions AS COMPARED to what would happen were road the dominant freight
mode in those countries. Well, ask a Russian about road being a dominant mode between
Vladivostock and Moscow and he’ll laugh at you because there is none. They do it all by
rail, and in fact they have recently electrified the last stretch of track in Siberia to have
electrified railway, double track, carrying containers all the way from Nakhoda and
Vladivostock at the Japan end right through to Europe at the other end.
Another set of indicators I wanted to look at is investment. This is a very partial poll
done by International Railway Journal, a couple of pages of which I distributed. I think it
is April 2003, but my referencing is deficient because I forgot to write it down on my
copy and didn’t bring the original. The illustration here is that the major countries invest
huge amounts in passenger rail, even the United States. Canada and Australia have more
modest investments, but in a typical year, I would say that one Australian state,
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Queensland, with only 9,000 kilometres, is investing in a typical year, as much as Canada
on a huge system with many thousands more kilometres of track. So, go figure.
European railways as compared with American railways stack up quite well. Obviously,
BNSF is very different from the Swiss National Railways or from the RFF network on
which the essence of trains run in France – more compact in Europe, very spread out on
the BNSF – but it is amazing how the ball-park figures are largely in the same order of
magnitude from one railway to another. Maybe someone should do a study on railway
size versus investment and whether there is something in the railway culture that says you
only spend so many thousand million dollars U.S. per year. I don’t know. There is a
nascent theory there, somewhere.
The subject of network links is where it gets interesting. People were talking about
constraints on investment in Canada and, perhaps, to a lesser degree in the United States.
The NAFTA countries have 23% of the world’s railway network in length but only 14%
of the world’s investment. Now, that is partly explained, perhaps, by the richer
investment needed for passenger rail, but only partly. The European Union has 15% of
the length but 43% of the investment. Not all of that difference can be explained by the
passenger rail factor, in my view. China has 6% of the length and 17% of the investment
and yet they have North American/Russian type tonnages going over their railways, so
they are investing extremely heavily. Some of that is new-line construction mind you,
but there is also electrification and stuff like that going on.
Just to quickly look at what is being done in Europe – the investment on the lines in
Europe is always in the billions of dollars, it seems, particularly in France. This is the
French high-speed rail network which covers much of the country except the Massif
Centrale around Clermont-Ferrand, Limoges, Bourges, the rest is pretty well covered by a
dense network of trains that run off the high-speed lines, on into the smaller provincial
towns.
The next in that series shows kind of a ‘sparks effect,’ as they call it in Britain. What
happens when you electrify and speed up the trains? The distances from Paris, as you
radiate out from Paris, with distance, the transit times get longer. The changes are by
hour so you see a significant swath of France is within an hour of Paris and then two
hours, and then three hours, four hours and five hours when you get down to, say, the
Spanish border, maybe even a bit more. That is on a railway that manages to respect
schedules pretty well, on a railway where they make, on one line alone, Paris-Lyon $350
million a year profit. That line was built without government subsidy. It was just money
borrowed from the bank, paid back over 8 years instead of the projected 11 years. The
rate of return at the time of opening until it was paid off was 12.5% per year, capital costs
included. So the TGV system is a money-spinner for the French railways, and RFF, the
infrastructure provider, knows it and is inching up the access charges, unfortunately, to
the point where SNCF, the passenger operator and freight operator, is saying, “We are
probably going to have to cut services somewhat, because it is getting too expensive.”
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An innovation in France was to build a roller-coaster railway for high speed. The
Japanese railways tend to be pretty smoothed-out, a lot of bridges and viaducts and
tunnels like the earlier German ICE systems. In France, they go up and down and, when
you are riding in the cab of a TGV power car, as I have done on the Paris-Lyon line, you
feel you are in a kind of an airplane. It goes up over a hill and all of a sudden you are
coming over the top of the hill and you are looking down and you see several hundred
metres below you the bottom of the vertical curve and then it comes hopping up. It really
does not burn much more energy doing that than just going across on the flats, because it
builds up a momentum and the driver just notches it back a bit as he goes downhill.
That is the kind of thing they are doing there. That is all very well. Come back to more
mundane considerations. A lot of the differences, ‘particularisms’ between railways in
North America and Europe in particular, are explained by the fact that pretty well all
railways at first used British technology. That is as much the case in Canada and the
States, as in France, as in Russia, what have you. The railways then specialized
nationally and became rather idiosyncratic with different loading gauges, sometimes
different track gauges – Russia has 5-foot gauge, Poland has 4-foot-8 ½ like France and
England – this makes transfer a bit difficult. As everywhere, there is technical
obsolescence and management conservatism and, worse, union conservatism, in many
cases. The road mode, on the other hand, is much more internationalized and does not
suffer as much from the border effect. In the case of France and Spain, your train
nowadays goes to the Irun-Hendai border point on the Atlantic coast and it will go
through a gauge-changer. It used to be you would transfer the passengers or transfer the
freight – not any more, but there is still a time penalty and a cost penalty. The roads do
not have a gauge-changer; they are all roughly 4 foot 8 ½ inch gauge and the trucks just
wallop through. Of course, they have very much more discriminatory customs and
inspection regimes for the railways in Europe than they do for the trucks. That also
explains why freight traffic on railways in Europe is depressed as compared to the
potential, given you have a continental sized system, and the European Commission is
attempting to address that.
Globalization is a partial answer to this. We see equipment suppliers, such as
Bombardier, internationalizing; Siemens – very international; General Motors is selling
in England, Holland, Germany, Norway, Denmark, etc. It is not all new, but the market
penetration of GM, GM Diesel Canada, London, is increasing. You see European
techniques showing up here, for instance. An early example of post-war European
techniques was the use of Siemens signaling on the Edmonton Transit System. The
railway inspectors did not like this. So John Baaker (one of the project engineers) and J.
MacDonald (the Chief Engineer) said to the inspector chaps, “Well, that’s alright. There
will be no transit for the Commonwealth Games.” Well, the Siemens system was
approved within weeks and the Commonwealth Games had transit. Sometimes it is
difficult to import technologies.
The effects of this are beneficial to railways. For example, the Canadian GM
locomotives – the Class 66 – are being used increasingly across borders in Europe,
getting rid of the old problems of changing crews, changing locomotives at the frontiers.
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Bombardier and Alstom provide world-renowned, energy-efficient rolling stock, and you
can see this at work in the U.S. corridor where Bombardier, LRC-type coaches are towed
by French-type power cars known as the “Acela locomotives” – at a high speed for North
America, up to 250 kph.
The modern signaling and control systems can reduce energy wastage as we have heard
and the use of European vehicles implies higher emissions standards. A project engineer
did a calculation of the Ottawa O-train’s emissions. He figured that this diesel light rail
train is producing – depending on your assumptions and the speeds and so on – a quarter
or a fifth of the emissions per passenger-kilometre that the OC Transpo buses do, and let
me tell you that, with Euro-2 standards, those stack emissions are a lot cleaner than the
emissions of even the Flyer buses, dare I say it, tearing up and down the Transitway in
Ottawa.
There is potential for improvements all over the place. In Europe, I will not bother you
with the detail but the border effect thing I have already talked about often applies
between suburban rail systems and the town tram networks, with passengers having to
transfer to trams to finish their journey. The tram-train, or light rail vehicle capable of
traveling on “heavy” rail tracks has emerged as a solution. This is a solution like that we
are seeing developing in Ottawa and seeing in New Jersey and in California where
European light-rail vehicles are more and more running on tracks that are shared with
freight trains on a time separation basis and in Canada with Indusi train protection. The
Bombardier BR643 operating in Ottawa has both those features – Indusi-based train
protection and time separation. This follows on one of the pioneering applications where
Siemens supplied light-rail vehicles to San Diego, where the S.D.A.& E. Railway runs
freight at night on the tram tracks. That kind of tram-train is spreading in Germany, in
France, in Canada and it is a harbinger of change, I think, for the whole connection
between rural and urban systems and inter-city systems.
For Australia, their big challenge is to finish unifying the network’s gauge. I noticed that
in Victoria State, even some of the most recent upgrades of rail passenger systems to
Balorat, Bendago and so on, do not include standard gauging. They still have some
challenges there. One challenge they are meeting is extending the reach of rail freight.
Formerly, the standard gauge rail freight and passenger system made its way up from
Adelaide to Alice Springs, but while there had once been a narrow gauge system from
about Catherine to Darwin, for many years there was nothing in the northern territory
beyond Alice Springs. Recently, the Austro-Asia Railway Consortium has produced a
railway which is now complete as of September 25th or thereabouts, on which doublestacked and trailer-trains will be inaugurated in January, and passenger trains in February.
This will mean that containers, instead of having to make the long trip around to the east
to Sydney and Melbourne, can be unloaded at Darwin and shot into the centre of the
country. What does this do? It gives railways an automatic advantage over trucks
because I do not think anyone is going to start having double-stacked road-trains from
Darwin to Adelaide or anywhere else. Think of it. Think of the heights of road bridges,
just to start with.
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Other countries have similar potential. China is a place where more electrification and
construction go on every day. All over the Eurasian continent, gauge changers are being
installed to provide more through running, to get rid of some of the frontier effects.
In Canada, we can learn from the United States with their incentives for investment. We
can learn by implementing taxation reforms, by having more Federal and Provincial
investment in transit and rail and, in particular, Transit Efficiency Act or Transportation
Efficiency Act or TEA-21 type provisions in Canada where, instead of taking gas tax,
putting it into so-called infrastructure funds to repair the arena roofs of the Hawkesburies
of this world, as has been done in the past, the money could be put into urban transit,
highway improvements, but also into intermodal transfer facilities and facilities in
general. How many of us realize that the City of Los Angeles, the State of California, the
U.S. Federal Government, through TEA, Union Pacific Railroad and others improved
access to the port of Long Beach at a cost of a couple of billion dollars to the point that
Long Beach will probably become the “Godzilla Gorilla” of West Coast ports. Such
improvements in the States are a serious threat to our container ports in Canada. The
kind of money that goes from TEA-21 into intermodal facilities all over the U.S.A.,
particularly in port areas, will mean that our well-intended and, I should say, underequipped (it’s not really the word, let’s say less-equipped) ports in Canada and
intermodal facilities will suffer by comparison. Since we are in a continental market,
people will not really care whether the goods come in through Long Beach or Vancouver,
whether they come in through New Jersey or Halifax. So, this is a wake-up call for
Canada.
In summary, European and Asian railways have a strong share of passengers, and
sometimes freight. North American and Australian railways do better with freight than
do the Euros. That said, we can learn from other jurisdictions. Rail contributes little in
the way of greenhouse gas emissions. More emission reductions are accomplished by
improving rail systems than by beating railway managers over the head about how their
locomotives stink. We actually do rather well here, despite what the press thinks. There
may be cultural barriers even if sometimes we are a little self-satisfied. Maybe we have
values that are different from those in countries like Switzerland, where clean air is
almost a religion. Distance is not such a barrier to improved passenger rail and nor is low
population density such a barrier to improve passenger rail, as we sometimes think. The
Cairnsville Townsline, north from Brisbane, has had 600-700 kilometres of brand-new
track put in to allow new tilting trains to accomplish the trip in about 1/3 less time. At
the same time, they have daily passenger service on this line. Compare that with the
miserable tri-weekly offering through Winnipeg and you get an idea of how it is that
Canada has somehow managed to place itself in the back yard, rather than in the front
yard, in the rail passenger mode as compared with countries that are extremely similar
but have lower populations, like Australia. This is not the fault of the railways.
Action lessons – we should take global warming seriously, and anything I said is not
meant to say that we should not have higher emissions standards for railways. I am just
against modal shifts happening through inadvertence. We should learn from the whole
world; for example the American Acela system is an example of what can be done and
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we should think globally and act locally, as we have in places like Vancouver, Calgary
and Ottawa, and get a super-railroad. By the way, the U.S. popular magazine, ‘Trains,’
said a couple of things about that, including the fact that they have a super-railroad in
Washington-New York-Boston (totally electrified, double- and even quadruple-track).
‘Trains’ also said, at another time, “Build this – a government railroad that works. Guess
what? It’s VIA Rail Canada.” And, “The world’s best railway – yes, really. Who?
Canadian National.” Well, I personally was a CPR employee and tend to think that there
is no other railway that could compete for that honour. But that said, it is rather
astounding what we can do in Canada when we put our minds to it. So, let’s roll up our
sleeves and invest in railways. Thank-you.
Q: Arnold Miller – Vehicle Projects, LLC
I had a question or perhaps a comment about the claimed “low greenhouse gas
emissions” in Australia and that the source of that might be a high degree of
electrification. But, if one takes into account – well, it depends on how the grid is
powered, if it is a coal-powered grid, then that would not seem to be an answer.
A: Harry Gow, Transport 2000 Canada
Absolutely. Now, the Australia power basket is a mix. They have hydro-power, they
have coal power and who knows, they even use a little solar power to operate switches
and so on in remote locations. But the point is well taken.
Bill Rowat – Railway Association of Canada
Conference Chair
Interesting sessions this morning. We started out with John Dobson giving us a rundown on Straight Ahead. After two years of consultation and deliberation he gave us a
good oversight on that, and then pulled it together at the end to tell us about the
environmental components and to emphasize that environment is becoming part of the
lead-in to the new Act, assuming that the new Bill C-26 goes through. He also
emphasized that modal shift and intermodalism are part of that new Straight Ahead
policy by the Government of Canada.
Robert Lyman went on to talk from Transport Canada about the greenhouse gas program
and the various initiatives that the Government of Canada is undertaking, as well as some
key trends in the overall greenhouse gas area.
Gord Owen from Environment Canada gave us the rest of the story on the other
emissions: the NOx, VOx, particulate matter and so on. He talked about the recent
trends in there – showed rail, how it stacked up and what kind of things that they may
have in mind in terms of reducing it. He emphasized that we would be moving in the
direction of, the objective to line up with the EPA standards in the U.S. I thought it was
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rather interesting, there, that the questioning very much focused on whether that, indeed,
were the case. In many cases, railways in Canada, because of the NAFTA economy, are
going to have to go to those standards in any event. But there were questions of the level
playing field and the policy back-drop, particularly capital cost allowances – I think
Barry Prentice raised that. A number of others did, as well.
After coffee break, Robert Taylor of my organization gave a very comprehensive analysis
of all of the emissions, greenhouse gas, NOx, SOx, VOx and PM’s and so on. In
particular he gave it in the context of overall surface freight transportation, and a very
extensive comparison to trucking. He emphasized that, with our agreement, we are very
much staying on track – the voluntary agreement that we have had with the Government
of Canada since 1995. He also emphasized, as did others, the extensive new technology
– interesting, innovative new technologies that are coming into play in rail.
Lee Jebb from Cando Contracting talked about challenges that shortlines are facing, and
that they run a very aggressive innovative shortline. I particularly liked his one phrase
that, “We’re competing and we’re competing with government.” He emphasized the fact
that trucking gets to run on publicly-funded infrastructure and the railways are
responsible for owning, maintaining and then have the privilege on top of that to pay
property taxes. So that was some very pointed arguments from a rail operator.
We moved on then, to discussion in the afternoon. Bob Fronczak from the AAR gave us
a run-down on the kinds of initiatives that not only the government is taking, but what the
AAR is doing as response in a number of areas. He talked, too, about the new
technologies and the kind of approaches the AAR is encouraging there. He talked about
government programs in the U.S. that we would just love to see in Canada and, in
particular, under T21 and others. A fascinating part of his discussion was the Smartway
approach and the strategy to encourage shippers to include rail so that they can claim
themselves and move into the green economy to meet their own environmental emissions
targets.
We moved on, then. Terry Judge gave us a fascinating presentation on the HotStart
technology, and when combined with SmartStart he showed some really interesting
results, which I think we will probably see more of in the coming months and years.
Then we moved on into this afternoon’s session. Chuck Moulis, U.S. Environmental
Protection Service, gave us a good outline of where the EPA has been in terms of setting
standards for rail. More interestingly, and maybe, more troublesome is where they intend
on going. It will be up to us and the railway industry, both government officials, as well
as industry officials themselves to watch that extremely closely. One of the concerns, I
think, that we would have is, what does it actually mean in terms of modal shift?
Finally, this afternoon, Harry Gow, as usual took us through a very broad extensive
review of other jurisdictions and what is happening. I always find Harry’s stuff very
interesting because it is not what we normally view on a day-to-day basis, and that was a
good, a very good cross-comparison. As usual, Harry brought it down and I would
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encourage you to go back to his three or four slides, he summarized the afternoon session
rather nicely in terms of where we need to go in Canada, in terms of what we can learn
from other jurisdictions and what we need to do in the immediate future. So, Harry, that
was a nice wrap-up. Better said than, I think, I could have done myself in these few
words.
I would also just comment on the degree of questioning. I thought that, unlike many
sessions, we are getting a certain number of good, interesting questions – pointed
questions. Nobody’s pulling any punches, which is really exceptional for a session like
this, and I would just encourage us to go on and do that over the next two days.
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SESSION 3 – TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCES AND BEST PRACTICES
Bill Rowat – Railway Association of Canada
Conference Chair
We had a good session yesterday and it looks like we have a number of interesting topics
and interesting speakers coming up today. We have the session this morning on
“Technological Advances and Best Practices.” This afternoon, we will address “Modal
Shift and Intermodal Transportation.” This afternoon we will end the day formally here
in our sessions and then we have a site tour of CN’s new intermodal terminal at
Symington Yards.
Grete Bridgewater – Environmental Policy and Regulations, Environmental Affairs
Canadian Pacific Railway
Session Chair
Good morning to you all. We have a very busy morning and are about to learn a lot
about the technological advances and all the opportunities ahead of us in the railway
industry. I would like to start this morning with welcome to Marti Lenz, who is here
from GM Electro-Motive, and we certainly look forward to your presentation.
Martha Lenz – Director, Engine and Engine Systems Design
GM Electro-Motive
Advances in Locomotive Engines – EMD’s SD70ACe Engine
It is a pleasure to be here today, representing GM Electro-Motive, at an important
conference, and on another beautiful day in Winnipeg! By now, most of you have
realized as you are looking in your binders, that there is not a copy of our presentation.
This is an oral presentation today. We are still having some debate at Electro-Motive of
exactly when we want to put into print what we are doing with our Tier 2 engine. So, I
will do the best that I can.
I should mention that in the world of emissions, it is the locomotive that is compliant; it is
not just the engine. In our case, we are talking about the SD70ACe locomotive, as some
of you have seen in our flyers which are available. My presentation will be on the engine
and we will go through the engine changes and some of the other changes that are
required for the locomotive to be compliant.
First of all I should point out that Electro-Motive has more than one engine line in this
size for this kind of a locomotive – we have both a two-stroke engine and a four-stroke
engine. The first thing that we had to do at EMD was to determine, in order to look
forward to the implementation of the new EPA standards for 2005, what engine did we
want to use? We were in a position where we had two engine designs that could meet
Tier 2 standards. We recognized that for our customers, cost is probably their number one
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focus and reliability is right up there, because if the product is not reliable, it is not going
to work. I think even though this is an emissions conference, that is probably very
important, because if the railroads are not successful, then this whole program will not be
successful.
We looked at our engines, at our choices, and we said, “For this product we should
choose the two-stroke engine, the 16-710, because it is proven to be reliable and
maintainable, it is accepted by the customers, it does not represent new technology and
new risks, and there is no need for new tools and new training. So the engine that we
have developed for the Tier 2 application is set up for this locomotive.
Salient points are that this locomotive will run 4,300 traction horsepower, and the engine
will run at 950 rpm. It does have electronic fuel injection. The DDEC 4 Controller – that
is our engine controller – is a new model from Detroit Diesel, that is what DDEC stands
for, Detroit Diesel Engine Controller. It has an air-start system, and I should pause for a
minute on Automatic-Engine Start-Stop. Yesterday, we heard a lot of great presentations
on HotStart and other systems. Our system does not circulate the oil and the water and
keep things warm, but there is a lot of monitoring with the technology available on-board
the locomotive to monitor the system and allow us to reduce idling time. That is a fuel
savings, and of course, of benefit to the customers. Lastly, of course, this engine will be
Tier 2 compliant.
How did we get here? I mentioned reliability and how it is very important to us. For this
audience, I will try to step through reliability changes quickly, but it is probably of use to
the audience here to understand what it takes to develop an engine for the market. We
will spend some time on the changes for Tier 2 emissions and then we will breeze
through the remaining presentation.
The 710 engine was introduced in 1985, and today it is a mature product. In the mid-90’s
we had introduced some new technologies such as electronic fuel injection and separate
after-cooling. We were having some problems with reliability on our units. So when I
talk to customers, of course, we go into detail, but this will give you an idea of the types
of things we work on, and the span of time that it takes to make an engine really
successful in the field. So, in 1997 we started working, as I mentioned:
•
•
•
•
We had introduced fuel injection, we had some problems with that, so there was a
fuel pump change.
We have been working on connecting rods and different parts of the power
assembly, on injector improvement, another liner improvement, and fuel jumper
lines.
Lower peak pressure, this is an interesting one. You will note that 2000 is when
Tier 0 came into effect, at least in the option that we selected as we were working
with the EPA. There is a benefit in emissions technology that typically reduces
the peak pressure of combustion, that is one of the keys to getting NOx down, and
that is a benefit from a reliability point of view.
Water drain valves, with separate after-cooling, after-cooler ducts.
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•
•
•
Improvements to the engine controller itself and more cooling system stuff,
sensors that go with them.
Another lower peak pressure, and in this case, this was Tier 1 coming in, in 2002,
also with another generation of separate after-cooling.
Valves, lash adjusters; again, power assembly components at the end here.
Now, obviously, we are not going into depth, but just to give you an idea. There is a lot
of ongoing work to keep engines reliable in locomotive applications. This has been a
successful engine for us. We have produced over 5,000 of them; about 2,000 of them are
in 70-series units. With the culmination of all that work, we have brought the reliability
of the engine itself, not the locomotive but the engine and the support systems, to a
reliability number of 600 days between road failures. Again, I know this is not a
reliability-focused conference, but that is important. That is approaching automotive
kinds of levels. That is over a year and a half between failures that affect the mission of
the locomotive. Considering the increased duty-cycle that you have with a locomotive
engine as compared to, say, your automobile, we are pretty proud of that fact. That
comes along and gives us this tremendous baseline to start with because, when you start
making changes for Tier 2, you have to introduce some changes, but every change
represents a reliability risk and you have to deal with that. So that is our baseline.
We will talk a little about emissions. Now, one of the speakers yesterday noted that, this
is starting to get redundant, so we will not spend a lot of time on the rule itself but, as you
know, the rule gets more stringent over time. I should comment, though that the EPA
levels for Tier 2 are comparable to the UIC II limits that we meet in Europe. One of the
things that we really appreciate about the approaches being taken here in Canada is to try
and keep things consistent because that allows us to target a similar product for the
different countries. With the emissions rule in the States, we are looking at maximums
for particulate matter, CO, hydrocarbons, and smoke. It will have to satisfy the
requirements for freight and switcher-duty cycles. That was all mentioned, I think,
yesterday. For an engine manufacturer, these issues are important: 45-105°F (apologize
for not converting it to Celsius), but that is quite a temperature spread; elevations up to
7,000 feet, when you get up in altitude there is not as much oxygen in the air and
combustion is quite a lot different at that level; the useful life of the locomotive, and there
are test requirements.
This engine has demonstrated its ability to meet the standard. Here we are being a little
bit vague, but yesterday it was mentioned, when Chuck Moulis (U.S. EPA) was speaking,
that in general all of the certifications for the locomotives have come in below the
standard. What is happening there is that the manufacturers are allowing for
deterioration, in terms of particulate matter and some of the other things over time, but
also the variation from unit to unit. What manufacturers do is: they select a target for
NOx and get their hardware set up how they want it, set everything at the NOx target, the
design target, and see where everything falls. Why is that important? For the other
items, particulate matter, hydrocarbons, CO and also for fuel efficiency, everything you
do to improve those items once you have your hardware selected deteriorates NOx. It is
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a balancing act. You cannot always get everything to move the same direction. Again,
we set up for NOx, and everything else falls where it is.
This engine has demonstrated an emissions performance significantly better than the Tier
2 standard. Now, this does not necessarily mean Tier 3 levels, although we have not
ruled that out. But this is important to our customers in the States, particularly the ones
that travel into California and into Texas because they have special agreements,
Memoranda of Understanding, that they are going to have fleet average before 2010, I
think, in the Los Angeles Basin of Tier 2. Well, if they are going to get a fleet average at
Tier 2, some of those units, if they could perform better than Tier 2, could help them out
a lot, but there is a trade-off for doing that. Once you have a hardware configuration
selected, you are going to do that by adjusting timing. That is a trade-off with fuel
efficiency. Again, our internal emissions targets were set to provide the best fuel
efficiency we could while meeting that standard.
The fuel efficiency projections for the SD70ACe Locomotive are near Tier 1 levels.
Yesterday, Chuck Moulis wanted to know if I would agree with him that there has not
been much of a penalty on fuel efficiency. Well, fuel efficiency is very important to the
railroads. The number one expense on the expense budget would be fuel. We know that
we have to continue working on fuel efficiency, but that does not come cheaply. Still, I
could agree with him. Our Tier 1 product is very fuel-efficient and, depending
locomotive model-to-model, your comparisons can be close to pre-Tier 0 levels, in some
cases.
The important point here – the 710 engine is an emissions-friendly engine. Now, this
comes as a surprise to a lot of our customers, particularly world-wide. In Europe and in
China specifically, the two-stroke engine is thought of by some people as a dirty engine.
Earlier this year, when we certified the 710 engine, in that case a 12-710 engine, for UIC
II limits, the people that were sent over to witness the test were just absolutely impressed
that this engine could achieve the levels that it does. Also, the trade-off between
emissions and fuel efficiency is pretty friendly compared to other engines. So, we have
not seen the point of diminishing returns yet, with this configuration. Fuel efficiency
though, we continue to work on as I said, and we will be working on the fuel efficiency
on the locomotive level beyond the initial introduction.
What did we have to do to make EPA Tier 2? Well, in this case, no new technology was
required. There is no after-treatment or any of those things. There is a list of things that
any diesel engine manufacturer has to address in order to work on either fuel efficiency
or emissions. These things are not new, it is all a matter of tweaking and controlling the
combustion event in the engine. So, you will be working with things like: turbo
matching, to get the air flow where you want it to be; oil carry-over; oil consumption;
camshaft timing; piston is very important, both the bowl shape and the compression ratio,
in some cases. We have the injector itself, when you get worrying about atomization and
spray. After-cooling, after-cooling, after-cooling – if there is anything in the emissions
world that is a benefit to an engine, it is after-cooling because this is one of the few things
that improves NOx and fuel efficiency. This is key, and that also gets to why it is the
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locomotive that is compliant, not the engine itself. Then you have your engine control
hardware and the locomotive control.
Tier 0 – we all know the Tier 0 standard was not as stringent. Tier 1 was harder, Tier 2
was even harder. Of course, you are only going to implement as many changes as you
need so you can see fewer changes for Tier 0, more for Tier 1, more tweaking for Tier 2,
and in each case, going back and re-evaluating all the items. None of those changes are
big and none of them are things that we have not looked at before. We are comfortable
with the level of change, but it is a lot of work, a lot of hard work, in trying to get that
package optimized just perfectly.
A significant spin-off of these programs, as I mentioned before, is the reductions in peak
pressure. From a pre-Tier 0 standard, this new configuration will bring us 15% below
where we had been. Peak pressure generates the cyclical loading on all the different
components in the engine, and that creates the fatigue cycles and those are the sorts of
things that create reliability problems for engines. Reducing the peak pressure reduces
the level of stress, and helps us with our reliability. In addition to those problems with
emissions there are some thermal inputs that are maybe a little bit more important than
what we have had in the past. So, we do have additional changes that are focused on
improving reliability on this unit.
I just want to touch quickly on the test program. Reliability is so important that you have
to go back and you have to prove it. A lot of rigorous analytical modeling and testing in
the test cells is necessary.
The test plan itself, we have three engines in test cells doing performance testing, two
durability sites with reliability growth testing that is going very, very well. We are about
half-way through our reliability growth test. Four locomotives that have been built, one
of them is in our engineering center in LaGrange, Illinois finishing up engine testing, and
three units are at the Transportation Technology Centre in Pueblo, Colorado where we
are doing some locomotive validation and also will be doing reliability growth testing.
Two of the units will continue on into altitude and tunnel testing and then, early in 2004,
we will be rolling out demonstrator locomotives. Another key point, though, back to the
concerns with reliability, is that everything that we did not change on the engine
continues to prove itself in actual railroad service on 5,000 units that are out there.
In summary, previous reliability improvements have generated large strides; again,
averaging 600 days between road failures. We have taken the technology and tweaked it
for Tier 2, derived from tuning Tier 1 technology, and we do have upgrades that will
further improve the reliability.
I mentioned earlier, how much Electro-Motive appreciates the opportunity to speak at
this forum, but also the approach that is being taken here, and want to emphasize that
anything that we can do to make things productive for the industry, environmentally
friendly but not onerous, is a benefit to us. We really appreciate the approach that
Canada is taking to try and make this practical and also consistent with the EPA so that
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we can maintain that flexibility for the railroads in terms of operation. But also for the
manufacturers, in terms of not having to make different products for different countries
and different types of paper work and certification. We feel that is working very well.
So, I would like to thank you for having me come and speak today.
Q: Terry Judge – Kim HotStart
Martha, that was a good presentation and I think the reliability factor is an important one
when it comes to emissions, especially when you are looking at your options to meet Tier
2, or even Tier 0 on a rebuilt kit. I found Chuck’s presentation interesting yesterday, his
second to the last slide, the EPA standards have some sticky things in them and one of
them Chuck talked about here. He said, “Failure to perform maintenance is considered
equivalent to tampering, which can result in heavy fines.” And to me, that says, “Well, if
you have got a reliable Tier 2 solution, you have less concerns about maintenance and
fines, as well as if you are looking at a Tier 0 rebuilt kit.” So, I think there is a bigger
connection there between the reliability in the EPA standards than maybe is first seen.
A: Martha Lenz, GM Electro-Motive
That is an excellent point because anything we can do to error proof things – you know,
‘If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,’ right? Just keep it rolling and it should be working okay
over the years.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
You have gone through the process of developing the engine to meet higher reliability to
Tier 2 and I guess you have obtained the EPA certification for Tier 2. If you had to do
that again, but with biodiesel instead of ASTM Diesel Number Two, what would be the
general things that you would have to do? Or any other alternate fuel?
A: Martha Lenz, GM Electro-Motive
Biodiesel question – right. The biodiesel and the different fuels, you get different
products out of combustion and, of course, not all biodiesel is the same. Actually, we are
very interested in trying some B-20 kind of fuel because we think that we can probably
roll that in with just very minor tweaks with the current configuration. If we were going
to try and do this with biodiesel on more like a B-80 level where it is 80% biodiesel and
maybe only some diesel fuel, we would have to significantly reconsider how we would
address that. Chances are, what we would have to do is some piston kind of changes,
some things internal to the combustion chamber, to tailor it to the burning of that fuel.
We have not done that yet, we have only dabbled with the thoughts of burning biodiesel.
As I said, we are interested in running that in our durability facility. We have not done
that at this point in time.
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Other kinds of alternate fuels, we have looked at some alternate fuels over the years, but
nothing recently. Lots of discussion yesterday on the sulphur levels and so forth, we
have engines running in Norway and in Sweden on low sulphur fuel and we have seen no
problems with them. There is a lubricity concern that some manufacturers have with the
lower sulphur fuels but, from a technical aspect, for our engine, we are comfortable but
we recognize the big cost increase, again, cost being very important to our customers.
Q: Bob Dunn – Consultant
You mentioned sulphur levels changing in the future, and it is going to happen as well in
Canada. One of the big things in Canada is, because of our climate, our fuels after they
have been hydro-treated, tend to be a lot harder than American fuels and lubricity could
become an issue in Canada. We are not quite sure where we are going on this, but with
500 ppm with hydro-treated fuels, it could become an issue. I just want to point that out.
If we move to 15 parts per million by 2010 or beyond, there may be some real serious
problems with very hard fuel, and particularly in Canada because of the climatic
conditions here, viscosity tends to be a lot lower.
A: Martha Lenz, GM Electro-Motive
Yes, there are always concerns in cold weather with viscosity and so forth and we have
had different applications on the locomotive where we put pre-heaters in and tank
warmers and so forth. It is an interesting combination between low sulphur and biodiesel
because one of the things biodiesel does for you is it does add back in the lubricity, and
there are other lubricity kind of additives that may have to be looked at.
Again, for our product, the lubricity does not seem to be a tremendous issue and there is
an advantage from an engine manufacturer’s perspective to get the sulphur out because it
does create sulphuric acid and so forth, which can be corrosive. So what we see so far, is
beneficial.
Eric Panet-Raymond – Director, Marketing and Product Planning, High-Speed Rail
Bombardier Transportation
JetTrain High-Speed Locomotive Environmental Assessment
Thank-you, everyone. I was going through the list of speakers yesterday and I realized I
am probably going to be the only one talking about passenger rail. I know Harry Gow,
yesterday, talked maybe, let’s say, 50-50 on passenger and freight. I will try to do 100%
on passenger rail.
I have essentially three topics I would like to cover. The first one is addressing the North
American high-speed rail needs. The important point here is that the North American
environment is very different from the European environment and we need a different
approach. Then I will talk about, the JetTrain locomotive, which is a product we
developed to meet this need and finally explain why we think the JetTrain technology is
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environmentally friendly and what it can do on the case study that we have done on the
Quebec City-Windsor corridor.
To start a little bit on Bombardier. Of course, our new CEO is very familiar to most of
you in the room. Paul Tellier, formerly CEO of CN, became CEO of Bombardier in
January. So the picture you see here is changing. This was for the fiscal year, which
ended in January 2003. At the time, we had essentially four main divisions: two large
ones that were aerospace and transportation, recreational products was the third one, and
capital, which is essentially financing, the fourth one. We have since then announced we
would be selling the recreational products division to focus mainly on aerospace and
transportation.
If we talk about transportation, a lot of people may not realize but Bombardier
Transportation is actually the largest rail manufacturer and service provider world-wide:
36,000 employees, a presence in 24 countries, 54 manufacturing sites, $9.4 billion
Canadian dollars in revenues and an order backlog of $25.7 billion.
A little bit of background on the North American high-speed rail market. A few years
ago the FRA and a lot of people in the industry realized that a new approach was needed
to address the specific needs of this market. So far everything that had been done was to
try to bring European technologies to North America, but of course, the market is
completely different. There are different sets of regulations and, as Harry pointed out
yesterday, the market is mainly a freight market whereas in Europe it is a passenger
market. The FRA launched what it called the “Next Generation High-Speed Rail
Program” and the objectives were to develop, demonstrate and validate cost-effective,
and this is very important, high-speed passenger rail technology to operate on existing
infrastructures. There was no more building new right-of-way and fully dedicated tracks.
They wanted to reduce upgrade costs for high-speed rail and make proven technologies
and methods available to States for high-speed rail implementation. So, clearly
straightforward objectives, but which also have a very large impact on the market.
Some of the barriers that prevented, in our minds at least, the market from growing,
because essentially North America is the only place in the world where you did not have
high-speed rail for passenger service, were:
•
•
•
•
There was no product that met the North American standards. Now the JetTrain
meets all of these requirements. The Tier 2 requirements here do not refer to the
EPA Tier 2. These are FRA/APTA which is the regulatory body for passenger
rail standards. So they are mainly standards that deal with crash worthiness.
The price tag for dedicated electrified right-of-way was cost prohibitive. Now we
are able to do it running on existing tracks. Actually, the JetTrain allows higher
speeds for 25-33% of the cost of new right-of-way and electrification.
Speed advantage of air travel. Traveling at 150 miles per hour, the train becomes
competitive with air for, say, city pairs of 600 kilometres or less apart.
Flexibility advantage of car travel – of course, train service offers downtown-todowntown service.
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•
•
Competing freight railway requirements. This was always an issue and part of the
debate. If you upgrade the infrastructure, it benefits both because you can offer
passenger service as well as increase the capacity for freight.
One of the main roadblocks that we saw was that there was no proven track
record in North America of making passenger rail successful. The ACELA
service was introduced in 2000, and by 2001 had proven to be quite successful
with riders. Actually, in the Northeast corridor, between Boston, New York and
Washington, it has about 50% market share with air.
Let’s talk a little bit about the JetTrain, which was developed a few years ago. As I
mentioned, Bombardier took a look at the FRA Next Generation High-Speed Rail and
decided to develop this product. This was developed in cooperation with the FRA at a
cost of $26 million U.S., which was shared 50-50 between Bombardier and the FRA. It
was the first non-electric high-speed product developed specifically for the North
American market. Again, not trying to take a European technology and just adapt it. It is
powered by a turbine. It meets all the FRA noise-level requirements as well as EPA.
It uses a Pratt & Whitney turbine, 5,000 horsepower. I do not think I need to explain to
you how it works. The turbine that we have in it right now is actually a turbine that has
flown over 441,000 kilometres. It meets all of the FAA, the Federal Aviation Agency
requirements, which I am sure you can imagine are pretty stringent. It uses standard
diesel to run. Of course, being a turbine, it can take any fuel, but since diesel is readily
available, we figured it might be the more easy solution for this.
In terms of noise level, as I said, it meets all of the FRA requirements. It actually even
meets the 100-feet requirement at 50 feet. So it is an extremely quiet technology.
It is the fastest non-electric locomotive in North America. It can run at 150 mph or 240
kilometres an hour. It was tested at 156 miles per hour at the Transportation Test Centre
in Pueblo, Colorado. It can accelerate twice as fast as conventional rail. It has shorter
braking distance and advanced tilting technology to increase passenger comfort in curves.
So, all of these elements are really designed to minimize trip time which is key for
passenger service if you want to attract ridership. As a comparison, because of the power
of the turbine, one turbine can essentially achieve the same speed as two traditional
locomotives could in the past. Of course, if you put two then you can reach the 150 miles
per hour.
In terms of its impact on the infrastructure, the main advantage of this over what has
previously been tried is that you can run the JetTrain immediately and then you can
gradually upgrade the infrastructure. In the past, you would have had to completely build
the infrastructure, electrify the entire line before you could start service. We are probably
talking about anywhere between five and ten years, most likely around 7-10 years to do
this. With the JetTrain, because it uses existing infrastructure, it can start right away, and
it reduces the cost to start such a service.
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As a comparison, Bombardier was involved in a project a few years ago to try to
implement European technology in the Quebec City-Windsor corridor. At the time, the
price was estimated at $12 billion, which would represent roughly $16 billion in today’s
dollars. By comparison, to implement the JetTrain in a similar type of corridor, 600
kilometres or so, would require $3.3 billion, including the infrastructure upgrade as well
as the rolling stock.
Why do we think JetTrain is environmentally friendly. The JetTrain meets all of the EPA
requirements at the power requirements that are typical for the application. If you look at
Figure 3.1, the curves you see are typical curves for turbines – they are not the same as
diesel engines would have. But, if you do, Montreal-Toronto or Calgary-Edmonton, you
will see that the total emissions for the trip meet all the requirements.
Figure 3.1 JetTrain Emission Levels
JetTrain emission levels
Emission rates vs power
NOx
Emission rates (g/bhp/hr)
5,00
4,00
3,00
2,00
CO
1,00
HC
0,00
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
Available power (SHp)
Let’s take the Quebec City-Windsor corridor, to give you an idea of what the JetTrain
could do on this corridor. If we consider only inter-city travel, and this is only passenger
traffic, 24 million inter-city trips annually between the various cities along the corridor, 8
billion passenger kilometres traveled. If we look specifically at Montreal and Toronto,
up to 150,000 cars per day on the 40 around Montreal, and up to 400,000 per day on the
401 around Toronto. The average vehicle spacing on the 401 is 6 car-lengths or less.
This is average for the year.
Now, if we compare the JetTrain emissions and fuel consumption with that of a car,
JetTrain consumes 59% on a per-passenger basis of the level that a car would consume,
and emits 60% of what a car, again on a per-passenger basis, would emit. If we bring all
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of this to what could happen if the JetTrain were implemented in the Quebec CityWindsor corridor, you see that the total emissions before implementation, status quo,
were 1.8 million tonnes, and with the introduction of JetTrain and the mode shift that
would follow this, it would drop by 6% to 1.7 million. If you look only at the MontrealToronto-Ottawa, which is denser than the rest of the corridor, then you are looking at a
9% reduction. If you focus only on Montreal-Toronto, you can actually achieve a 12%
reduction, and this is traffic only traveling Montreal to Toronto, again this is all due to a
mode shift.
As you implement high-speed rail, it becomes an attractive alternative for travelers. A lot
of people rather than take their cars, will take the train if they can do the trip much faster.
The target here for what JetTrain could do on the Montreal-Toronto corridor would be 3
hours, if we assume 150 miles per hour travel. That becomes very competitive with other
modes for a downtown-to-downtown service. It is generally agreed that a mode shift is a
quick-win in terms of reducing emissions, and introduction of high-speed rail is clearly a
mode shift.
In conclusion, we think JetTrain can be an attractive and environmentally friendly
solution for inter-city travel. It can reduce GHG emissions, and is energy efficient on a
per-passenger basis. It is less intrusive, makes use of existing infrastructure, no need for
electrification, which tends to have an extremely high cost , anywhere between $3 and $4
million per mile, and makes less noise. It is as quiet as electric trains, even at maximum
speed and it actually makes less noise than diesel trucks.
Thank-you for your attention.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000 Canada
Transport 2000 has tracked the progress of this project carefully and we have advocated
for its adoption, that is the JetTrain proposal with the $3 billion expenditure. In the dying
days of the Chrétien government and in the morose atmosphere of the Standing
Committee on Transport at the House of Commons, we find that it will be more difficult
to get the full amount, but there are stories that perhaps a few hundred million dollars
more might become available for at least, we would hope, some key upgrades to get
people around the traffic at Coteau, for example, on the CN line and maybe bring them in
on another line, that kind of thing. Those are incremental upgrades. Would this
locomotive thrive in an incremental upgrade environment, as opposed to a $3 billion allsinging, all-dancing one?
A: Eric Panet-Raymond, Bombardier Transportation
I guess a quick answer is, yes. As you said, the $3 billion that has been talked about is
supposedly for the full project. The advantage of the JetTrain is that it does not
necessarily need the full upgrade. So, as soon as you start to upgrade, you can increase
the speed. Of course, the speed will be limited by the infrastructure, so if you can only,
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let’s say, upgrade 20% of the infrastructure, then you can reach your maximum speed on
20% of the infrastructure. The equipment is certainly designed to run on any existing
infrastructure. So, it could still benefit from whatever amount gets approved.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000 Canada
The supplementary question is: VIA has a fair amount of rolling stock now, which is
designed for higher speeds than classic North American equipment was in the past. One
only has to think of the LRC cars, which are used in a modified form, on the ACELA.
Those are cars that are somewhat similar to the Canadian LRC cars. One can think of the
somewhat criticized but excellent channel-tunnel stock that we have purchased for the
Renaissance Program. Those things, for instance, have triple-disc brakes. They have
probably the safest car bodies in North America and they have the most comfortable ride
of anything I have ridden on in Canada. Would the JetTrain locomotive or power car be
compatible at the foreseen speeds with these cars or would further upgrades to the
vehicles, particularly referring here to the Renaissance equipment, be needed?
A: Eric Panet-Raymond, Bombardier Transportation
It could be, of course it is a power car that can pull any coaches, but as far as I know, and
I do not know all the details on the Renaissance cars, but I think they are still limited to
100 miles per hour. So, if you want to get the maximum speed, you would need more the
ACELA-type coaches which are designed for 150 miles per hour.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000 Canada
They may be limited to 100 miles an hour in Canada, but in Britain they were designed
for at least 125, in my understanding. No modern British railway coach is designed for
less. My suspicion is that they are designed for higher than that. Now, between that and
what the safety people do to a good train set in North America is usually horrific.
Q: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
With respect to the evolution and the development of the JetTrain and paralleling the
development of the prototype LRC equipment, the last phase of the LRC testing was to
put the locomotive and the coach in daily operational service for about a year. It went
from Toronto to London, just being operated at the conventional track speed. Is there a
plan for such a similar road-worthiness evaluation? Could you elaborate on that?
A: Eric Panet-Raymond, Bombardier Transportation
There is one. The JetTrain was actually tested between Montreal and Ottawa for about 3
weeks or so, around the spring. There is more extensive testing that is actually part of the
agreement with the FRA; there is a revenue demonstration program that is part of the
whole development agreement. So this will be starting probably early next year. We still
need to work out some details with the FRA and with Amtrak on where we would do it
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and under what conditions. I do not know if it is going to be a full year, but there will be
some more testing done.
Arnold Miller – President
Vehicle Projects, LLC
The Fuelcell Locomotive Project
Well, it is a pleasure to be here. My company has done business over many years with
Canada. Our initial projects were in underground mining, fuelcell powered mining
vehicles, and so we have worked a lot with the Government of Canada, in particular
CANMET, a national laboratory within Natural Resources Canada, and then many
mining companies. Most of them are in Toronto or Vancouver.
Anyway, we are back and for a different reason, and that is fuelcell locomotives, mainly
for surface applications but also for underground applications such as subways. This
project is funded presently by the U.S. Department of Defense and I will explain a little
bit later why they are funding it.
We are located in downtown Denver, we have a suite of offices and share the facility also
with the Fuelcell Propulsion Institute. The two organizations work cooperatively and in a
complementary way. They are independent, completely independent companies. The
Fuelcell Propulsion Institute is a non-profit corporation; Vehicle Projects is a limited
liability company. If there are companies here that would be interested in being in this
organization, then I would be very pleased to talk to you about that. Basically it is an
advocacy group for fuelcell industrial vehicles in different industries. To date, it is
mainly in underground mining but that is very rapidly expanding into rail transportation.
The other is Vehicle Projects, and I am actually President of both of these and I am
representing them both here today. Vehicle Projects is the organization that usually
conceives of the project and then organizes it. There are usually large international
consortia to execute such a project. It appropriates the money through lobbying,
primarily. Then it manages the international consortia that execute the project tasks.
This is not an up-to-date list but gives an idea of the members of the Fuelcell Propulsion
Institute. Caterpillar, Inco headquatered in Toronto, Lonmin in South Africa, Newmont
(gold-mining), Noranda, Placer Dome. We also have, the BNSF Railway Company,
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, also General Motors, EMD is interested in joining us and I
think that will happen very soon. So this organization is non-profit, it has a Board of
Directors. Each member, which is an institution, has a seat on the Board. I just wanted
to point out that most of these are in mining and that is because of the fact that we have
worked to date in mining, but we will see very soon many more members that represent
the rail industry.
I want to give you a little bit of background on the technology. I want to show you both
of these mine vehicles that we have built, or one of them is in the middle of being built.
These are fuelcell powered. There is a locomotive for underground mining, small
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locomotive, it is only 4 tons, 4 English tons. This was originally a battery locomotive, so
the traction drive and so forth was essentially unchanged. There was a very large traction
battery, a lead acid battery that was removed and replaced by the fuelcell power plant.
The fuelcells are very small. Fuelcells are quite power dense, more so than diesels. Then
there is fuel storage which is a kind you may not be familiar with called metal hydride
storage. It is a very safe and compact way of storing hydrogen. Basically, you store
hydrogen within the crystal structure of a metal. Hydrogen is so small that it can actually
occupy “holes” in a metal, in the interstices.
We also have the hydrogen production plant. There is an electrolyzer, this is also done
by a Canadian company, Stewart Energy in Toronto, they were a partner in this project.
The locomotive itself was actually Canadian; the other parts are not. The power plant for
that locomotive is broken down into its two major components. You have energy
storage, this is a metal hydride system. The metal hydrides store hydrogen not by
pressure. It does not really matter what the pressure is, this is quite low; this is all
aluminum. There is the fuelcell, the power part of the power plant and there are the
fuelcell stacks.
I am certain, since most of you here are Canadians, know about fuelcells. There has been
a tremendous push by the Government of Canada to stimulate the fuelcell industry here
and it has been very successful. So we will go under the assumption that you know about
them. For the vehicle in Figure 3.2, the fuel cell stacks are made in Italy, the fuel cell is
made by Nuvera. Surface testing was completed in Reno, Nevada. The sound it makes is
very quiet, it is mostly the track noise you hear. It was a cold day in Reno during the
testing and you can see the water vapour exhaust. The water produced by a fuelcell is
comparable to the amount produced by an engine in a car and so on a cold day, just as
you see in a car, you see a plume of water vapour. Normally you do not see any water or
anything.
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Figure 3.2 Surface Tests in Reno
This is another project. It is about halfway through and I will go through this very
quickly. Figure 3.3 is a loader for underground mining. It is a larger vehicle, small, of
course, compared to locomotives, but 23 metric tonnes. It is actually 150 kilowatts of
maximum power. It is a fuelcell battery hybrid. The fuelcell, itself, is rated at 90
kilowatts continuous but the batteries are rated at 60 kilowatts peak power. We are in
Phase 2 now, the vehicle is essentially designed. I would like to point out also that the
Canadian Government has been very generous in funding both this project and in funding
the mine locomotive. The following are in U.S. dollars but we are in this Phase, we will
start February 1st – so it is about $3.6 million U.S., 50% cost-shared. Part of this costshare, well, half of this $1.8 million was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy; part
of the balance of this was provided by the Government of Canada, as well as our
corporate partners – the mining industry.
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Figure 3.3 Loader for Metal Mining
Figure 3.4 is a CAD, 3-dimensional CAD of this loader. There is the engine
compartment and the chassis. We have a vehicle at Caterpillar Approving Grounds in
Peoria, Illinois, and the engine has either been removed already or will be replaced with
these components. What is interesting is that the whole area would be a diesel engine,
but fuelcells are the very small blue boxes, and are quite power dense. On the other hand,
the orange tanks, which are being provided by another of our Canadian partners, HERA,
Hydrogen Storage Systems in Montreal, it is rather larger. So that is a trade-off in
fuelcell vehicles compared to internal-combustion engine vehicles. If you compare the
engine with a fuelcell, the fuelcell is smaller. It is more power-dense, substantially more
than diesels. But the energy storage, the fuel tank is larger, but overall there is no
problem and it packages OK. It is just different so you have to design around these
characteristics. Metal hydride storage, as I mentioned, is quite compact for hydrogen
storage. It is actually the most compact in terms of the volume required to store a given
amount of hydrogen. It is also safe.
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Figure 3.4 Powerplant Packaging of Mine Loader
Fuelcell system control
Power electronics
Hydride storage
Loader chassis
Fuelcell
Fuelcell stacks
(dark blue)
(dark blue)
Now let’s go to the subject at hand here: the US Army, or the Department of Defense,
locomotive. This project just started in May; the contract was signed the 27th of May.
We do have the vehicle, in fact it is number 4645, it is a GP18, so it is a fairly old
vehicle, it was given to us by the army. They have it in Utah and it is being refurbished.
It will be like new when it is finished, when it is completed. Now the Army calls all of
their vehicles GP10’s, all the EMD ones, but in the commercial world, it would be a
GP18.
The objectives are to develop the world’s first fuelcell-powered locomotive for surface
haulage, demonstrate the locomotive in a Department of Defense non-tactical application
and facilitate commercialization of fuelcell power for rail transportation. The locomotive
will be somewhat updated in its appearance, although the army colours, red and yellow,
will continue. The Department of Defense has a very enlightened view of this project
and many of you probably know about this concept of dual-use technology development.
The idea of this is that it can be justified for the military to do research and development
if what they do has both applications to the military and to the commercial world. Well,
they have had some outstanding successes in this, two are right here: the Internet and
GPS. Those were both developed as R&D projects by the Department of Defense. Then
this one, of course has been turned over completely to the private sector and this one
(GPS) is still controlled by the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense
seeks similar success in fuelcell vehicles.
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The project has four phases. We just started, as I said. We used the same kind of
technology in both the mine locomotive and the mine loader, it is PEM fuelcells, those
are the same kind that Ballard, for instance makes and Hydrogenics in Toronto. Ours
were made by Nuvera. It is actually based and headquartered in Cambridge,
Massachusetts, but the stacks are made in Milan. It is a very experienced company and
we are very pleased. They have metal bi-polar plates for those of you who know about
fuelcells and that is a very rugged and compact method. Then we have also used a metal
hydride storage, which I mentioned. But we are going back to a clean sheet of paper on
this one and considering other ways of doing it, fuel is a very important issue in rail
transportation. There is not going to be a universal solution. What may work for freight
may not be appropriate for a subway system. We are looking at fuels such as: hydrogen,
compressed hydrogen, liquid hydrogen, metal hydrides, feed stocks can give you
hydrogen by processing on-board the vehicle: methanol is a good example, liquid
ammonia is under consideration, and hydrocarbons and different fuelcell types. PEM is
the type we have used, proton-exchange membrane, solid oxide and phosphoric acid,
those are the three that are most actively under consideration. This will be decided
probably in November of this year what it will be.
The second phase is power plant fabrication, but this actually has been changed
somewhat. The next phase is integration of the power plant into the locomotive. The
final phase is a demonstration in a non-tactical application.
In Phase 1 of the project there are about 20 partners. There are too many to enumerate
and acknowledge, although we are very happy with all of them. I do want to just
acknowledge a few that we take very special pride in and which have a very special role,
and these are the end-users. This project is designed from the very beginning to be
customer-pulled, rather than pushed by technologists or otherwise. We have the BNSF
Railway Company as a project participant, the New York City Transit, the subway
system of New York City, Regional Transportation District of Denver, and a Japanese
organization we expect to join us very soon, they will be at our next meeting in October.
That is RTRI, and they will represent passenger rail, high-speed rail.
Figure 3.5 is a CAD drawing, a preliminary one of the vehicle GP18. This was a baseline
study just to show that this is possible, that you can package this new technology into a
locomotive. Well, you can package it quite readily; in fact, there is room to spare. This
uses the same technology that we have used for our other fuelcell industrial vehicles, the
mine locomotive and the mine loader. You have the metal hydride storage, this stores
400 kilograms of hydrogen at very low pressure. It is essentially not hydrogen, it is a
metal hydride, it is a solid material actually. The nice thing about this design is that it is
modular. This is one megawatt of continuous power, that would be about 1,300
horsepower, but that is continuous. Engines are rated by maximum power so this would
be capable of possibly 2,000 horsepower maximum, for a short period of time. Just like
electric motors, there is capability of overload.
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Figure 3.5 Design Study of Fuelcell Locomotive
So each of these modules, there are eight, are 125 kilowatts, and these are each a standalone module. So, 8 times 125 is 1,000. If this were a commercial vehicle and there
were some failures in the field, you could just come in and take out one of these modules
and replace it, or you could run on seven, you could run on six, you could probably get
home on three. So we think this is an advantage, the inherent modular nature of a fuelcell
power plant. The other advantages of fuelcells of course are zero emissions, same when
you use hydrogen, you would have low emissions in other cases, very low. It is quiet, it
is efficient, possibly twice as efficient as an engine-powered vehicle as a rule of thumb.
But you do have an analogue of the Carnot limit, thermodynamic limit, that you have in
heat engines, but it is much higher than what the Carnot theorem says for heat engines.
Now, the BNSF Railway has 5,000 locomotives. They spend one billion dollars a year
on fuel, that is U.S. dollars. This is more than the U.S. Navy. If they could save 10 or
20% by increased fuel efficiency, you would have $100-200 million savings just on that,
and that does not take into account compliance with environmental regulations or any of
the other advantages that fuelcell vehicles can provide. So we think the driving force of
this will be efficiency and environmental quality.
This just continues to show the enlightened position that the Department of Defense is
taking on this project. We are going to demonstrate one particular locomotive on an
army base; it will be in the State of Nevada, but this is a spring-board to other projects.
There is a utility locomotive in subway systems. You have to shutdown the third rail
when you do maintenance because people cannot work around that safely. So they have
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to use either battery locomotives, or diesel locomotives. This is not good because there is
no ventilation system in a subway, except for the trains moving through and you do not
have that when you are doing maintenance. There is a Siemens light-rail vehicle in
Denver. Also, there is a GE locomotive on BNSF. And there is an ICE. Now these are
in order of difficulty of commercialization and we are not proposing that
commercialization is going to be immediate. But, as you probably know, the first are
about 16 megawatts of power for an ICE. The others are not actually all that bad. These
are only three trains in a set, but they are 1.8 megawatts. The last is about 3-4 megawatts.
Figure 3.6 diagrams what the 15-year plan is. This is not commercialization and I am
quick to point this out. These are demonstrations that we think are important,
demonstration projects that will be the beginning of commercialization paths. So, right
here, right now, and this projects on to about a five-year project going near the end of
2007. This is the order which we believe commercialization would make sense, and this
would be the order in which demonstrations would occur.
Figure 3.6 Follow-on Projects and Commercialization Paths
2003
DoD locomotive
2008
Subway utility loco
Yard switcher
2013
Commuter, light rail,
subway
Heavy freight
2018
High-speed
High-speedrail
rail
Major benefits of this project once it has been brought to commercialization are:
•
•
•
•
increase the energy efficiency of the transportation sector,
increase national energy security by reducing dependency on imported oil,
Canada is in a very good position with your hydro-electric power, in producing
hydrogen,
improved environmental quality, and
position project partners as leaders in advanced rail transportation.
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My last point is acknowledgement of our partners or funders, in this case. These are
funders we have had for all these projects I have mentioned – the mine locomotive, mine
loader and the current army locomotive:
•
•
•
•
•
The U.S. Department of Energy, Hydrogen Program,
The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Industrial Technologies,
Natural Resources Canada,
U.S. Department of Defense,
And our many corporate cost-share funders, in particular the mining industry of
Canada.
Q: Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Most of my familiarity with hydrogen fuelcell vehicles suggests that the storage systems
are high-pressure hydrogen. I am interested in your focus on the hydride storage systems
and what your refueling rates are. How long is it out of service to refuel the storage
pack?
A: Arnold Miller, Vehicle Projects
For the mine locomotive, it was close to an hour to refuel it, of course that was a lot faster
than recharging a battery. For the mine loader, the plan right now is ten minutes. What
limits the rate of refueling of a metal hydride system is the rate of removal of heat. It is
pretty much unrelated to pressure, so I think it could be comparable, probably somewhat
longer than diesel, refueling a diesel, but a reasonable amount of time, 10 to 20 minutes.
Q: Malcolm Cairns – Canadian Pacific Railway
What sort of infrastructure would a railway need to have in place in order to be able to
refuel a locomotive across a network as large as the CP?
A: Arnold Miller, Vehicle Projects
Well, that is a very good question. Depends on the fuel, of course. One could imagine
using existing diesel fuel infrastructure that railroads have and then you can reform diesel
fuel, it is a technology that works. I would not call that a mature technology, there is still
certain problems with it, but you can produce hydrogen from diesel fuel, that is one way
of doing it. The hydrogen could be produced off-board the vehicles along the track and
then transferred to the vehicle when it needed to be refueled. There are others, it depends
on the fuel. One of my favourites is nuclear power production of hydrogen. You can
make it electrolytically, have no greenhouse gas emissions whatsoever. Most of the
hydrogen in the world today is made from natural gas, and that does produce greenhouse
gas, CO2, as a by-product. Since you have a greater efficiency of fuelcell vehicles, and it
could be as high as twice as efficient, I should say, as an engine, then you need half as
much fuel and half as much greenhouse gases, even if it is CO2.
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Your question is really a complex one and there are many answers. There is probably no
universal solution. But it could be, using electrolysis you would rely on the grid. You
could also rely on the natural gas pipeline system and reform natural gas where you
needed it to produce hydrogen. Or you could have these, well, for example, if you use
methanol as a fuel, you can use that on-board the locomotive, and then do the reforming
on-board. You have to produce hydrogen but it is just produced in small amounts as you
need it. But there you have a liquid fuel, and the infrastructure could be similar to what
you have presently for diesel fuel; it would be a liquid under low pressure, ambient
pressure. I hope that starts answering your very good and very complicated question.
Erika Akkerman – Environmental Systems Engineer
CN
Correlation of Reductions in Emission to Changes in Operating Practices:
Successes and Lessons Learned
We are going to basically take a look at the past. Over the last decade we have been able
to reduce emissions by about 7% while increasing our traffic by about 21%. This
presentation looks at some of the factors that have contributed to achieving those results.
The primary initiatives have been: modernization in the locomotive fleet, operational
improvements, and locomotive upgrades.
Emission Trends
NOx emissions are a function of overall fuel consumption. Emissions have remained
relatively constant through the early ‘90’s then suddenly drop between ’97 through ’99.
The two primary reasons for this decline are:
1) In 1995, CN was privatized, which brought about operational efficiencies,
including scheduled railroading and utilization of longer and heavier trains.
2) In 1996, CN implemented a program of fleet renewal and started replacing older
locomotives with new, more efficient and higher-power units.
What factors drove the fleet renewal? The latter half of the last decade saw significant
rises in fuel prices. In an effort to offset rising fuel costs, CN looked to modernize its
locomotive fleet, replacing aging locomotives such as GP38’s, GP40’s and SD40’s with
newer, higher horsepower, and more fuel-efficient units such as SD70’s, 75’s and the
dash 8’s and 9’s. With the addition to the fleet of newer, higher horsepower locomotives,
the number of locomotives per train could be reduced from three mid-power locomotives
to two higher horsepower locomotives with the same or better results with respect to
emissions.
However, this does not tell all the news. When looking at NOx emissions alongside
GTM’s, for the same period that NOx emissions fell, GTM’s increased by over 15%. Net
efficiency, in terms of NOx emissions per GTM, has shown dramatic improvements,
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particular over the last 5-6 years. Put in other terms, despite increased traffic, we have
managed to improve fleet operational efficiency by over 20%.
Locomotive Fleet Composition
Let’s look a little deeper at why we have achieved some of these improvements. In the
period from 1995 through 1999, CN retired about 328 locomotives. In the same period,
343 new locomotives have been added. If we look at the whole fleet, including the U.S.,
the spread would be even greater because a lot of our new locomotives went to the IC in
the States. Of significance is the net power distribution. The majority of the locomotives
removed from service were 3,000 horsepower or less, while most of the new additions
were in the 4,000 horsepower class. For example, in 1996, 105 4,300 horsepower
SD75’s were added to the fleet, while 61 locomotives of lower power 3,000 horsepower
or less, were removed.
What has this change in fleet composition done to our operations? For the most part, it
has reduced the number of locomotives required to pull a given train, which means less
fuel is needed to pull the same tonnage. The efficiencies are not only a function of the
reduced number of locomotives but also a function of the efficiency of the motive power,
with the older locomotives having significantly higher fuel consumption ratings than the
new locomotives added.
The overall trend, since 1990, has been to renew CN’s locomotive fleet. With the
exception of a small rise in 1997 through 1999, we have held constant at slightly over
800 road freight locomotives throughout CN’s Canadian network. What has changed
dramatically is the composition of the fleet, which now consists of nearly 50% newer,
more powerful and more fuel-efficient locomotives.
Also to emphasize the effect of the fleet renewal, if we pay particular attention to the fuel
graph, we see a significant reduction in fuel consumption starting in 1997. This
correlates with the introduction of a large number – 105 – of new locomotives in the
same period. Please note that the same period saw continuous growth in CN’s GTM’s.
As we were looking at fleet renewal, we were also looking at expanding rail traffic and
winning back customers that were lost to the trucking industry. Fuel was an issue for
both industries, but with rail being more efficient and CN making these savings available
to its customers, it was a factor in the increase in traffic.
Operational Improvements
As mentioned earlier, efficiencies have also been achieved through operational
improvements. These are primarily categorized into four main areas:
•
•
•
•
train handling, or locomotive operations,
rail gauge face lubrication,
freight car productivity, and
train length versus locomotive power.
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Improvements in train handling
Improvements in train handling, specifically in terms of power application and
improvements in the way we use dynamic braking have contributed to lower NOx
emissions. Also a factor is the use of longer sidings. By timing train meets, trains can
continue to move slowly along the siding without actually having to stop. The use of
dynamic brakes is not new. Many of the older locomotives, such as the GMD SD40-2’s,
have been equipped with dynamic braking for several decades. However, the way they
are used, as well as the braking effect realized from them has changed. The “old” method
of braking saw limited use of dynamic braking combined with simultaneous use of train
brakes. The idea was to keep enough tractive effort in force to prevent the train from
bunching under braking. Essentially, brakes would be applied to the cars while the
throttle was kept on the locomotives to not only maintain speed but to keep pressure in
the air hoses. In the mid-90’s, with improvements to dynamic braking in the new
locomotives, as well as operational changes, the use of dynamic brakes has increased.
Trains now achieve a higher percentage of braking through the use of dynamic braking
than ever before. The increased use of dynamic braking means that power is removed
from the train earlier and to a greater effect, thus reducing fuel consumption by up to
10%. As an added benefit, there is less wear on the wheels as well as the brake shoes.
Rail gauge face lubrication
Rail gauge face lubrication is another operational improvement. This involves the
periodic lubrication of the flange of train axle sets, primarily in areas with curves. The
increase in rolling friction through a curve is primarily due to the increase in the lateral
force component, which pulls the wheel against the gauge side of the rail, resulting in the
flange rubbing against the rail face and increasing the wheel’s rolling resistance. This is
often characterized by the high-pitch squealing that is often heard in trains negotiating
curve sections of track, which I believe was mentioned yesterday. It has been estimated
that 1-2% of fuel can be lost due to these frictions. Lubrication of the inner track face
reduces the friction, and subsequently reduces the amount of power required to maintain
speed through the curve, thus reducing fuel and NOx emissions.
Freight Car Productivity
Maximizing car capacities means fewer cars need to be used to move a given tonnage of
train. The significance is that fewer cars means fewer axles, fewer axles means less net
friction, which also translates into reductions in fuel consumption. The empty car
movements, I think that is pretty much self-explanatory, fewer of those means that you
are getting more productivity.
Train length to locomotive power
The availability of different power combinations realized by mixing new locomotives
with older units means that horsepower can be more closely matched to tonnage
requirements, and thus reducing wasted power output.
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Locomotive Upgrades
The older GM locomotives typically idle at around 315 rpm and consume about 4.5
gallons per hour of fuel. By changing the settings in the governor, the idle speed can be
reduced to about 275 rpm, which reduces the fuel consumption to about 3.5 gallons per
hour. On the newer locomotives (710 engine, 4,000 horsepower), the idle speed can be
reduced to about 200 rpm with fuel consumption going down to about 2.5-3 gallons per
hour.
Automatic start/stop systems shutdown locomotives if certain conditions are met,
including sitting for a period of time. However, being shutdown for an extended period
can create problems particularly in colder climates as locomotives use water and not
glycol for cooling as, again, was mentioned yesterday. This is where the autostart feature
comes into play. Systems such as water temperature, charging the battery and air
pressure are monitored. When any of these get to a point where they would cause
problems during start-up, the system will start up the locomotives to be able to recharge
the systems. The auto start/stop systems can also be combined with auxiliary power
units, which are essentially small generators that start up instead of the large locomotive
generator and serves the same function, but uses less fuel and produces fewer emissions
than a locomotive engine at idle.
Challenges
Some of the challenges we are faced with:
1) Increases in intermodal traffic means increases in emissions from intermodal
operations. Intermodal operations are typically less efficient than regular freight
operations due to a number of factors including the speed of the trains.
Intermodal trains tend to operate at higher speeds, have large gaps between cars as
well as variations in the height of the cars which creates air drag. Increasing the
speed also exacerbates the air-drag problem.
2) Increases in traffic naturally lead to increases in fuel consumption and, therefore,
greenhouse gas emissions.
3) Locomotive improvements. How much more efficient can they get and at what
cost?
What more can we do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? As was mentioned yesterday,
maybe it is time to start looking at the freight transportation industry as a whole. In a
world that is increasingly concerned with air emissions, specifically greenhouse gases,
the efficiency of rail versus other modes of transportation presents a real opportunity.
With greater utilization of the rail component of intermodal freight transportation,
significant improvements in greenhouse gas emissions resulting from moving a tonne of
freight can be realized. Thank-you.
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Q: Lee Jebb – Cando Contracting
Good Morning. I think, if I heard you correctly, you said that CN concentrated the
placement of the new locomotives south of the border in the U.S. Can you tell me why
you placed them in the U.S. as opposed to Canada? I have got a couple of theories, but I
would like to hear what you have to say about that.
A: Erika Akkerman, CN
My theory on that is they had a lot of older locomotives and also with the U.S.
regulations that a lot of them had to go there first.
Q: Lee Jebb – Cando Contracting
Can I throw my theory at you? Would the ability to accelerate the capital depreciation
have anything to do with placing the expensive power down there?
A: Erika Akkerman, CN
I couldn’t answer that.
Q: John Pearce – Transport 2000 Atlantic
You have mentioned the increasing train length. What we have found in the corridor is
that that has dropped and been the principal factor, I think, in the Quebec-Windsor
corridor in dropping VIA’s on-time performance from about 90% to about 70%, well,
66% I guess, in the east of Toronto. I think that has had quite a negative impact on
people using the train and, therefore, a negative impact on environmental pollution,
because people are reverting back to either air or automobile. So, I guess I am just
pointing out, and maybe you might have a comment, but these longer trains are causing
difficulties in not only blocking crossings, but particularly in VIA’s operation. It is a
very significant drop in on-time performance this year compared to last year. It is very
difficult to pinpoint other reasons for this happening other than freight train interference.
A: Erika Akkerman, CN
That is not something I have personally looked at, so I really can’t address that.
Q: Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
Well, Greta, I will just add some clarification, actually, to that question.
Erika, you can correct me if I am wrong, but I think CN has increased train length, but we
are in the range of maybe 3-5%. One thing you get with increasing train length is you
decrease the frequency of trains which is, I think, also very relevant. I think part of the
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VIA experience out east this winter was weather-related, as well. So, I think it is a little
bit unfair just to make the link back to CN’s need for on-time performance.
Q: Grete Bridgewater – Canadian Pacific Railway
Actually, I could probably just clarify that further, speaking from the CP side. We have
increased train length over the last four years. It is not a recent phenomenon. It is not a
recent initiative on our parts and, Erika, correct me if I am wrong, but I believe CN has
had longer trains for the last few years.
Donald Eadie – Vice-President, Technology
Kelsan Technologies Corp.
Top of Rail Friction Modifiers and the Railway Environment
Thank-you, Madam Chairman and thank-you to the organizers of the conference for the
opportunity to tell you a little bit about friction modifiers.
As the Chairman said, Kelsan is focused on the global rail industry and with what we
believe is a technology that is going to change the railroading industry and make it more
efficient with Top of Rail Friction Control. The idea here is really quite a novel one and
we are already seeing this Canadian technology have global applications.
Today I would like to review some basic concepts and definitions of what friction
modifiers are and what they are not. If there is one thing you take away from this
workshop is to understand the difference between a lubricant, which is a traditional way
of controlling friction, and a friction modifier, which is fundamentally different. We will
talk a little bit about how these materials are applied, and then a little bit about the
potential for emissions reductions and fuel savings which we are currently quantifying.
There are other environmental aspects of friction modifiers and we have gained a lot of
our experience to date in noise control, particularly wheel squeal in curves, and we have
systems all over the world doing this today. It is not a technology that is in the research
phase, this is reality in Europe, North America, Japan and other parts of Asia. Also,
inherent in the idea of optimal friction control is other benefits, particularly rail wear
reduction, and I will talk a bit about that as well. Finally, I am going to summarize and
give you some conclusions and our future directions.
Starting at the beginning, Top of Rail Friction Control, what is it and what does it look
like? Well, just starting with something you can get your hands around, KELTRACK ®,
our friction modifier is applied to the top of the rail. If you apply it at the optimum
levels, you can barely see any physical change to the rail. Once it has been sprayed on
the rail, it provides a thin dry film, with no oil or grease components, so if you run your
fingers on it, it feels like rail; it pretty much feels dry.
I would like to acknowledge the really innovative partnership approach that B.C. Rail
has taken with us, to allow us to do a lot more test work. I particularly want to pay
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tribute to Norm Hooper, their Chief Engineer, who has had the vision to see the potential
for this technology on his railroad. A lot of the data I will be talking about will have
come from B.C. Rail, but also from the Class 1 railroads, Japanese railroads, as well as in
Europe.
What is a friction modifier? Well, in terms of functional behaviour we describe two key
attributes. The first is that the friction modifier provides an intermediate co-efficient of
friction when applied to the top of the rail. I think it stands to reason that, if you put
anything on the top of rail with too low a co-efficient of friction, (as with a conventional
oil or grease lubricant), you are going to have serious issues with traction or braking. So
this is a key aspect of a friction modifier and it is based on the inherent material
properties of the applied film. The second key aspect, which is key to noise control, is
positive friction at the wheel-rail interface. I will talk a little bit about that, but not too
much because it gets rather complex from an engineering point of view.
Physically, friction modifiers are a water-based suspension of dry solids and other
additives. If you were to see them, it looks somewhat like a water-based paint, a latextype paint, with no oil or grease components. Once the water is evaporated, this thin dry
film is left to control the friction at the wheel-rail interface. Again, the amounts of
material that are required to be effective are extremely small. At the sub-micron level,
and even lower than that, we have seen effectiveness at below 0.1 micron nominal film
thickness. What is happening here is that you are actually applying the materials in the
interstices of the roughness of the rail.
Again, I have just put this out for those of you who do not spend a lot of time thinking
about co-efficient of friction. If you measure with a push tribometer on the top of the
rail, typical rail most everywhere in the world, on the top of the rail, you measure the coefficient of friction between 0.4 and 0.7. That wide range is dependent on environmental
conditions such as primary temperature and humidity that affect the rate, the quantities
and the types of iron oxides that are formed. There is some reversible behaviour in here,
and this is the rail wheel as it exists today and variations in that friction have a huge
impact on operational performance of railroads.
If you put a traditional lubricant on the rail, of course its job is to reduce the co-efficient
of friction to as low a value as possible. A typical measurement is under 0.2; 0.2 is
considered less than the minimum level for safe traction, adhesion and braking. In
practical terms, putting a lubricant on the rail is not a really effective way of controlling
friction. A true friction modifier, such as KELTRACK ®, by its material properties and
once the water has evaporated, will give a co-efficient of friction from 0.35, with some
small variation which is primarily related to environmental conditions and the surface
conditions of the rail.
That is the concept. I would like to show you some data to support that. Figure 3.5 is a
curve showing friction measurements on the top of the rail. This happens to be on the top
of the low rail but could equally well be the high rail. We sprayed the friction modifier to
the body of a 1,700-foot curve. In the baseline (before we sprayed the friction modifier),
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friction levels ranged from 0.5 up to maybe 0.7, with a fair amount of variation. This is
very typical. In Figure 3.5 the bottom diamonds are the friction measured through the
same curve after the friction modifier has been applied, and you can see a very, very tight
control of friction right at the 0.35 level. The other two lines here, the squares and the
light-blue triangles, are the friction measurements after the passage of two subsequent
freight trains. You can see that the friction is still relatively optimal. There are some
signs of the film being degraded a little bit, but typically the friction control would be
maintained for at least three freight trains.
Figure 3.5 Friction Control in test Curve: Hi-rail Application
I talked about friction control. The other aspect I am going to talk about quickly is
positive friction. To understand positive friction, you have to understand the concept of
creep rate, which is a railway engineering term related to the relative velocity of the
wheel and the rail. This can be creep rate in the longitudinal direction, the lateral
direction, and there is also something called ‘spin creep,’ which I will not go into.
Lateral creep characteristics are extremely important in curving performance and also in
the generation of noise. Most materials in the universe, giving steel-on-steel, metal
oxides on metal oxides, have so-called negative friction characteristics. That refers to the
slope of this graph, Figure 3.6, beyond this maximum point, or so-called ‘point-of-creep
saturation.’ This characteristic is what, fundamentally, it means to ‘wheel squeal,’ of
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trains and curves. Wheel-squealing curves is not due, contrary to popular belief, to the
contact of flange on the side of the rail. It is due to what are called ‘stick-slip’
oscillations between the two points of equal energy, and so you get oscillations, frictional
oscillations, as the body negotiates the curve. These are subsequently amplified in the
web of the wheel, leading to the characteristic extremely irritating, high-pitched squeal.
With a friction modifier, where the material of positive friction at the interface between
the tread and the wheel, you instead get a slope that is positive in nature over the entire
creep range. This is what at a fundamental level eliminates, first of all, wheel squeal, and
secondly, in transit situations, a generation of short-pitch corrugations. Short-pitch
corrugations also have noise implications because they lead to the so-called ‘roaring rail.’
Figure 3.6 “Positive” Friction: Lateral Creep Force Characteristics
Negative friction
0.50
0.40
KELTRACK
0.30
Y/Q
Clean Contact
Condition
0.20
Log.
(KELTRACK)
0.10
Positive friction
0.00
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
1.4
Creep Rate (%)
* Replotted from: “Matsumoto a, Sato Y, Ono H, Wang Y, Yamamoto Y, Tanimoto M & Oka Y, Creep force
characteristics between rail and wheel on scaled model, Wear, Vol 253, Issues 1-2, July 2002, pp
199-203
So, that is friction modifiers. Again, just to emphasize, first of all, friction control is the
intermediate level; secondly, is positive friction.
Let’s get on to the more practical aspects of how we are going to apply these materials.
Well, one of the benefits of having a friction modifier is that there are several different
ways you can apply it, depending on the objectives and what you are trying to achieve
and what is operationally viable for the railroad and for the particular area of track.
In some ways, the optimum method of doing this is to mount a system on-board the
locomotive, with an atomizing spray system. This is probably the most developmental of
the three methods. It is being used in test situations on a couple of railroads, which I will
talk about. But the second way of doing it, which is further along the commercial path, is
spray application from a high rail or track maintenance vehicle. And this is something
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that has been practiced, in routine commercial operation for over 2 ½ years by B.C. Rail.
B.C. Rail thereby became the first freight railroad in the world to practice Top of Rail
Friction Control on a commercial basis.
Finally, trackside application is very viable for controlling forces and rail wear in specific
curves. This is something that is now under extensive testing by almost all the Class 1’s
in North America, as we speak. We expect that in the next year we will start getting into
full commercial operation on one of the Class 1’s with trackside application. I will talk
about all of those. Again, the key thing is with the friction modifier, you have the option
to do any one or two or all three of these, depending on the particular problems and
situation that is being faced.
The B.C. Rail high-rail spray application is mounted on the back of the truck. The
system is designed for winter operation. The atomizing spray goes down on the top of
the rail, forming the thin film, and this is something that they now do on about half of
their territory, all the way from North Vancouver up to Williams Lake, with two separate
vehicles.
Trackside application is the most widely used top of rail application method so far. We
have these in about 20 railroads world-wide, primarily at this point for noise control. It
uses a Portec Rail electric dispensing system on the side of the rail, mounted with four
bars. The key difference between this and traditional gauge-face lubrication is the fact
that the bars are mounted on the field-side of the rail, because you are going to dispense it
onto the top of the rail. If you had it on the gauge-face, the flange of the wheel, of
course, would knock the bars down. The bars have to be close enough to the top of the
rail to get material there. Pittsburgh transit system has been using trackside Top of Rail
systems now for four years controlling noise. The Top of Rail bars are mounted on the
field side of the rail and mounted on each of the rails, four bars total.
Next we look at locomotive application technology. In this case the application
equipment is provided by Lubriquip. They have developed this train-mounted system in
which the friction modifier is applied from the last locomotive in the consist. The friction
modifier reservoir, re-circulating pump, filters, etc., are mounted in the compressor room.
Lines run to typically one end of the locomotive, but the possibility is to go to either the
short or the long hood end. Then there is a metering box on each side, going down to the
top rail nozzles. The nozzle is the heart of the process, and this incorporates technology
which Kelsan itself has developed.
That is a little bit about the application. We talked about what friction modifiers are, we
have talked about how they can be applied. Well, this is an environmental conference
and why is friction control, Top of Rail Friction Control, expected to reduce emissions?
There are two reasons. The first is that controlling the Top of Rail friction reduces the
lateral forces, or curving forces, by about 30-50%. If you go into the physics of
negotiating a curve and look at the forces on the tread and on the rail, you will see that
the lateral forces are directly related to the Top of Rail co-efficient of friction, or more
precisely the co-efficient of friction between the tread and the Top of Rail. Curving
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resistance or lateral force resistance is directly related to train resistance and to specific
fuel consumption in the curve. This is one mechanism by which friction modifiers
reduce fuel usage and, hence, greenhouse gas emissions.
The second method is by controllably reducing the friction on the top of the rail. In
tangent track this reduces rolling resistance and hence the energy needed to move the
train. There is also a third mechanism, in which by controlling the friction we reduce
the critical speed at which ‘hunting’ is initiated. ‘Hunting’ is, in itself, a form of
inefficiency which leads to higher fuel usage.
Here is some data to illustrate lateral force reduction. I could have picked many
examples of lateral force reductions. This happens to be a trackside application but it
really does not matter what the application method is. We have obtained data and
examples of lateral force reduction for all three methods of application. This is from a
12-degree curve on B.C. Rail that is instrumented for vertical and lateral forces with
strain gauges. On the y-axis of Figure 3.7, we are looking at lateral forces in units of
thousands of pounds. This is a summary graph of about six months of data, including
several months of baseline data. Each point is an average for one train, looking at the
leading axles only, and filtered to only look at axles with the heaviest vertical forces.
You can see that for the baseline, the forces on the low rail were running at around 1415,000 pounds and on the high rail, slighter lower, around 11,000 pounds. With the data
over here, with the friction modifier being applied, we see a substantial reduction, about
35-40% in lateral forces. Again, of course, some variation from train to train, depending
on other factors. But you can see a consistent and regular reduction in the curving forces.
As I mentioned, these curving forces do directly translate into reduced train resistance,
negotiating a curve.
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Figure 3.7 Lateral Force (curving resistance) Reduction, B.C. Rail
2 0 .
18 .
Lateral Force (kips)
16 .
14 .
12 .
10 .
8 .
6 .
4 .
2 .
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0
2 0
4 0
6 0
8 0
T r a in
BBaseline
a s e l i n eLow
L o Rail
w R a il
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r i c t i o nModifier
M o d iLow
f i e r Rail
L o w R a il
BBaseline
a s e l i n High
e H i gRail
h R a il
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r i c t i o nModifier
M o d High
i f i e r Rail
H ig h R a il
Secondly, I talked about why friction modifiers will reduce emissions. One of the Class
1 railroads recently conducted some so-called coast-down testing and estimated that Top
of Rail will lead to about a 12% reduction in rolling resistance in tangent track. The same
railroad calculated by modeling a 16% reduction in energy used in curves. One thing
about Top of Rail, of course, or friction control is that in heavily gradient areas where
gravity dominates the train resistance, there will be reduced benefits. So the optimum
area for getting emission reductions with Top of Rail will be either tangent or highlycurved territory that is relatively flat, rolling shall we say.
The specific amount of fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions will depend very
much on the track distribution. One of the things we are doing is developing train
resistance modeling to calculate the expected train resistance and looking to correlate that
with actual field measurements. As a result, we do not have to go out and estimate for
every particular railroad or piece of track what kind of fuel savings in greenhouse gas
emission reductions will occur. We can predict it from validated modeling. We can then
look at the optimum means of distributing the Top of Rail friction modifier.
What I am going to do now is give a little bit of a snapshot of a major project, which was
mentioned yesterday, which is our Top of Rail greenhouse gas reduction demonstration
project on B.C. Rail. The test train uses Dash-9 locomotives, and tests are being done on
B.C. Rail’s main track on the Chetwynd sub-division. We are in the middle of this
project, so I am just going to give a snapshot, tell you about the project goals and
objectives and some early results.
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First of all, this is part of the freight sustainability project and we would like to
acknowledge Transport Canada’s funding and Nicole Charron and her group for their
help in getting this project set up. Also, B.C. Rail are partners, CN has put in some
funding and is a key partner on this, and CP is also involved in a stewarding and advisory
role in the project, and Kelsan Technologies.
The project involves installing the Top of Rail locomotive systems on two Dash 9
locomotives and measuring, as accurately as possible, the fuel reductions and the energy
reductions and using them to convert these into greenhouse gas emission reductions. The
detailed calculation measurements are being done by the National Research Council
Centre for Surface Transportation, but we have done some of our own initial calculations
which I will show you in a minute.
Again, the objective is to demonstrate and quantify the fuel and greenhouse gas
reductions of Top of Rail. We know very well that this technology will only be
successful if equipment reliability is acceptable to railroads. So we are approaching this
from a very proactive point of view, monitoring the equipment very closely and taking
whatever steps are needed to address any reliability issues. We are also looking at
optimizing friction modifier application rates to make sure that the economics of this are
as positive as possible.
In Figure 3.8, on the Dash-9’s, the top rail spray nozzles are mounted on the sand bracket
right over the rail. The metering boxes I mentioned are part of the key part to get
accurate dispensation of the friction modifier. There are two metering boxes on either
side, looking underneath the locomotive.
Figure 3.8 B.C. Rail Installation
One of the ways we go about the analysis is to break down the sub-division into different
segments, depending on characteristics, gradient, curvature, etc. We do that by having
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) mounted on the locomotives. We relate GPS position
to the electronic track map and work back to both the notch settings on the throttle and
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the mechanical electrical forces which are being monitored on the locomotive. These are
the results for one short-hill, uphill section. Mechanical energy is measured with an
instrumented sheer-pin between the last locomotive and the first rail car. We are looking
at plotting speed versus the gross ton-miles per kilowatt hour. Higher numbers are
inherently more efficient, using less, getting more tonnes pulled per kilowatt of
mechanical energy. A clear distinction is seen between the Top of Rail and the baseline
conditions.
Figure 3.9 shows some preliminary results on fuel in gross ton-miles per U.S. gallon of
diesel. You can see that, plotting against speed, we have got a good relationship here for
the baseline and then, quite clearly, statistically, a distinction between that and the Top of
Rail being more efficient in terms of fuel consumption.
Gross Ton M iles per US Gallon
Figure 3.9 Preliminary Results, short uphill section: Fuel
327
324
321
318
315
312
309
306
20.1
20.4
20.7
21
21.3
21.6
21.9
22.2
Speed (mph)
Baseline
Baseline
TOR
TOR
We have a lot more work to do, a lot more testing and data analysis to do before the full
picture comes in. We are hoping and expecting that overall we will see a fuel reduction
between 4 and 6%, but we will just have to see. As I said, what will be equally
important, from our point of view, will be to validate train resistance modeling so we can
take, not just this understanding from the Chetwynd sub-division, but take it elsewhere
and look at across the country, what kind of fuel savings can be achieved.
That is the fuel and emissions savings. I am going to quickly talk about noise control.
As I mentioned, wheel squeal is an environmental problem, particularly on transits. I
have talked briefly about the mechanism. I just want to share some data from a paper we
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presented this summer. Figure 3.10 shows the noise reduction in decibels, dB. This is a
series of railroads around the world, tram systems in Europe, two metro systems, one in
North America and the other in Europe, and heavy-haul freight. Typically, we will see
about a 10 decibel reduction, it ranges from 8 to 15 but very consistently. If there is
wheel squeal and flanging noise, the friction modifiers will significantly reduce or
eliminate that noise. We have this in commercial operations. It is actually about 20
railroads, most of them multiple units and most of them expanded. This includes five
railroads in Japan, and those of you who know Japanese railroading, will know it is
extremely technically demanding. Major users in North America are New York City
Transit with about 18 operational units, Pittsburgh Transit and Tokyu railroad in Japan.
Figure 3.10 Summary of Noise reduction with Friction Modifier
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LAeq, dBA
100
Baseline
Baseline
Friction modifier
80
60
40
20
0
Tram 1A Tram 1B
Tram 2
Metro 3
Metro 4 Freight 5 Freight 6
Let’s summarize. Top of Rail is an emerging Canadian technology with, we believe,
significant environmental potential. It is a thin film with intermediate friction control,
positive friction. It has flexibility for different application methods and with emission
control, emission reduction potential. Noise reduction has been established globally.
Right now, we have tests underway with virtually every Class 1 railroad in North
America, with either the trackside or locomotive testing. We believe we are just starting
and we have a lot more to go. Thank-you very much.
Q: Bob Dunn – Consultant
Don, do you see this as having potential to replace traditional way-side lubricators, flange
lubricators?
A: Donald Eadie, Kelsan Technologies Corp.
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It has potential. I do not think we would argue at this point that it is going to totally
eliminate gauge-faced lubrication at all. Gauge-faced lubrication in freight railroads will
still be required. At this point it makes it less critical, particularly because you reduce the
flanging forces but you cannot get away without gauge-faced lubrication. I think one of
the ways that I could best summarize that is a quote that Joe Kalusac of the National
Research Council made when I was talking to him about this. Joe said that, “Top of Rail
makes sharp curves into intermediate curves and intermediate curves into shallow
curves.” So, the degree to which you require friction control on the side of the rail will
still be there, but it will be less critical with Top of Rail. But we believe the two together
are still fundamentally required.
Q: Bob Dunn – Consultant
The second question is: The two have totally different objectives, yet one is to lower the
flange friction and the other one is to maintain or manage the friction of the surface.
They are both trying to do it in curves, so they are both going to be there. How do you
keep the water-based polymer, or whatever it is, off the flange and the grease, which has
always been the traditional problem, keep the grease off the top of the rail?
A: Donald Eadie, Kelsan Technologies Corp.
Well, first of all, Top of Rail can and does work, even with some contamination or
migration of grease to the top of the rail. But the preferred way is to use the modern
lubricator technology for gauge-face, which are the Portec Rail electric lubricators with
long bars. If you use those and a good quality grease, you get minimal migration to the
top of rail. But, you are quite right, you do want to put grease with the low co-efficient of
friction where it belongs, or where it is needed, on the gauge-face, gauge-corner, and Top
of Rail on the top of rail. That can and is being done; it is simply a question of using
state-of-the-art equipment.
Steve Easun – Account Manager
ZTR Control Systems Inc.
Advances in Locomotive Idle Reduction Technologies
I am going to explain today a little bit about ZTR and the products that we make and
produce for the railroad industry. ZTR is a control systems company, located in London,
Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1987 by five General Motors engineers who
decided to leave General Motors and pursue a career owning and operating their own
company. We provide monitoring and control systems solutions for the locomotive and
industrial industry. Today we have offices in Canada and the USA and we employ about
60 people on both sides of the border. We are comprised of three divisions: a
locomotive division or railway division, the industrial division, and an operations center.
I will explain a little bit more about each division.
The locomotive division provides:
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locomotive auto shutdown technology, a product called SmartStart, that is our
term for the technology;
control and adhesion enhancement systems for locomotives. Products include
BOA and Nexsys. BOA is an adhesion excitation control product for older-style
GP-9 type locomotives to increase the adhesion and bring up the reliability of the
wheel-slip system. Nexsys is a full-control system which brings typically a
second-generation locomotive into a micro-processor realm.
Our industrial division provides monitoring for industrial sites such as methane sites, gas
compressor sites, etc. This is a big thing in the States where we gather methane. We run
it through the CAT engines and produce power for the grids down there.
The operations centre provides: remote monitoring, tracking, control and alarming for
the industrial division mainly. Also it provides site management, data management, and
storage. It is a 50-50 operation, we are partially owned by Caterpillar, the affiliate is
called Pointguard. During the last power outage we had some Cat engines in the Toronto
area. We got up and running very quickly from Minneapolis, that is where our operations
centre is, but we had no place to send the power. So, just one of those things.
What is idle reduction technology? I will go through a little bit of the history. The term
‘idle reduction technology’ refers to a technology that allows locomotive operators to
refrain from long-duration idling of the main propulsion engine by using an alternative
technology, such as automatically shutting down the prime mover or using a layover
heating system.
ZTR has been providing idle reduction technology to the railway industry since 1990.
There were some previous attempts at it, I think Harman was one of the companies that
started it. We ran with the idea and we would like to think that we are pretty close to
having a very stable and solid product. It was a tough sell when the industry standard
was idling locomotives. Fear of dead batteries, hydro-locked engines, did not offset the
potential fuel savings. In the old days, you would walk into a yard, like a BN yard or a
CN yard and all the locomotives were idling. Fuel had been cheap and reducing idle was
not a high priority. If you wanted somebody to shutdown an engine it was a tough go.
Lately, this attitude has changed as the railways realize the monetary savings coupled
with environmental responsibility. So it is two-sided – it is the money and it is
environment. AESS, or Automatic Engine Stop/Start and SmartStart are terms used
widely to define the locomotive stop/start systems.
Why use idle reduction technology?
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Reduce fuel consumption,
Exhaust emissions,
Engine wear resulting in decreased maintenance costs – these are one of the
hidden costs that is hard to quantify but there is a large savings. If you do
shutdown your locomotives, you will have a lot of mechanical savings and
decreased maintenance costs, and
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•
Noise pollution for people living or working nearby. A lot of times, if a
locomotive is idling, and I have seen it happen, the guy jumps over the fence and
pushes the stop button and then runs away. Then if it is cold enough, you have
got a big ice block and trouble.
Idle reduction options. The first option is the manual shutdown policy. A lot of railroads
have a manual shutdown policy basically during the summer months, March through to
November. It is something the railroads do. Some of them do it well, some of them do
not do it well, but it requires the intervention of a person and it is limited by the human
element. There is increased engine wear and visible emissions when a “cold” engine is
started. Again, crews have always been taught, “Don’t walk away and leave an engine
shutdown when there is a possibility of freezing, or you will be up for an investigation.”
So, it is tough to get them to shut it down.
Another option is the SmartStart. SmartStart is a system that automatically stops and
starts the engine. It is active 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It keeps the
engine in a ready-to-use condition, and provides detailed reporting of fuel saved.
Other idle reduction technologies are: Electric Layover or Standby Heating systems. It
is an established technology. Plug in electric systems infrastructure is required.
Applications are stationary, not portable. Not every railroad can afford to drag around a
pole and be able to plug it in. You have to run the locomotive up to the power source,
plug it in and park it there, basically, every night. An alarm or a back-up system may be
desirable. In this case, if you are up in the middle of nowhere and the power fails and
you do not have any alarm you are in trouble the next morning when the crew shows up.
A final idle reduction option is DDHS, Diesel Driven Heating System. They are mobile,
they go with the locomotive. It provides true layover capabilities and allows the engine
to remain shutdown. It also keeps the engine in a ready-to-use condition.
Terry forced me to say this: SmartStart is a technology that is only good or is good to a
certain temperature, it operates up to 32ºF. If the temperature is below 32ºF, we will not
shutdown the locomotive. I will go through that scenario a little bit later, for obvious
reasons.
Some railways are using SmartStart and Diesel Engine Heating Technology. The BNSF,
as Terry said in his speech yesterday, uses the combination DDHS and SmartStart. The
BN is seriously considering many more systems in the near future. They are very
impressed with the combination technology. Again, it is the old adage – if you draw a
line through the middle of the country down there, SmartStart has its application, DDHS
has its application and both systems combined have an application. Also, Union Pacific
is very committed. Right now they are purchasing SmartStarts very rapidly, almost as
fast as we can make them, to apply to their low-horsepower fleet. CN has a fair number
of SmartStarts. It has been one of our preliminary railroads, or first railroads we applied
to, CN and CP are very good customers, and they use the SmartStart technology. Norfolk
Southern is using SmartStart, Rail America is using SmartStart and DDHS – not coupled
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yet, Tennessee/Wyoming is using SmartStart and DDHS – not coupled yet, and the
Alaska Railway is using SmartStart and DDHS.
Kim Hotstart has over 1,500 electric and DDHS systems out there. ZTR has 1,500
systems, so there are over 3,000 systems out there. It is probably a lot more than that
now, but I am using these dated numbers.
There are numerous advantages of combining technologies:
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SmartStart automates the idle reduction process. You saw on that chart yesterday.
To me, that was a very graphic example of the SmartStart intervening in the place
of a crew shutting down the locomotive.
It also provides reporting capabilities. The DDHS virtually eliminates idling
required to keep the locomotive running. As I said earlier, the SmartStart is only
effective up to 32ºF, below that we do not shutdown the locomotive. We do not
want it to freeze. Whereas the DDHS can then take over and provide true
layover.
Able to shutdown the locomotive in very cold weather.
Both systems monitor and protect each other, we look out for each other. In the
event one system fails, the other automatically takes over and prevents freeze-up
or battery discharge. We will monitor the DDHS, if it fails we start the
locomotive to protect it.
To maximize fuel savings, combine the two. Then you can get right up to the
high 90’s of reducing idle.
SmartStart is a microprocessor technology that safely and automatically manages the
shutdown and restart of the locomotive while parked idle. It monitors: reverser position,
throttle position, air brake cylinder pressure, engine coolant, ambient air, battery voltage,
and battery charging amperage. If all these conditions are met the microprocessor says,
“I can shutdown.”
Figure 3.11 is a picture of our SmartStart, we have modularized it. On the Dash-2 it will
take up the place of two modules. SmartStart has an interface and satellite capabilities.
Typically, the SmartStart will just slip into the module compartment and, after some
minor connections, away it goes. We can also as an option, have SmartStart through our
Operations Centre, talk through a satellite linked to our Operations Centre. So we have
some remote monitoring and alarming capabilities with SmartStart. We could have a
locomotive up in the north and we know exactly, pretty well, what is going on with it
through our satellite link and the Operations Centre. This is an option that can be
purchased with the SmartStart package.
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Figur
Fig
ure 3.11 SmartStart
We also have GPS available. In the States it is going to become an issue of when you are
going for EPA credits, we are hoping that is going to be the case soon, while the EPA
wants to make sure that the locomotive stays in the attainment area. Well, GPS is going
to be an integral part of that reporting function, to make sure that it actually stays there.
So, we do have GPS available with our SmartStart Operations Centre package.
We have a reporting function. If this were your railroad, you could have all your
locomotives in a database managed system. The database manager can log on at a remote
site and check out the exact savings of the locomotive. It is colour-coded, red means that
there is a problem with the reporting or they are parked. What we look at is the
percentage parked idle, if it is red it is under 75%, if it is yellow 69%, if it is white it is
okay. We colour-code it for easy identification of potential problems or something that is
going on, maybe somebody turned off a switch or the locomotive’s sitting under a bridge.
An example of a SmartStart detailed report. A Canadian Pacific locomotive is sitting in
London, Ontario. To date it has saved $155,000 in fuel, and the system was applied
December 2nd, 1993. The report tells you everything that has gone on with that
locomotive since inception. It gives you how many times it was shutdown, the reason
why, and it gives you detailed information on everything that has been going on since
that system was applied. We are also looking into revising or adding more reporting
based on the actual fuel consumption of a locomotive. We are going to calculate the
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particulate matter, NOx, and all the other emissions. When the locomotive is shutdown,
it is not producing these emissions; then we will calculate that for our customer.
We have a duty-cycle report. If you are a yard master and you are looking at how your
yard locomotives are being used, this is an excellent tool. You can see the loading hours
of the locomotive, when it was parked, it was working, it was idle, the percentages, and
that is all real data.
I did a couple of case studies. The studies are examples of savings that can be obtained
using SmartStart technology. This is not coupled with DDHS. The calculations were
based on an EMD 12-cylinder 645EB engine. The engines used in the case studies are
not exactly the same type but the fuel savings will be similar.
Case number one involved 155 locomotives. This is real data that I took, 1.67 years of
data, 1.6 million gallons of diesel fuel was saved. That averages out to 10,000 gallons of
fuel was saved for each locomotive over the 1.67 years, which averages about 6,200
gallons per year of fuel saved by SmartStart. The SmartStart shutdown each locomotive,
resulting in a reduction of 6,200 gallons, based on an idle fuel consumption at 3.2 gallons
per hour. The average shutdown of each locomotive was 1,900 hours. Now this is an
average, and then I just took the particulate matter in all of them, added them together.
The total average of 2,300 kilograms or 2.2 long tons was saved per locomotive per year,
that was emissions kept out of the atmosphere.
Case number two was 40 locomotives in a different area. These were all in Canada, they
were two Class 1 railroads in Canada. 40 locomotives, 4.8 years of data, and 2.6 million
gallons of fuel were saved and that gives us an average of 13,800 gallons each
locomotive per year was saved by SmartStart. The SmartStart shutdown each
locomotive, resulting in a reduction of an average of 13,000 gallons based on an idle fuel
consumption rate of 4 gallons per hour. It is a little bit different with this case. The
average shutdown time of each locomotive was 3,400 hours per year. Total average
amount of emissions kept out of the atmosphere came out to 4,083 kilograms,
approximately 4 tonnes of emissions were kept out of the atmosphere per locomotive.
Besides the emissions savings, the railroad saved a LOT of fuel. These locomotives are
very good performers for that particular railroad. The total amount of emissions kept out
of the atmosphere per year, when you add it all together, was 519,000 kilograms, or 511
long tons saved for the 195 locomotives. That is per year, we kept that from going up in
the atmosphere.
The advocation of these SmartStarts saved a total of 511 tonnes of various pollutants
being kept out of the atmosphere and 1.58 million gallons of fuel not being consumed, in
a one-year period. These numbers are based on data downloaded from the 195
locomotives in different areas of Canada. Obviously, the higher numbers were in a more
temperate climate.
ZTR Control Systems has been involved in working with the government agencies and
customers to identify/promote emissions reduction program/solutions for the railway and
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industrial sector. SmartStart technology is one tool for the railways to tackle the
emissions problem and at the same time offset some of the expensive emissions
reductions with fuel savings. Application of a SmartStart and a DDHS will provide the
maximum shutdown time while keeping the locomotive ready to use. Thank-you.
Q: Malcolm Payne – Engine Systems Development Centre
I would like to know, Steve, if it is possible, if you can tell me how you correlated the
emissions saved to the numbers you showed?
A: Steve Easun, ZTR Control Systems Inc.
I basically took a section of the, I cannot remember the exact one, it was based on some
studies done in the States, from the Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines in July ’91.
I just took those figures of particulate matter based on idle time and just moved those
through based on my reporting on the actual shutdown time on the locomotive. It is a
very simple case study, I was just trying to make show that there is a lot of fuel that was
not burned and that these efficients were kept out of the atmosphere because we are not
running the locomotive.
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SESSION 4 – MODAL SHIFT AND INTERMODAL TRANSPORTATION
Richard Gilbert – Director of Research
Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Session Chair
Thanks very much, Bill. Just by way of introduction, the afternoon session is entirely on
intermodal freight. Some people regard that as a euphemism for ‘moving more stuff by
rail’ and, indeed, it is an appropriate euphemism. From an environmental perspective
and, particularly, from a global environmental perspective – there are two, absolutely
startling facts about freight transport. One is that, if you take your average large truck
and it is ¼ full, it is using 2 ½ times as much fuel per pay load tonne as a truck that is ¾
full. That is startling fact number one. Startling fact number two is: whatever you do for
a given loading, occupancy, whatever you like, rail uses only 30% of the fuel that road
uses. Now, obviously, if the rail cars are empty and the trucks are full, it is something
else. So you have to do it on a loading equivalent.
But, other things being equal, that is the second startling fact, that, on an energy basis and
therefore on a CO2 emissions basis and on many other kinds of emissions basis, rail from
an environmental perspective is incomparably superior. That is basically what we are
addressing this afternoon, how to get more stuff on rail, what people are doing about that.
It is called ‘intermodal’ because, mostly, the first and last few metres or kilometres are by
truck and, therefore, there has to be that interchange, and that, of course, poses problems.
But that is part of what we are also going to be talking about this afternoon: how to get
more stuff by rail, what the advantages are, and what the intermodal challenges are.
Barry Craven – Director, Logistics
Canada Post Corporation
Rail versus Road: A National Shipper’s Perspective
Thank-you, Richard. I am pleased to have been invited to participate in this workshop
today and to represent the shipper’s perspective. Some of you might not think of Canada
Post when you think about a shipper, but hopefully we do come to mind when you have
something to ship or send, and that is the end of the commercial part of the presentation.
In fact, from a perspective of the transportation functions within Canada Post, we are a
major purchaser of transportation services, be it air, road, rail or marine, both
domestically and internationally, which should qualify us as a shipper. Our annual
spending on transportation is close to $300 million or about 5-6% of our total revenues.
About 30% of this amount is for air transportation with the remainder split between road
and rail, along with a small amount of marine.
Today, I will start with some history of Canada Post and railway transportation, which
should help to explain the evolving roles that railways have played in the movement of
mail across this vast country of ours. Then I will address some of the factors that led to a
shift away from rail in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, followed by a look at recent trends that have
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brought rail back into play for the movement of selected mail products. Finally, some
thoughts on where we might go in the future with rail-mail.
When I was doing some research for this presentation, this opening line in a paper about
the railway mail service, which I discovered on the Canadian Postal Museum web site
caught my attention. I will just give you the quote, “The pivotal turning points of postal
history generally follow soon after the appearance of new modes of transportation.” This
was certainly true when railways started to appear in Canada in the mid-1800’s.
Significant growth in postal operations occurred during this period, with many new post
offices being opened, often located in close proximity to the rail lines. Some of that
legacy still exists today in our older facilities located in downtown areas, such as
Winnipeg, Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary. We also had an old facility in downtown
Toronto and it is now been reborn as the Air Canada Centre.
The ingenious use of railway mail cars literally traveling mini postal sorting facilities
helped to reduce transit times back in those days. The number of railway mail clerks, a
special breed of postal worker, grew from 137 in 1873 to about 400 by the year 1900.
Now, this is from high tech this morning to low tech this afternoon. The inside of one of
the rail cars has the sortation taking place even as the mail was moving towards its final
destination. This is a really fascinating concept. In today’s Canada Post, we are trained
to focus on processes that add value to the customer and here we see a value-added
process, being sortation happening within another value-added process being
transportation. Michael Hammer, best known for the term ‘re-engineering’ but now a
proponent of process-based enterprise, would be impressed with this operation.
When I joined the Post Office Department in the early ‘70’s, some of the former railway
mail clerks were working at headquarters and they had the most interesting stories to tell
about their adventures in this unique service. Anyone who wants to know more about
this should look at the Museum of Civilization web site, which has the Postal Museum
archives. A little more low-tech technology, another feature of this operation was the
non-stop transfer of mail bags, using specially-designed catch posts, a great idea when
the volume is small and there is no time for the train to stop for loading or unloading.
This early era of Canada Post on the rails peaked around 1950, actually the year I was
born. The decline in dependence on rail was attributed to a number of factors, including:
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•
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rapid growth in mail volumes due to population and economic expansion after the
war, must have been all those birth announcements, I guess,
expanding role of trucks in the movement of mail and other goods spurred on by
the improvements to the road infrastructure, at taxpayer’s expense, of course,
introduction of air mail, especially for letters, has also impacted the shift away
from rail,
between 1950 and 1960 the number of railway mail clerks was reduced by half,
and finally, the railway mail service was abolished completely in 1971,
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•
bulk mail, and by that I mean parcels and packets and publications, continued to
move by rail car until 1987, when Canada Post suddenly stopped using rail as a
mode of transportation.
Let’s examine some of the factors that accounted for the shift from rail to road for surface
transportation of mail. On October 16th, 1981, the former Post Office Department was
converted into the new Canada Post Crown Corporation. This was a new era for the Post,
which led to many changes, including the hiring of several new executives from the
private sector. These people had very different ideas about how to run the Post Office,
and they began the long process of transformation from a department of government to a
business enterprise. At the same time, many competitive threats were moving into
Canada from the South, especially for the expedited parcel and courier business in the
urban areas. Although we enjoyed a monopoly on regulated services, like letter mail, we
had to compete on most of our services as we do today. Our new management executives
needed to quickly change the focus toward service quality at competitive prices and they
decided that rail transport did not fit into this equation when compared to the features
offered by trucks. The competitors did not use rail, so neither would we, and
consequently we stopped using rail completely in 1987.
So, why did this happen? Trucks with teams of drivers could achieve lower transit times,
were more reliable than rail at that time and, in terms of arriving on time, were more
flexible in terms of schedule. I am told, by the way, that the fact that one of the most
powerful men in Operations came from an automotive background and really preferred
trucks, may have also been a factor.
About four years later, when financial pressures arose, but with strong apprehension from
senior management, one person in particular, we started to use rail for the long-haul
movement of mass mailings of publications and advertising mail, which was considered
to be less time-sensitive than letters and parcels. Rail was also deemed suitable to return
empty equipment from the west to central Canada. We have that imbalance that most
people have. Several improvements in the operation of the intermodal service from
Toronto and Montreal to the West, during the late 1990’s, combined with a redesign of
our parcel network and process, prompted an increased shift from road to rail for surface
long-haul transportation.
Our recent experience has been with CN Intermodal, who have invested significantly in
on-line systems and expanded terminal capacity. We have seen great improvements in
transit times on our major lanes. Reliability has also improved, however, I should say,
we still have some concerns with dependable performance in all seasons. Last winter
comes to mind. Recovery times after supply change disruptions, like the power outage in
Ontario, are also of concern. In the field of e-business, there have been great strides
made by the railways, which provide customers with visibility of their shipments, as well
as the ability to order empty equipment and monitor their accounts on-line.
Taken together, these improvements have certainly influenced our decisions to shift some
of our business to rail in recent years. Figure 4.1 illustrates the shift that has taken place
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over the past three years. The numbers show a 26% increase in rail movements, while
road movements have dropped by about 14% in that same time period. Just by way of
explanation, there are still many more road movements, primarily due to the volume of
product moving in the southwestern Ontario, Montreal-Toronto-Ottawa lanes. It should
also be noted that a typical highway service could involve several stops along the way,
each leg being counted as one movement in this particular graph, whereas the rail
movements are point-to-point between major processing and distribution hubs.
Figure 4.1 Recent Shift to Rail
Rail
and
Road
Rail
and
RoadMovements
Movements
60000
50000
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
48275
4774
2000
42902
41623
5378
6042
2001
2000
2002
2001
ROAD
ROAD
2002
RAIL
RAIL
Intermodal is still only practical for us on long-haul lanes, mostly from Toronto to the
West. The majority of our parcel, publication and advertising mail originates in Toronto
and Montreal, where the large national mailing houses are located. We also send some
units from Toronto and Montreal east to Moncton that serves as the distribution hub for
most of the Atlantic Provinces.
When you examine modal shifts at Canada Post, there are two main types that have taken
place over the past five years. First, there has been a shift from air to road for our
premium and core products. Now, in some cases, this shift took place due to security
restrictions that were implemented post-September 11th, but most often it was enabled by
reduced processing cycle times, which expanded the transportation window in what we
call the mail pipeline. Significant savings have been achieved through this modal shift.
Of note is the fact that, while this air-to-road shift has been taking place, service
performance has actually improved, being at 97% on time for letter mail and over 96%
for Express Post. The second shift has been from road to rail. In both cases, the factors
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that go into any decision to move to a different mode of transportation are mainly
customer-driven. Of course, our customers will pay more for faster service, but
increasingly, they expect reliability and consistency, and I will get into this a little bit
more later on.
For our operations, having transportation that can flex with the variability of our volumes
is important. Since we do not control the input to our pipeline, we need to be able to add
transportation capacity on short notice. As a result, advance planning systems, such as
CN’s IMX Initiative, which requires shippers to book space in advance on the intermodal
trains, present us with a challenge. But we understand why they want to move in this
direction. In fact, we would love to be able to control our customers’ inputs to us for the
very same reasons.
Of course, we are always working to stay ahead of our competitors. We are also using
the rails whenever it works in their processes. We were even successful in convincing
our sister company, Purolator Courier, to jump on-board the rails. One of our busiest
lanes is between Toronto and Montreal, where we have tried to use CN’s road rail units,
to see if we can reduce truck traffic on the 401. To be really effective for us, though, we
would need more frequent service and faster on-off cycle times, but we are giving this a
try.
So, what does the future hold? Well, we have taken a brief look at the love/hate
relationship that has taken place over the past 150 years between the Post and the
railways. We are back together, again, after a trial separation but the question is, what
does the future hold?
To understand this, you must first look at what drives Canada Post operations these days.
Our Senior Vice President of Operations, Tom Charlton, has been pushing operations to
get quicker, and by this he means to reduce lead time and eliminate waste through the
application of lane production principles. We have enjoyed some successes, such as at
our large parcel plants in Toronto and Montreal, where the elapse time taken by a parcel
to pass from a trailer at the receiving dock, through sortation and into a trailer at the
dispatch dock has dropped from several hours to about three minutes. But we have much
work to do to become truly lean. For this strategy to work, it will be essential that the
transportation network be synchronized with the processing and delivery cycles of the
postal business. We cannot afford for the mail to sit waiting for several hours for the next
train. In the language of lean production time spent waiting is ‘Muda,’ the Japanese word
for waste. This speaks to the need for more timely and frequent intermodal services, as
opposed to one big batch per day. Batching is also a bad word in the lean world. I guess
that gets into some of the discussion this morning about the length of trains, and so on. I
think I just voted for shorter trains, maybe.
Then, of course, there are those demanding customers. How do we respond to those who
are concerned about the environment? And that is a growing number. Well, our
marketing folks are considering offering a ‘green parcel service.’ The parcels are not
green, but it is their lower adverse impact on the environment that allows for the green
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label. They would use rail transportation wherever practical and include other emissionsreducing features, which I cannot tell you about because it is secret.
Remember those mass mailings of publications and advertising mail that got us back into
the use of the railways because they were less time-sensitive. Well, it turns out we were
wrong. These customers, these mailers, want these mailings to be delivered within a
specific three-day window so that they can synchronize the arrival of this mail piece with
other media events related to their overall campaign. This means that we have to be more
precise with the handling of this product. So we are about to implement a new eventmanagement system that will help us do just that. The question is, can we count on the
railway to deliver to the agreed-to window? Well, we believe that we can but you can see
how changing customer demands can influence our network decisions.
Now, back on the environmental front. We would love to be able to help reduce truck
traffic in the Quebec-Windsor corridor by using more rail, but it really just does not work
for us for our overnight products. The windows are too tight, unless someone can invent
a way to reduce the lead-time between intermodal unit arrival at the terminal and the time
that the train gets moving. There may also be opportunities to look at north-south
movements, which now go by road or air exclusively. Certainly, delays at the border
make the rail option worth some consideration.
Finally, you may be interested to hear that we have been asked, recently, to look at the
feasibility of putting our core product, letter-mail, back on the rails on selected lanes. We
have not yet been asked to look at re-establishing that railway mail service concept where
they are sorting the mail on the trains, but maybe we could install some of our lettersorting equipment into a rail car.
I hope that over the past 20 minutes, I have been able to convey to you some of the
factors that go into our decisions when choosing the most appropriate mode of
transportation and, specifically, when choosing rail. The mail is back on the rails, and
hopefully this time to stay. Thank-you.
Q: John Pearce – Transport 2000 Atlantic
VIA Rail has started up an extensive parcel-delivery system which is really connected to
almost every train they operate in the corridor. I am just wondering, with respect to timesensitive parcels or pieces of mail, if there is any consideration being given to the use of
that system?
A: Barry Craven, Canada Post
Thanks. You are talking about VIA Pac, I guess? I think that’s what it is called.
Q: John Pearce – Transport 2000 Atlantic
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Yes, I think that’s the right name for it.
A: Barry Craven, Canada Post
Without mentioning the name of a competitor, yeah.
Q: John Pearce – Transport 2000 Atlantic
Actually, we have tried that out between Ottawa and southwestern Ontario and the
application was for what we call the ‘tail of the mail.’ It is mail that did not get finished
processing when the trucks left, and we used it for a little bit in that lane. I think what
happened was, first of all, it was not exactly cost-effective and, secondly, we were able to
speed up like our Senior Vice President wants us to do and the ‘tail of the mail’ does not
exist any more. But it would be nice to be able to jump on-board. The key there is that
the schedule has to be there at the time when we need it.
Richard Gilbert, Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Session Chair
Barry, thank-you very much. You made me feel like a relic, showing those slides of
people sorting mail on trains because, a few years after you were born, that is exactly
what I did as a Christmas job in the UK. Even in the few days before Christmas, next
day service was guaranteed by the British Post Office everywhere for first-class mail,
everywhere in the mainland of Britain, and the Post Office trains were absolutely
essential to that. Of course, they got a bit chaotic over Christmas and they had crazy
people like me working on them as casual labour. But it was exactly like you say, those
very narrow corridors, all the little pigeon-holes and even the mail being taken off the
moving train. I mean, that was amazing, seeing that.
Just one comment, too. I read in the paper the other day that UPS has now shortened all
of its schedules by a day. It is now competing with FedEx (in the U.S.) at a lower price
and that scheduled freight rail is part of the improvement in service. So maybe there is a
lot of potential there. But, what is amazing to me is that 50-60 years ago and longer, you
could do these things and you do not seem to be able to do, WE do not seem to be able to
do them so well in many cases now. You should write a history of that.
Moving on to something very interesting in terms of the return to rail. This seems to be
very much a success story for intermodal freight, presented by Gordon Peters. Gord is
variously with Cando Contracting and with Athabasca Northern Railway.
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Gordon Peters – Chief Executive Officer
Cando Contracting / Athabasca Northern Railway
Athabasca Northern Railway & Alberta Pacific Forest Industries: A Testament To
a Successful Modal Shift
I do not have a railroad background. I tell everyone that right off the bat. I am an
entrepreneur. I started in the railway business by a little bit of an accident 25 years ago in
the contracting business and we still have not gotten rid of the contracting name, “Cando
Contracting.” I really was loose looking for a job 25 years ago and this summer we find
ourselves celebrating our 25th anniversary. Now we say we are in the railroad business. I
tell everyone that because I think it brings a special light to our view of the world in
transportation and, in particular, the railroad industry. I found it fascinating as an
entrepreneur to walk into an industry that had an unbelievable history going back, and the
way they did business, and the things that have changed. In the 25 years we have been
involved with rail, I have seen huge changes and we like to think that we prodded and we
helped everybody make some of those changes.
Barry’s comment “love/hate relationships” between rail and I call them the ‘widgetbuilders’ of the world, I could not say more. I think that is what we are good at. That is
where we come in as far as the Cando Team. Our success has probably been solely
attributed to that fact of trying to make the widget-builders and the railways, both CN and
CP, the Class 1’s, get together and create new opportunities, new traffic, and we have had
pretty good success.
Cando is the parent company of Athabasca Northern Railway, Central Manitoba Railway
and a couple of railways in Ontario. We also do a lot of industrial switching, in which
there is no railroad, but we do industrial switching, loading, things like that. Once again,
I always say it is just the interface between the Class 1’s and the widget-builders of the
world. Many times I find that they just cannot get along; there is either so much bad
blood from something that happened years ago or they just will not look at each other and
try to get a solution. So, it has been a very rewarding career, leading success stories, new
opportunities and, of course, when we get into shortlines now, we always look for some
big wins. It is fun to work on them, put them together, and then watch them years later
succeed when everybody else thought they couldn’t. That is what we are all about.
My presentation is about Athabasca Northern, one of the latest shortlines that we
acquired. We are not quite into a success story yet, it has not got the financial rewards
we want yet. About a year ago, Athabasca and Alberta Forest Products in northern
Alberta got together. We own the shortline in the area; they own a big pulp mill. All our
movement had been going by truck. Athabasca Northern, a line into the Fort McMurray
area, was acquired three years ago on very short notice. An American firm wanted to
pull out of the area’s 200-mile shortline, and CN at the time just could not pull out of the
area. They did not want to operate it because it is not their core capability to operate in
the remote areas of northern Alberta. We were approached to look at it. We did; we
were successful in the bid to acquire the 200-mile line, and that led to the creation of
Athabasca Northern.
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I have always been lucky in my life. If you go back three years ago, some of you might
remember that the oil business took off about that time. For the year prior to our
purchase, Athabasca Northern had virtually no traffic at all on a 200-mile line. The boys
down in Boqueton, Florida had a hard time understanding what northern Alberta was
going to be. It is quite a bit easier today explaining how important it is to Mr. Bush with
energy issues and things like that. From the day we took it over, literally, the thing just
exploded on us for opportunities, mainly in the oil and gas industry; hauling petroleum
coke and sulphur out the Fort McMurray area.
That is how we came to owning the Athabasca Northern. Alberta Forest Products is a
very large pulp mill with a very successful operation with a huge forest management
area. When we bought the line we really did not look at these opportunities. We got
looking at it after the purchase. Their forest management area and our track run next to
each other through a vast area of very difficult terrain.
Let’s review what the deal was when we started the project. We saw thousands of trucks.
Highway 63 runs to Fort McMurray. It is not a divided highway and it is the only
highway going to Fort McMurray. Literally thousands of trucks come in and out of there,
especially in the last 2 or 3 years; log trucks, oil trucks, all kinds of traffic. We knew that
Alpac was interested in a commercial agreement; they had logs to haul. The prior owners
of the line had tried to convince them to haul the raw product in. All the pulp does go out
of the mill, always has gone out of the mill, to Vancouver to go to off-shore markets.
The raw logs coming in had never been moved by rail, they had always been moved by
truck. We are talking movements of 250 miles, something like that which, typically, the
railroad industry would not look at at all, it is too short. CN and CP would have a hard
time making a go of this. Because we controlled the whole movement, I had always felt
that we could make the thing work. Obviously, to get Alpac interested there was going to
have to be some money put on the table. There had to be a cost-saving to Alpac to make
this work.
The start of this reduced load road impact and safety improvement in the transportation
sector was a sad moment in both Alpac and our company. We had a fatality on our rail
line before this started. One of their log trucks hit one of our trains, and it was from
meetings about the accident that we decided to look at the traffic shift from road to rail.
The line had not been run and we started running trains on it, it was an unfortunate
accident. But it was a huge issue to Alpac and it is a huge issue to us to do it right.
Also, from what has been said in the conference here today, we are very confident that
rail, particularly in the long-haul movements, will have savings in greenhouse gas
emissions and things like that. On a smaller move like this, it is a little hard to quantify,
but Alpac is a very progressive company that wants to be green and wants to do things
right. That was a big issue for them, and obviously it had to be profitable for us. If we
were going to change and move from about 500,000 existing tonnes to about a million
tonnes a year of product on the line, we were going to have to figure out a way to make
money doing it.
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To give you an idea where the line is, Fort McMurray is towards north-eastern Alberta.
Fort McMurray is in the top and coming down to Alpac where their plant is. We actually
hook into the line at Boyle with Rail America, another shortline we hook into. We have
running rights on that track for 25 miles to the plant. The proposal to move the 500,000
tonnes of logs is that we would put lay-down yards in several areas. One is the Fort
McMurray terminal and the other is at Conklin, pretty well right in the middle of our
track. We scale the logs going into our yards, do inventory and then load and ship the
logs out to the plant. The Fort McMurray terminal, has close to 100 acres of land for laydown space between this project, coking, coal and sulphur; different trans-loading that we
do up there.
All our product is trans-loaded. If anyone does not know the Fort McMurray area, the
main oil upgraders are about 30 miles north of Fort McMurray at Tar Island. So we are
moving right now probably 800,000 tonnes through Fort McMurray by truck to our rail
head. Fort McMurray then goes from us to Rail America to CN to the markets of the
world. We are working on a proposal right now that would push that track 25/30 miles
north right up to Tar Island also. That is where we operate out of. It is a very tough area;
there are very few roads in and out. In 200 miles, I think we have got five roadcrossings, something like that. It is tough to get in, a tough area.
The plant at Alpac uses about, believe it or not, when you talk about heavy volumes, 2 ½
million tonnes of logs a year. It is unbelievable the amount of logs that go through that
facility, and like I said, the finished product is moved out by rail. They were moving
entirely by trucks up until then. There were a couple of problems with the trucks we
could quickly see. One was the fact that trucks could only move eight months of the
year. They store logs for four months of the year. Alpac has a huge log yard at the Alpac
plant. A huge expense is incurred to unload these logs and store the logs. They can keep
a half-year supply of logs, a million and a half tonnes, on the ground at the plant. That is
a lot of product to store in the area. Our concept was to use our lay-down yards as
inventory control and we would deliver over 12 months of the year.
It has been a furious year. That is one of the reasons why the principals of Athabasca
Northern Railroad, Don Barr from our side and John Ellison are not here from Alpac.
We have had to put a considerable amount of effort into the operations in the last year
and the boys up there are putting the finishing touches on all the logs, all the yards and
that here, so we are ready for winter this year.
In November we signed the contract after five months of negotiations. Obviously, if we
are going to put capital into infrastructure, we needed commitments to make it work. We
signed a ten-year contract for about half a million tonnes of logs a year. Really, when it
comes down to it, the move is now 80% by rail and 20% by truck. We receive the trucks,
we scale them, we off-load them and then we re-load them on rail or direct load them on
the rail cars. That is the two things we do, the loading and unloading. I think this is
unique in the railway industry. We are not like the Class 1’s, we are nowhere near like
them. To be successful in this type of work today, I believe you have got to be modeled
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after, similar to what we have got, which is to do more than pull trains. There is no doubt
that when we first started talking to Alpac, their view of the world, once again I use this
term ‘widget-builder,’ they wanted to make pulp, they did not want to worry about
transportation costs. You have to solve a lot of problems for the customer and we
typically like to find a customer that has got a lot of transportation problems. To us that
is fertile ground to bring them onto the rail network.
Obviously, you can see that between the two companies, we are about ¾ of the business.
We have spent about $8 million bringing this project together. For our company, a small
entrepreneurial company, $6 million was a huge capital investment. However, we
believe by the time we get through this, it is going to work out and we have doubled the
volume on our line.
One of the problems we have gone through in signing this deal was that we actually
started too quickly, it is the entrepreneur come out in me. We signed in November and
by the 10th, 15th of December, we were receiving logs and we had no yards, we had
nothing. They scraped away the bush and laid down just about 200,000 tonnes of logs
before we had everything into play. We have paid the price all summer. Once again, WE
HAVE paid the price, not Alpac. We should have probably waited a year and got our
stuff in place but anyone that knows us, we move ahead very quickly. We will get it
resolved and we will get the operation moving efficiently.
We have had lots of problems. One of the ones that really sticks in my mind, was the big
flack from Alberta Transportation. We brought in 50 cars for the dedicated move. There
were a couple of holes in the floors of a couple of the cars. The cars came from B.C.
Rail. They were old log cars but they will work for us, and they were going to stop the
whole train because of these couple of holes. We had to show them pictures of the trucks
running down the road. I do not know if you are familiar with pole-pole, these are big
logging trucks that have got one skinny pole in the middle, all loose, all the way, any log
could drop out, fall into the road. Once again, a road with other people, you or me are
driving behind them. When we are running on our track, with our own cars, and nobody
else on it and we have a hole this big, and honest-to-God, they were going to shut the
train down. I just could not understand it. We faxed them, or sent them pictures of the
trucks, and then said, “Explain to us how you let the trucks go with no floors at all and
we have one hole and you are going to shut us down? Doesn’t make any sense.” Well,
we got that resolved.
This summer we are looking forward to the next nine years of the contract, the benefits
that it is going to bring us all. For me, it is very rewarding to change the way business
was done. There is no doubt that the greenhouse gases will be reduced, when we
negotiated the deal, Alpac receives all the benefits. If there is a Kyoto benefit, if it ever
comes about, they are going to receive the benefits. We were offered nothing from
governments to do this, even though the logs were running on the roads before.
The reduced gas emissions are estimated at 50,000 tonnes over ten years. Alpac is going
to save the better part of $1 million a year in their transportation costs. The year-round
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delivery of logs to Alpac is very important to them, although they never did come out and
say how important. They are talking about expansions and they do not have to expand
their log yard, so I think that has got a fair number to it. Reduction of road impact costs
result from taking 12,500 truckloads a year off highway number 63, south of Fort
McMurray. So between an impact cost and a safety issue, it has been a huge issue. For
the local communities, there are less trucks on the roads. Obviously, increased revenues
for us, we just about came close to doubling our revenues on our shortline. There should
be a little profit left at the end of the day.
Another point on the improved road safety in local communities. Interestingly when we
started to put the yard in, the government came to us and said, “Well, if you guys are
going to do this, we want you to put, what they call accelerator lanes in,” and a whole list
of stuff. Even though the logs were coming off every side road onto #881, as soon as
they got to our yard, they thought we should have all this stuff in. Long story short, it
was a $600,000 bill that I believe the government tried to stick us with, this is still not
resolved. It is just amazing to me that we are taking trucks off the road and the
government turns around and charges us more money to fix their roads up. Another thing
it has led to is that we have got another log movement right now we are working on that
is about 125,000 tonnes a year. It is about a 200-mile move also.
These are the benefits that we have seen as companies and as communities up there. I
have a short film that I would like to show you. Here are the contact people, it is in your
package, the two individuals that are chiefly in charge of putting the deal together.
Obviously, I worked on the negotiations, but the operating side Don Barr, on our team
and John Ellison from Alpac. I know John and his team at Alpac are very proud of this,
of what it has done and talked quite extensively about that. With that, we have a little
film here that was put together on the log-haul move.
Thanks a lot. Just in closing, a lot of the people heard me saying before that in our
business I always say that we want a short, short, short line with a huge loading contract
at the end. So that is what this is.
Q: Richard Gilbert – Centre for Sustainable Transportation
It is more of a comment than a question but there is a little question at the end. I would
like to congratulate both presenters to this point on achieving a significant intermodal
shift, and with it, reductions in production of greenhouse gas emissions. Having been
involved in one failed scheme in the Uteway to having a wood-loading and transport
operation on a now-abandoned branch-line, I admire your success. And I just wondered
if you could mention any, sort of, resistances that may have come up to what you were
doing. You mentioned the highway safety demons and the sort of cross-modal
discrimination, which is one barrier, which I think we are always coming up against in
the rail business. But were there other resistances within or without either corporation or
regulatory bodies?
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A: Gordon Peters, Cando Contracting
Yes, there is always the issue of change, and the bigger your organization, the harder a
time you have with that. Our group is very entrepreneurial and we are very young, so we
are kind of like WestJet. Our team was ready to look at anything. The Alpac guys, the
trucking issue, there was obviously some trucks that got displaced by this, and stuff like
that. Alpac existing crew, and that is what we point out, we are only hauling 20% of the
raw logs. So they had used a lot of spot trucks just for a month or two of the year. That
was not very efficient anyway, but there was a little bit of a downside in that.
Our headquarters are at Lac La Biche, an aboriginal community. We have a huge
component of aboriginal people working on the railroad up there, a very good team. We
want to promote that more, so they have done very well on it. For the town of Lac La
Biche there is a lot of activity. Some guys do not like the activity, but if you kept going
down the road the rail yard was there, the existing rail yard, but we are just using it more.
So there is a lot of activity going on, and we are trying to put together a package right
now to put a building in place at Lac La Biche and stuff like that. On one hand, the city
fathers love the tax revenue. On the other hand, the activity of the trains and things like
that is always an ongoing problem.
They are trying to even these four crossings. It is a dangerous country to work in,
because here in the south, you see a lot of crossings. We do not have crossing protection,
lights, and things like that, in some of them. If you have been running for years and
never saw a train, if you were a truck driver and then all of a sudden there was a train, we
have had some close calls. We have advertised in the paper, we have done everything to
try to make people aware that we are up there and we are operating now. We can be
there any time of the day. So we had to re-educate everybody that was involved with that
on a safety aspect.
Richard Gilbert, Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Session Chair
Well, thank-you very much, Gordon, for that encouraging presentation. A couple of
years ago, I had the opportunity to do some work for OECD on freight transport in
Sweden. The culture there, if you want to call it that, is really startlingly different, in
terms of how freight transport services are deployed and how they are purchased. The
startling difference is the great prominence given to environmental criteria in managing
logistics, supply chain management, in purchasing services, and so on. I think it is
probably true to say that in Sweden now, the environmental criteria are just about at the
top of the list. I mean, they are obviously there with all the other things like cost and
reliability and so on. I was intrigued to look at a list put out by George Atek of the
criteria that the 19 major shippers in the United States use for purchasing freight services.
There were about 38 criteria listed and there was not a single environmental criterion
among them of any kind. There is a startling difference and I wondered how on earth
what goes on in Sweden could ever be brought to North America. What went on in
Sweden was driven very much by the Swedish government, but I wondered how it could
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possibly happen. I have now figured out how it is going to happen, it is going to happen
through Sabina.
IKEA is, of course, a very prominent Swedish company and is doing absolutely
extraordinary things in Sweden in terms of how it manages its own supply chains in
Europe. What I see happening, and what I am going to be very, very interested to hear
about, is how IKEA is introducing this kind of thinking into North America. That is,
perhaps, how it is going to happen in North America, through IKEA’s example.
Sabina has been with IKEA for some time and, before that, she was a rail person. She
comes especially equipped as an environmental specialist, working for a huge shipper,
and a former rail history to tell us what IKEA is doing in North America and how these
changes are going to happen; Sabina Strautman.
Sabina Strautman – Environment Transport
IKEA North America Services
Case Study in Modal Shift: IKEA
I am a rather newbie to IKEA, relatively new, I have only been with IKEA for coming on
two years now. It has been quite a big change from working in the rail industry, or other
regulated communities, to a retailer like IKEA. Several of you do not know very much
about IKEA, and some of you do very intimately, by putting together all our furniture.
So I want to take this opportunity to introduce IKEA, give you an idea about the
company, where we are located, how we are organized, then what drives our
environmental policy and how that policy affects our choices in the transportation
network. The reason that I am rather new here is that there has been a big explosion of
growth here in North America for IKEA. So, a lot of the policies and procedures and our
strategies in choices of a transportation network are now being translated to North
America.
IKEA started 60 years ago, in 1943, so we are celebrating this year our 60th anniversary.
It was founded by a gentleman with this vision, “To create a better everyday life for the
many people.” You will find throughout this presentation that I have many Swedish
translations from English into Swedish, so we have ‘Swenglish’ in this whole
presentation. For those people who like trivia, the ‘IK’ stands for this gentleman’s name,
Ingvar Kamprad, who is our founder. The ‘E’ stands for the farm that he grew up on,
Elmatrid. And the ‘A’ is the village, which I assume, is just another farm with his farm,
Agunterid.
To give you a little bit of an idea about IKEA. Our business idea is, “to offer a wide
selection of furniture at a price that as many people as possible can afford.” To give you
an idea of our facts and figures for our fiscal year 2002, our fiscal years run September to
September. We have more than 10,000 articles, 154 stores in 22 countries, and 1,700
suppliers in 55 countries. That is because IKEA mainly designs the furniture and shops it
out to the manufacturer for the lower price, anywhere in the world. We actually do own
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wood factories, because we need to secure the amount of wood that we do use in our
products. So we do have our own factories called Swedwood. There are 35 factories in
11 countries and I believe there is one Swedwood located in Nova Scotia. We have
75,000 co-workers and 286 million customers.
The fiscal year 2003 just ended. To give you an update of where we are: we are now in
43 countries and we have about 76,000 co-workers. We had over 3 million customers
and we had, again, here in North America a big explosion of growth. We opened nine
stores in North America, three of which were in Canada, the rest in the U.S. We are
looking to open seven new stores, one of which will be in Canada, in Calgary. If I have
anything to do with it, I will try to get one in Winnipeg. To give you an idea of our sales,
in Euro, in 2002, we had 11 billion in Euro sales. Our plans are to double our sale
volumes within 5 years which is quite a significant growth.
I would like to give you an idea of where we purchase our goods and where our sales are.
Our sales are mainly in Europe, our biggest selling country is actually Germany. It is
closely followed by the U.S. as well as the U.K. However, on the purchasing side, where
we actually purchase our goods, it is quite a big shift. The majority of it is in Europe.
Actually, that percentage has gone down for this past fiscal year in FY03. A lot of our
goods are now made in Asia, a big significant movement there. As you can see, a lot of
packages moving out of Asia to the other parts of our company and our stores. So our
distribution network makes it possible to move all these articles to everywhere in all these
stores in the various countries at the lowest possible cost.
Figure 4.2 gives an idea of where our distribution centres are. We have a few more
actually, in North America that have not shown up here. This is not quite an accurate
depiction, but it kind of gives you an idea of our regional distribution centres world-wide.
As you can see, a lot of them are based in Europe.
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Figure 4.2 Distribution Centers all over the World
Our transportation split today. Road handles 60%, rail handles 20%, ocean carriers
handle also 20% and, of course, air is less than 1% given the size and the weight of our
goods, not the most efficient transport. The kind of a unique advantage is that, if you are
familiar with the IKEA concept, we flat-pack all our tables and chairs and whatever else
you have to assemble into a self-assembly type of package. This flat package allows
higher loading capacities. We have large volumes and a common transport network that
we work on. One of the difficulties in the transportation side is, for every cubic metre
that we sell, we have to transport 2 ½ times that volume, even with the flat packages. So
that becomes a significant cost in our transportation.
Our environmental policy, again here is a little bit of Swenglish, ‘the good company.’
Essentially, it means that IKEA wants to be the responsible company and viewed as a
responsible company by all our stakeholders. Our policy basically states that we are
going to strive to minimize damaging effects to the environment.
Our environmental responsibilities as well as our social, IKEA does NOT just focus on
the environmental side, and working conditions issues that we are concerned about,
especially with our suppliers, is now going to translate to our distribution side. Basically,
it covers our whole supply chain. All the way to the store and all the way to the
customer. This whole philosophy and our policy translate into actions into six areas of
our company. To focus on the transportation side, we are looking at the energy and
emissions, our carrier development and review. We realize that a lot of times working
with our carriers, when we set a stake in the ground to make a certain environmental
improvement, it takes a lot of awareness and a lot of dialogue and partnering. We do see
the railway as a solution and there are all the other aspects as far as activities that we are
taking on; again, throughout the whole supply chain.
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Just to reiterate that our concern about the distribution environment is that we want to
continuously reduce the environmental impact of the transportation of our goods. We
have set a several year goal in mind to a strategy for transportation based on our vision
and business idea. We want to create and maintain transportation solutions in order to
meet all the needs of our customers in the most environmentally-adapted way.
Our objective is to become a world-class distributor and we want to be the most resourceefficient distributor. We do focus, from the environmental aspects, on the three E’s
which are: energy, engines and efficiency. We have set a goal for ourselves by 2005 and
that is what is driving a lot of our decisions right now. Basically, we have made a
decision to reduce our emissions of CO2 in transport by 15% per cubic metre, again this
is an intensity. Obviously with the growth we are experiencing a total increase in CO2,
and we are looking at how to reduce the total in the future.
However, transport is one of our most important environmental aspects. When we
looked at our emissions, basically for all our articles, we realized that transportation
stands for at least 80% of the total emissions. IKEA’s transport volumes are growing fast
because of increased sales volumes and the fact that we are distancing our source
suppliers. We are taking a look at that, as far as distance source suppliers are now
starting to try to develop more suppliers within North America, within each region,
instead of trying to source from Asia.
The transportation sector overall is our greatest challenge to what we call sustainable
development. This is no surprise to this group. That is because the transportation sector
is basically 100% dependent on fossil fuels. These are just other issues that are of
importance from a world-wide perspective that directly contribute to 30% of emissions of
CO2 world-wide. Transportation is also a major source of local and regional pollutants,
of which those are usually regulated now. There is a big concern on external noise in
urban areas and I was actually surprised to see how often, in the presentations of the last
day and a half, that noise was actually mentioned. As well, there was a big demand for
land-use for infrastructure. This is just to show you, based on information from the
European Commission, that the transportation sector is the highest consumer of energy as
well as the biggest emitter of CO2 emissions.
The actions that we take in order for us to be pro-active is that we have set in mind how
to measure and follow-up our environmental impacts from our transportation network.
Actually, setting this goal of reducing 15% per cubic metre has started to make us look at
our systems and realize that we have to change the way we measure things. In order to
hardwire an environmental metric into the business decision-making, we had to start
changing the way we were measuring and the transparency of how our network was
working.
On the transport planning side, we focused on increasing our filling rates and reducing
our empty positioning. We cooperate with carriers to improve fuel efficiency and
missions performance. We do a lot of awareness raising. We work, again as I
mentioned, with them as partners and we choose the most environmentally-adapted mode
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of transportation, and it is a mix between road, rail and ocean. We do use a tool, again, it
needs upgrading in order for us to calculate our own emissions. We look at our
shipments and we take the volume data, filling rate, the distance we move it. We apply
an emission-value factor, and then come out with what our CO2 per cubic metre is and we
track that to try to meet our goals.
To give you an idea of why we are focusing on flat-packing as well as filling rate. We
have a target internally of trying to have our filling rate at least 50% of the load. Our
reason of course, is fairly straightforward. This example here is if the filling rate on a
tonne-basis increases from 50-60%, the fuel consumption per tonne of goods decreases
by 15%.
How do we select the right mode of transport? Well, we did have our own metric
internally where we set a CO2 reduction goal, and if we were to only focus on that, then,
obviously, transporting by sea would be the best, given this relative CO2 per tonnekilometre. Rail is of course, less than 100%, because a lot of the systems in Europe are
electrified, and they do have the ability to purchase ‘green power.’ However, we do not
solely look at CO2 when we are looking to evaluate our carriers and our carrier choices.
We also looked at all the other aspects of what that transportation represents. As you can
see, if we were to use shipping alone, and we have just looked at CO2, we would be
missing the fact that shipping is a big emitter of SO2.
Who are the right carriers? Well, we are looking to actually couple with like-minded
carriers, the ones that have the same type of vision, look at environment as part of
incorporating into how they are doing business.
The tools that IKEA uses to evaluate the performance of a carrier are what we call an
environmental performance survey. We had gotten a lot of feedback and the lessons
learned from the European region of IKEA are that a lot of carriers were coming back to
us saying that IKEA is not the only one interested, and they were getting continually
submitted these questionnaires. So we realized that we wanted to standardize that tool,
because we did not want to put an undue burden on all the carriers to have to continually
fill out a different form of an environmental performance survey. So, IKEA has been
working together with a group called “Business for Social Responsibility” who are a nongovernment organization and they are based in San Francisco. There are a lot of other
shippers involved with IKEA and dialogue with carriers, and mainly it has been the ocean
carriers and the trucking business so far. We look to expand that into having dialogue
with rail carriers. We have actually come up with a standardized tool and we are hoping
that that will be standardized for all other shippers who are interested in evaluating their
carriers’ performance. We also looked to see whether the carriers themselves have put
together an ‘environmental action plan,’ an EAP, with goals. We also do a carrier
review. We look at the type of reports they do and we are looking at them to do
continuous improvement also.
Another unusual aspect about IKEA and the tools that we use is that we actually have
what we call ‘minimum environmental demands’ or requirements. In order to be an
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IKEA carrier and service provider, at different times or different fiscal years, we actually
want to see an actual improvement for each carrier, and we actually define those criteria.
There is a certain entry level in order to even do business with IKEA. Then we set
examples in the staircase model of the different areas of criteria that we want to see
improvements in, depending on the type of mode of transportation. An example of what
IKEA uses in Europe for their rail carriers and the staircase model that they use, and
present to them that these are the minimum requirements that they have to meet for every
fiscal year that they do business with IKEA.
IKEA, of course, tries to work together with these carriers and basically identifies the
reasons for being pro-active, which are very important for IKEA. Since we are directly
associated with the customer, the customer has a lot of requirements on IKEA. We
basically see that we can differentiate ourselves from our competitors, we improve
efficiencies, obviously reduce fuel usage as savings, pro-actively alleviating negative
publicity from NGO’s which is a bigger issue I would say, in Europe than it is North
America. However, we are not immune to that in this area, and to be an active
stakeholder, ensuring an environmentally sustainable world for future generations.
This is not just the end for IKEA. Our steps are also to incorporate social responsibility
into our processes on our way to sustainable development. So, I think this term, if
somebody else has seen this, “Think global but act local,” kind of gives you an idea of
how this policy now works within our regions. The way IKEA is organized is that we
have a North American region, for which I am responsible for integrating the
environmental policy into our business decision, and there is Europe and the Asia Pacific
region.
IKEA was getting rather frustrated because they noticed that, although their policy
dictated that they wanted to reduce emissions, as well as do more cost-savings, they
realized that their shares on the railroad were continually decreasing year-by-year. There
was a lot of frustration in discussions because of the problems with cross-countries
moves. So they ended up becoming their own rail operator. To give you an idea, the
railway was established in 2001, and the first train operated in June of 2002. It runs from
Almhult, Sweden, which is the ‘Mecca’ for IKEA thru Denmark to Duisburg, Germany.
That is over 1,000 kilometres and it has a load capacity of 30 trailers. The improvements
are that it basically replaces 60 road trucks a day. CO2 has been reduced by 70%,
particulate emissions more than halved, and hydrocarbon emissions are slashed by
approximately 80%.
Future goals are to move more volume on train by physical year 2006, and that is not just
on IKEA Rail. We are actually focusing also in Britain and a lot of other moves within
Europe, and there are a lot of gains to be made here. In the North American region, from
our Brossard terminal outside of Montreal we are going to our four stores in the Toronto
area. We basically shifted 98% from road to rail, which results in over 4,000 regular
drive-in moves per year to be shifted onto rail. We also partnered through this move with
Hudson Bay, we are actually on their back-haul, on CP Express. So we actually have
really made great gains from an environmental perspective.
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During 2002, in the U.S. we tested service runs from our distribution centre outside of
Baltimore to Chicago. Unfortunately, the service levels had the same problems, on-andoff-time ramps. We are also supporting a project of rail development from the L.A. port
to Lancaster, and this is just a project that is on the books right now.
Because IKEA is importing over 44,000 containers, our future goal is to continue to
develop source-suppliers in Mexico and South America and to shift more towards rail.
To give you an idea of our Asian experience – we have actually done a test run on the
Trans-Siberian Rail. For a while there I did not think we knew where our container was,
but I think it did show up three months later, so we are working on that solution.
Just to close, basically, as IKEA likes to say, “Most things still remain to be done. It is a
glorious future.” I thank you for your attention.
Q: Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
Sabina, you used an interesting measure of CO2 per cubic metre, I think which introduces
density into the equation. We have talked mostly at this conference about grams per
tonne-kilometre, which is weight in distance. I wonder what light you could shed on that
and if you could indicate if you also look at weight in distance? Because, if you are
comparing commodities of equal density, I think CO2 per cubic metres can do it for you.
But, in the rail business, for example, where we are comparing very different products
with very different densities, I do not know if it really works?
A: Sabina Strautman, IKEA North America Services
Again, this is like an internal metric that we use and the reason why it started is that we
had to take the type of measurements we had, which is basically our cubic metres. We
were more concerned about our filling rates than we were really concerned about the
weight, the weight was not really a big restriction for us. However, as we were working
more and more with carriers, we needed to come up with a common, almost an agreed-to
measure between these other shippers such as Nike and Home Depot, and everybody else
who is concerned about the performance of the carriers. This is also in dialogue with the
carriers so I suspect that as we are moving forward and start talking with the rail industry,
that that issue about which metric to use will come out.
Q: John Spacek – Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Sabina, you bring an international perspective and that is what I am curious about. Many
of us have been involved here domestically and in a North American context of trying to
improve our transportation performance from a sustainability transportation perspective.
Many of the examples that are brought to us are European examples and you have
highlighted many. I wonder if you could share with us your view as to whether there are
any cultural, institutional or any other barriers that tend to differentiate applying those
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examples here in North America? You have had great success in Europe, you have had
some success by the look of it in North America, and I am curious what lessons are to be
learned?
A: Sabina Strautman, IKEA North America Services
Interesting question. I am wearing war wounds over this past year, trying to get this
concept introduced. I think a lot of the issues have to do with the transportation industry.
It is highly regulated, especially on their engines’ performance, and I think, different in
the U.S. of course than Canada, U.S. also has not signed on to the Kyoto protocol.
However, like most companies who are going to work or are working trans-nationally,
that basically does not have any boundaries. However, to introduce that kind of
conversation to companies that are regionally-based operators, whether it is a trucking
company or a shortline railroad or whatever, it is a long process. We have done it oneon-one, right now, to talk with our service providers, basically raising awareness, taking
on responsibility ourselves. We also worked, as I mentioned, with BSR to get more of an
industry-to-industry discussion, to realize that we are not the only shippers to start using
market leverage as a way to change the mindset. So, I think it is going to be a slower
process in North America. There are still parts in Europe, although everybody looks at
Sweden and Switzerland and Denmark as being very environmentally aware, that have a
lot of, I would say, institutional just systemic issues that create barriers that we have to
try to come over.
Q: Richard Gilbert – Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Sabina, could I just ask John’s question in a slightly different way? What could
government do in North America, if anything, to move us in the direction that IKEA has
been moving in?
A: Sabina Strautman, IKEA North America Services
Well, actually what IKEA has been using, or I have been using to create that kind of
dialogue, is using voluntary initiatives. I believe Bob Fronczak was mentioning
SmartWay as well as FleetSmart program, and Bob Smith is here, so there are a lot of
other programs, voluntary programs, that have a lot of tools that a lot of companies can
use to start integrating these thoughts and concepts. Do I necessarily believe that
regulation is the way? I do not think so. I would rather see, I think the cooperation that I
see in an industry-to-industry free market is much more effective than through regulation.
Q: Bob Fronczak – Association of American Railroads
Sabina, when we had our first meeting for the SmartWay program, we had a discussion
about, would a shipper be willing to spend a premium for an environmentally friendly
mode of transportation, if you will. There was quite a bit of talk about shifting from road
to rail and, as a matter of fact, you could probably get some economy for doing that, from
an economic standpoint, but you might sacrifice some service or time. I just wondered,
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had you considered that? Is there a cost that you would be willing to spend for the
environmentally friendly transport mode, if you will?
A: Sabina Strautman, IKEA North America Services
I would say yes, but it is interesting how I have internal discussions with our business
developers. IKEA actually has, and this issue came up with our ocean carriers, because
you can imagine the costs for them to change out their engines. I mean, exponentially
you go from truck to rail to the ocean carriers and a lot of the shippers did agree that they
would agree to some cost supporting it, if this is what they wanted. What is interesting is
the reverse, that it is supposed to be more efficient in operations, too, so eventually there
should be cost-savings. So there is not just the increase, the added cost, there should be
some efficiencies then in the system and it all depends on how you start evaluating what
the total cost is. I mean, do you include the environmental piece? I mean, how big is the
cost umbrella that you put that around? So, again, it is just changing the way you are
thinking.
Question:
We have handled the macro side of it; I have a question on the micro side. My wife
drives from Sault Ste. Marie to Toronto to go to IKEA and back again. That is 20 hours
in the car, right? Causing emissions. But that is not the worst, I have to cook for 3 days
and you should see these emissions! So, my question is – when will you open up in Sault
Ste. Marie?
A: Sabina Strautman, IKEA North America Services
I think you need the high-speed rail line. Isn’t that a solution?
John Spacek – Senior Director, Transportation Policy and Service
Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
Rail versus Road Access to Remote Communities in Manitoba
Given the kind words Richard just said about my background, one of the interesting
things about this project is that it brings together all of the issues that lifelong learning
brings to this business. I guess what we could have called this presentation is “Public
Policy Case Study in Sustainable Transportation” because it is far more than trying to
deal with some remote access issues to some of our original constituents. In fact, it really
brings together all of these intriguing elements that those of us in public policy deal with.
It brings into conflict Federal and Provincial jurisdictional issues, that is, the “who is
going to blink first” syndrome. It brings in that awful word called “subsidy.” It brings in
First Nations and then, of course, with First Nations comes the INAC region, and of
course, headquarters. It brings in the Canadian Transportation Act with our net salvage
value legislation provisions. It certainly brings in remote access, and I will get back to
that with a reference to ‘Straight Ahead’ shortly. Frankly, it all ends up with the
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proverbial, for those of us in the transportation business, or what used to be called, the
highway business, is “We want our road.”
I am going to talk about three kinds of general areas thematically. One is just to give us
an idea of what remote access in Manitoba means. Certainly, there is a large railway
dimension to the Manitoban remote access story, and I am going to finish up with a few
examples of what it means to address the rail-versus-road policy issue here.
One of the more interesting aspects of Manitoban life, and I am reasonably new here, is
just how many remote communities we have. We have 36 or so remote communities in
northern Manitoba. An interesting policy angle is the definition of what is a remote
community. Believe it or not, the definition of a remote community is whether or not you
have all-weather road access. If you cannot jump in your car and go somewhere anytime,
you are in a remote community. It is also from a program point of view in the “who is
going to blink first” arena. INAC also defines their funding programs by whether or not
you have a road. Fascinating. But at the end of the day, we also have to appreciate that
the people that live in these communities do not have access to mainstream Canada. They
do not have access to our mainstream economic system through our road network.
Consequently, their costs are higher. Certainly, their job opportunities are more limited,
they have lower incomes as a result, and basically, they tell us that their quality of life is
less than ours.
About 3% of our population live in remote communities, that is about 33,000 people. It
is not a lot of people, but wait till you see the dimension of this. It is also about 6.5% of
our rural population. Some people call Manitoba a city-state, I do not, but Winnipeg is
55% of our population. Our remote residents are 90% First Nations under Federal
jurisdiction and about 10% under Provincial, the majority of those living in Churchill.
Then we have the Métis communities that are around the North. Not a lot of people
today, but collectively they are the fastest growing segment of our population and within
20 years, their population is expected to almost triple.
We have 39 remote communities. Winter roads – 36 are served, 34 get air service by
float plane or wheeled, 6 are served by rail, and that is where we are going to focus this
discussion today, and 11 by marine ferries. We have three communities not served by
winter roads and five not served by air. We provide winter road service to most of these
communities. In fact, every year we build enough road to drive from Winnipeg to
Vancouver, if laid end-to-end, so it is a big job every year. There are a couple of
thousand shipments done on our winter roads, primarily the bulk supply of fuel. General
freight is hauled by truck. We have a $4 million annual winter road budget. Most of the
roads are opened mid-January and close mid-March. By the way, we also as a Province
own 22 airports in these remote communities.
We have 6 communities served by rail, no road access: Pukatawagan, Ilford, Thicket
Portage, Pikwitonei, War Lake First Nation, Churchill and the Port of Churchill. All of
these have air service and we provide winter roads to these communities, except
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Churchill. Figure 4.3 is our northern rail network, 810 miles of track, operated by
Hudson Bay Railway.
Figure 4.3 Northern Railway Network
Rail-serviced
Rail-serviced remote community
community
Passenger services are provided by VIA Rail, through a contract with Hudson Bay
Railway. General freight service is provided by Hudson Bay Railway. Hudson Bay
Railway is one of our larger employers in the North, 124 person-years plus spin-off
employment. On the Hudson Bay line, they get three trips a week by VIA passenger
service. On the Sherridon it has gone from three to two trips per week over the summer.
Certainly there is a lot of concern, and in our policy and service group, we address a lot
of the concerns that are expressed to our Department and our Minister over the service in
the North. It is a problem, their on-time reliability service, frequency, equipment
reliability, basically the last trip of that equipment, they say, should go to a museum.
Overall, it really needs some help, and certainly one of the big issues is a lack of space
for locals which is a problem that we face.
Interesting, there has been some references here to climate change and I believe Minister
Sale positioned Manitoba quite properly. We are, in our view, lead-by-example in this
area. In 2001, the Premier, with the help of the Honourable Lloyd Axworthy, had a
Climate Change Task Force. The report was put out and recommendations were made
and the Premier accepted the recommendations. In fact, as Departments, we are obliged
annually to report on our progress. Both the original task force report and the plans are
available on our government web site. But, interestingly enough, there were 18
recommendations in that report related to transportation and all of them were focused on
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sustainable transportation. One of them was to deal with adapting to any impacts, first
understanding the impacts on infrastructure and then secondly, adapting to them. We did
that as a Department and with the help of our Federal colleagues, we had a Transportation
and Climate Change workshop process. We put out a report, which is available on the
UMTI web site, and I would encourage people to go and look at it. There are
implications and recommendations on rail infrastructure as well as general transportation
infrastructure.
We face, in the North, a large part of our railway, and CN hands in this room will
remember from their experience, that the northern railway to Churchill is built on
permafrost and very susceptible to climatic change. Even our winter roads have had to
deal with that. Certainly, we need to look at what needs to be done there, and we intend
to do that.
One of the problems, of course, has been our winter roads. We have not had good luck
with them the last five years. We have had one year when we could not get any of the
winter roads in, and you people helped pay for that. It was, I think, a multi-million dollar
air-lift price tag to serve these communities by air. Over the long term, the demand for
all-weather roads is also sensitive to climatic change. I mean, if we need to deal with
this, the winter roads certainly are a problem for us and we question their future. The
other thing, of course, is that all of these communities are based on very, what we would
call, ‘thin freight and passenger markets’ and so, a change in one greatly impacts the
other. A loss of Pukatawagan, for example, which only has rail access, impacts the Band
which also owns the airline, so it has interesting intermodal sensitivities. But the one
thing it does point out is that we need to make decisions from a full systems cost benefit
approach. We need to understand what the implications are, and not just the “What is the
VIA subsidy?” or “What would be the annual subsidy for another operator?” There are
other costs and there are other implications. We need to understand who they apply to
and, also, who should share in those burdens or benefits.
We have looked at the cost of building roads to all of those communities, $1.1 billion.
Just the 6 communities we have listed right now that have rail access with more than once
a week, 2 or 3 times a week passenger service, amount to $500 million price tag if we
were to build roads. Churchill, by the way, would be a $330 million project. Thicket
Portage and Pikwitonei, for example, modest price tags for roads, $20 million and $20
million, total of $40 million. But on a net present value basis, we can only justify 20% of
those costs on cost-savings to those residents and the delivery of services to those
communities.
Certainly, Churchill is important to us, it serves a community of 1,000 people. It also is
Manitoba’s, the Prairies’ export port and Canada’s only Arctic port. Certainly, I am
happy to say as of yesterday, we had a very good year at the port, our second best year in
recent history. It just shows what we can do when things come together and we have
shipments through that port that have never happened before. Canola for the first time,
and 78,000 tonnes of feed peas, and so on. Frankly, it might be our best year yet, as the
year is not over for Churchill. I would also like to point out, certainly for those of us with
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the Class 1 railways here, I would like to say, it does take a lot of effort and a lot of
coordination and a lot of help. CN and CP have been helpful with car supply in a very
time dependent and difficult logistics system.
Here is the road option, if we want to build an all-weather road, Gillam to Churchill.
(Gillam is the end of the road right now, if anyone wants to drive to the end of the road, it
is a power dam up in northeastern Manitoba). $330 million construction, $2.5 million
maintenance a year, winter road is $3.4 million construction, $1.1 million maintenance. I
am going to go through these quickly. We looked also at building a road to Nunavut and
we also looked at the cost of a railway equivalence. Our attraction there, of course, is the
mining properties that are opening in the Baker Lake, Rankin Inlet area. All-weather
road, $1.6 billion, $8 million a year maintenance. Railway, what we would call a basic
railway that would suit, $1 billion if you want to go to a Class 1 level, of course it is
double that but it would be $1 billion to a $1.6 kind of comparison, interestingly enough.
Since it is a railway and it is privately-owned, I guess we would not have to be involved
in the maintenance of way, such as the $8 million all-weather road maintenance.
By the way, the Premier of Nunavut came to town one day and said, “I have a vision. My
vision includes being able to drive my car to Canada.” This road from Nunavut would
join Canada’s all-weather highway system, $1.7 billion piece of work; $11 million
maintenance of way cost. Railway, $1.1 billion or $2.3 billion again, depending on what
standard we built it to.
Quickly, we have an issue right now. We have published an ‘Abandonment’ by
OmniTRAX for the Sherridon Line. It is something we have to deal with now and we
have to deal with it quickly. It is this railway portion from Sherritt Junction to
Pukatawagan and Lynn Lake. There was a mine, the mine now closed, and rail traffic is
done. Other than passengers, it is not a financially viable line. Certainly, between
Pukatawagan and Lynn Lake, there is no traffic left. In fact, passenger service was
stopped in August. We operate to Pukatawagan – it has no other access, right now, other
than small commercial aircraft. We have engaged and had the CTA do a net salvage
value calculation for us as part of our quest for knowledge and what to do with that
railway. Certainly the costs would go up to those involved, particularly in the resource
industry, and also so-called quality of life issues. $100 million to build a road into this
community or $10 million annualized over a 20-year period. We can only justify 22% of
that expenditure, based on actual cost savings.
We funded a business case with INAC. The Band hired IBI Consultants out of Toronto.
It is going to cost money to keep this going, but they had some nice solutions, some nice
options. Basically, what they were saying, is “Let’s go to this kind of service.” They
investigated some options, Kershaw, Bud Cars, and a beautiful self-propelled car from
Poland, very expensive car but it is nice. We are also doing a detailed cost-benefit study,
to find out who the winners and losers are in all of this. Certainly, initial results suggest
that the big losers are going to be the community of Pukatawagan, it is going to cost them
over $3 million a year more to heat their homes and feed themselves. Certainly, Tolko
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Forest Products, it is estimated to cost them $2.4 million more to switch to truck. Thanks
for your time.
Q: Gord Peters – Cando Contracting
Just one question on a comment that we heard somebody else had told them earlier, do
you look at the whole cost to build and maintain the road versus the rail option? Is the
Federal government involved by Agreements?
A: John Spacek, Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
We have looked at that Gord. We are also looking at a partnership approach. We are
also looking at setting up a non-profit authority, much like the Winnipeg Airport
Authority. We are looking at the winners and losers; we are estimating those costs now.
We know, on an equity basis that if we were to build a road into that community, we
would be paying, never mind the capital costs or the 22% benefit ratio, we would be
paying $400,000 a year in maintenance of way for the highway.
Jim Vena – General Manager, Operations
CN Prairie Division
Winnipeg Intermodal Terminal Relocation
Richard, thank-you very much for the introduction. Thanks to all the participants here.
Thank-you very much for coming in and listening to me. I did not hire on the railway as
a child. That is a fallacy and I am going to deal with the guy who wrote that history on
me, but I did hire on real early and have we changed? Absolutely, we have changed.
Why have we changed? If you want to stay alive in this business and you want to make a
dollar and make sure that you grow, then you have to change. I have seen a number of
changes in the 25 years I have been with the railway.
Okay, why relocate? We have a perfectly good intermodal terminal sitting out there in
the western part of the City. Really, it did not bother us that much. A few issues, such
as: capacity limits, operational factors, lease specifications and political considerations
are all reasons why we had to move. Intermodal at CN is 1/6th of the total revenues we
make, so it makes up a big part of what we are doing. Half of that is Canadian business,
Canadian domestic business. The other half, or close to it, is import-export business that
comes into Canada, some of it coming from the Orient through the port of Vancouver,
lots coming in through Halifax into Canada and the U.S. But the biggest issue that we
have is that we have to have an efficient place that works right, and we have to do
something with this location.
The other thing we are working on and partly tied to the whole issue of what CN is doing
is IMX, Intermodal Excellence. Our intermodal business is NOT very profitable. Yes, it
takes trucks off the roads. Yes, the railways are better at handling the traffic, especially
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once you get out 5-600 miles. We are better than trucks; less cost involved in the move.
Now, we do not offer everything a truck does and we understand it and we cannot beat
them at every piece of the market. But, one thing for sure is, there are markets that are
good for the railway, good for the whole country, but we do not make a lot of money at it.
So, with IMX, we needed a new terminal here to fulfill what we have done in other
places, in Vancouver, Toronto, Halifax, Chicago and down in New Orleans, as far south
as we go.
Capacity issues here in Winnipeg:
•
•
•
At the old facility we could run about 85,000 lifts through there at the max,
Geographically constrained, there was nowhere to expand, and
We tried to purchase some land, but for good political reasons, when people are
starting to build houses just south and east of you, you are in big trouble, and we
knew that so we had to get out of that location.
Specific Operational Factors:
We built the old terminal, I do not know the guys before me, but they were not real smart.
You build a railway facility where you can flow in and flow out. The house up in East
St. Paul where I live, just outside the City of Winnipeg and I am going to get myself in
trouble for living outside of Winnipeg. But I finally found the perfect house, my wife
hated it, the kitchen was too small. But the garage was perfect you can actually drive in
the garage and drive out the other end, they have a garage door on both ends. When we
built the old terminal, those guys previous to me, built it so it is only open on one end, a
real problem. You have trains running both ways, so we had a big issue. In addition we
have a major road just east of the intermodal facility that the City and no one else would
like us to run another railway track over, so we were constrained. Trucks were a
problem, not a real easy location, and remote from the main facilities. We were running
two operations. It costs you money any time you run two operations when one will do.
When you get into the railway business, it is like people with boats, big boats or ships,
something that has a lot of infrastructure. Nobody wants to lease you anything for a short
period of time. So, the lease that we had was for 75 years, but they did one thing right,
they had an ‘out’ on the contract. The ‘out’ was in 2005. We had an opportunity to get
out of that location, so we had a decision to make. When you add it up, what we are
trying to do is make intermodal more profitable. So, we made the decision in 2002 to go.
We worked with the City and the City was very, very helpful in working through the
issues that we had to work through. At times we can disagree on certain things, but I will
have to give the City of Winnipeg a lot of credit for being able to work through the issues
that we had to make the move from one location over to the other.
Political Considerations:
If you live in Winnipeg, people know about “Kenaston Crossing.” It happens that they
built real nice houses just south of where our main line is (double main-line track). We
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run 3,200 rail cars a day through Winnipeg, a major location for us. We run every one of
our trains over Kenaston and having the intermodal facility there bothered a number of
commuters
Decision steps:
We had to deal with a few of the City’s concerns.
Relocation options:
We looked at a number of places. One was to see if we could get everybody together in
one spot. I think there is some value to that but where we are today, in the whole
industry, it just did not make sense. I think we worked through that issue, but I think it is
something that, down the road, we have to really look at. In certain situations, certain
locations, it makes a whole lot of sense to have the efficiencies that come along with
doing it. Transcona, we could have moved it to the east end of the City. Same problem,
a couple of major roads. I will tell you, any time you are in the City, major roads,
nobody wants to put overpasses in. I do not know what the problem is.
Symington worked out to be the best location. We have a natural place there. We have
got a yard and, if some of you want to join us on the bus tour, you will be able to come
and take a look at it. We have got a big hump operation there; we do a couple of
thousand cars a day over the hump, 3,200 cars through the place. There is easy access in
and out, and good road access with truck routes already there. So, really, I made the
decision that, ten years down the road when the fellow that comes next to me, he will not
come to any session and say, “Who was that idiot that put this thing in this place?” And I
cannot give you the name of the person that made the decision, okay?
Construction process, when we got at it, we went at it fairly quickly. We announced it in
August 2002. Initial construction started in the fall of 2002. We stockpiled early this
spring. Full construction in late spring, early summer. We tied it into the city roadwork.
The City had some work that they had to get done, did a good job there. The terminal
was operational in July 2003, less than 11 months later.
Some issues remain and we will have to work through them. Any time you make a
change problems arise, we have over 400 trucks a day coming into the facility. They
have options of how they go, once they get out on the truck routes. There are truck routes
north and south. Some of the residents that live just north of our location have problems,
we will have to work through that with them and see if we can alleviate some of their
concerns.
End Result:
•
•
We spent $16 million and that is all rail-related costs to build the facility.
Present capacity is 100,000 and we can easily expand it by 20-30% with the land
that we have at Symington.
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•
•
•
Good road access. The City invested in giving us access off of Plessis Road, so
that the trucks could enter and exit the facility properly.
The City also gained, it is a true win-win. The City, instead of us having 4 or 5
rail tracks that they had to worry about getting over with the needed underpass or
overpass, we are down to two tracks in that location. So it will be cheaper for the
City when they build the overpass/underpass.
And real important to us, is the CN and City working relationship.
The intermodal terminal is a central pad set up. Trains come from a number of origins.
We run our trains now at 10, 11, 12,000 feet, we never went metric. They did not think
we were smart enough to go to metric, they kept us at the old system. So, 12,000 foot
trains – 2 ½ miles long. When they come in, they go right to the pad.
The biggest benefit for us is, we use to lose a day’s cycle on the equipment, Rail cars cost
us $60 to $100,000 to purchase, and we used to lose a day in Winnipeg. $16 million cost,
you do NOT get your return on capital by moving the terminal from one location to the
other, or even the reduction of a couple of supervisors. Where you save is in car costs,
and for us, that was the big benefit. Today, a train comes in at midnight and gets
stripped. It will come in with 2,000 feet of containers double-stacked. We strip it, the
cars are gone that same morning by 6 o’clock, and for us that is where the benefit is.
Our President has said at a number of sessions, that it did not make sense for CN to be in
the intermodal business. We were covering our costs of day-to-day operating the system,
but what we were NOT doing was covering the cost of capital that is required to stay in
this business. Trailers, rail cars, new locomotives that cost you a couple of million
dollars, wasn’t there. Now, IMX turns the rail cars faster which makes the whole system
more profitable than it is today. Thank-you.
Q: John Spacek – Manitoba Transportation and Government Services
How many more Winnipeg’s are there in terms of increasing your efficiency? How many
more of these kinds of opportunities?
A: Jim Vena, CN Prairie Division
Well, we have looked at Toronto. We are out-growing the terminal. Toronto is our
largest intermodal facility. We have got to do something there. That has got to happen in
the next planning period for sure. The rest of the facilities were not built with the same
sort of mistakes. In Edmonton, we have just finished relocating about a year ago.
Calgary, we upgraded. Vancouver was upgraded about 10 years ago. So, we have done a
number of them over the last 10 years.
Q: Doug Duncan – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
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Now that you have moved the yard, does that give us an opportunity to release additional
land, such as the Fort Rouge yard and some of the infrastructure there?
A: Jim Vena, CN Prairie Division
Seems you must have been in my office this morning at 10:00 or something. In fact, we
are working with the City on that subject. So, yes, we are. Bottom line is yes, we are
going to give up some property.
Question:
You said that the City helped with the relocation of roads and access to your facility. I
presume that they paid for the paving and setting up of those roads to the new yard?
A: Jim Vena, CN Prairie Division
That is correct.
Question:
I guess my question is: Would you say that this is a useful role for government to be
involved in? In other words, developing access, egress to intermodal facilities, as a
useful form of public policy?
A: Jim Vena, CN Prairie Division
Normally if you listen to the railways, we always say that we pay our own way. It is our
capital, we make the capital and we spend it. Basically on this relocation, we did the
same thing. We are not asking for money for the relocation directly. The City helped us
because we had double taxation costs. We have to keep the lease on the other property
till 2005. The City is going to gain in that the cost of building the overpass or underpass
at Kenaston is substantially reduced. It worked out for both of us, it was a win-win
situation for both of us. So, the answer is yes, there are places for government help.
Q: Gord Peters – Cando Contracting
Jim, one of the things you did not mention, and just correct me if I am wrong, your
intermodal business is not that profitable but it is also your fastest-growing segment, your
growth in your business. So, sooner or later, it is like anything else, it is going to cross
over and it should be a big generator. That then takes you to the next step, I know you
guys are using, and CP also, the hub-and-spoke scenario, big intermodal terminals. We
heard customers today having problems with some of those, they could not get in, could
not get out. You guys are managing them all. Do you ever see the day that you will
partner in the winnports of the world, kind of idea, in more places than you are now,
where you guys cannot be effective at it but some other operator might be able to do it?
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A: Jim Vena, CN Prairie Division
Thanks for the question. I think, absolutely, like I said before. I think there are places
where it makes sense that we work as an individual party. There are areas where we are
better off to work as a group to run joint ventures, I think we get better efficiencies out of
the whole system. Just a couple of weeks ago we were in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan,
trying to work with a small company, to take containers out to the farm, directly. The
problem with the container or trailer is that you have to have a place to load it or unload
it. But, in Moose Jaw, we set up a little terminal there and it is privately run, where the
container actually goes out to the farmer’s field. We have only moved a few so far, but I
think there are more opportunities. So, as much as we want to run 3,500 rail cars, my job,
and the rest of us at CN, we are willing to find one car if we can figure out a way to move
it and it fits into our system. So, absolutely, I think there is, Gord, a benefit for all of us
in certain areas.
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SESSION 5 – ALTERNATIVE DIRECTIONS FOR MOTIVE POWER
Frank Donnelly – Chief Technology Officer
RailPower Technologies Corp.
Green Goat® Hybrid Switcher
The Green Goat® Hybrid Switcher. The Green Goat® differs from a traditional switcher
in that it uses a relatively small engine and batteries. It is a hybrid because the energy
comes from two different sources, the engine and the battery. The small engine basically
maintains the battery. The majority of the power is drawn from the battery itself. In a
traditional switcher, the engine, the prime mover, supplies all of the power through the
main generator and then it drives the traction motors.
Mainline railroads typically ‘cascade’ down large road switchers into yard service. But,
RailPower® has bucked the trend by coming up with something different. Very simply,
the energy comes from diesel fuel; it powers the generator; the generator, in turn, charges
the battery. Then we go through some power conditioning that throttles the power into
the traction motor – a very simple concept.
Currently, RailPower® is offering the Green Goat®, which is a 1,500-2,000 horsepower
remanufactured road-switcher that started as a GP-9. The Green Kid is a smaller version
of the Green Goat®. We sometimes refer to it as a ‘Son of a Goat,’ and it is designed for
industrial applications. The present configuration of the Green Goat® features a 90 KW
Isuzu engine. It is Tier 2 certified and it includes a special oil filter. We do not do oil
changes, we just change filters, so it is a very low maintenance engine. It runs
automatically, and it comes on on demand and when the battery is satisfied, or returned to
the state of charge where we want it, then shuts off.
The batteries are lead-acid. They are not sealed and are ‘valve-regulated.’ If one of the
batteries, for any reason, builds up pressure, it will vent. The size of the battery is a
nominal 640-volt, with 320 cells. It has 1,200 amp/hours capacity and weighs
approximately 25,000 kilograms. No maintenance is required. The traction motors are
extremely popular D77, and the equally popular 26L brake system. The compressor is
driven by an inverter that runs on demand, the compressor will run even when the engine
is off.
The Green Kid, on the other hand, is basically half the size. The generator is only 45KW
and the battery is half the number of cells, 160 individual cells which provide 320 volts
and weighs half as much.
Configuration. Figure 5.1 shows the engine compartment. On the left-hand side is the
end of the Isuzu engine. Because of length, we had to remote the radiator and the
radiator is cooled by a separate motor.
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Figure 5.1 Green Goat® Engine Compartment
The main battery compartment, you gain access to the batteries by lifting fiberglass lids.
Standard trucks and traction motors, everything below the deck is basically a
conventional locomotive, the railroads like this because they are very familiar with this
equipment.
The compressor is a rotary screw and it is driven by an induction motor. The induction
motor, in turn, is driven by a variable-speed drive, basically an inverter, right off the 600
volts. The control stand is a standard AAR control stand. The interface is identical to a
conventional locomotive.
We have had engineers, in the middle of the night, come in, sit on the seat and start
running the locomotive. The next morning they were told that it was something different
than they were used to operating. They just thought it was a new diesel because they
heard the diesel running and it performed like any other locomotive. So, the look and the
feel are exactly like a conventional locomotive.
The reason we are able to do what we do is because of the duty cycle. The duty cycle,
typically, is such that we only need 1 or 2% of the total time in the 8th notch. Most of the
time the locomotive is operating, it is at idle a very high percentage of the time. So there
is ample opportunity to keep the battery charged up. In Figure 5.2, here are two
examples: a California yard cycle, and a B.C. Rail switcher locomotive. Data is off the
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event recorder and there is pretty good correlation. Every time we examine the duty
cycle, this is basically what we see. It does not really vary that much.
Figure 5.2 Examples of Yard Switch Duty Cycles
T/H
Traction
Power %
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
Idle
100
83
68
55
42
29
17
5
0
Duty Cycle
Notch Setting/Duration %
California Yard B.C. Rail #613
(AAR)
(99/08/04-99/08/19)
2
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
3
1
3
2
4
3
4
7
82
86
You do need high power, but it is very transient, very sporadic, and it happens throughout
the day. When you are flat-switching you need high power, for kicking the cars or
moving a long cut of cars. So, you cannot do the work that we do unless you do have the
power. Figure 5.3, is a histogram of the load profile.
Figure 5.3 Load Profile
Frequency (seconds)
9000
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
-100 150 400 650 900 1150 1400 1650 1900
Current
Figure 5.3 shows the battery current, and you can see that, in terms of current, we go up
to just beyond 1,400 amps in a tiny fraction of time. Then, we do not go that much
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higher, so most of the current draw is down much lower. You can also see where it goes
negative and that is where we are actually charging the batteries.
Figure 5.4 State of Charge Battery
900
800
Amp Hours
700
600
500
Cumulative Amps Out [AH]
400
Cumulative Amps In [AH]
300
AH Difference [AH]
200
100
0
8:00:00.0
9:12:00.0
10:24:00.0
11:36:00.0
12:48:00.0
14:00:00.0
15:12:00.0
Time
Figure 5.4 is a typical day, when everything is working right. You can see that they
started out probably about 8:30 in the morning. The engine came on while the
locomotive was running, and you can see that appears to be about 10:00 or 10:30 a.m.
the engine shut off because the battery returned to a full state of charge. After the coffee
break, they started up and you can see that, each time the bottom line goes back basically
to the bottom of the graph, we are approaching a full state of charge. Then, at the end of
the day, when they climbed off the locomotive, the batteries were essentially restored.
Another reason that the locomotive performs so well in terms of fuel economy is that
most of the time when it is operating in the lower notches, we are much better than two
competing sources of power here.
On Figure 5.5, the top curve is a 12-cylinder, 645 engine. As you go through the notches,
you get its best economy around the sixth notch and then it starts heading back up again.
The other curve that starts at the same place is actually a CAT engine. The CAT engine is
very fuel-efficient. However, in the lower notches, the Goat is better. The reason that the
line on the Isuzu engine goes up linearly is because of the internal resistance in the
battery. That is just the harder you pull on the battery, the lower the round-trip
efficiency. In practical terms, the Goat does very well.
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Figure 5.5 Comparison: Specific Fuel Consumption
The core concept of the Green Goat® was to put a large battery on the locomotive. We
are fortunate with hybrid locomotives because, contrary to most hybrid vehicles, weight
is not a concern. In the case of the Green Goat®, we had to add an additional 17,000
pounds of ballast made of concrete and nail clippings just to get the weight up. So a large
battery gives you a very conservative battery design. We are not pushing this battery at
all. We get a very high round-trip efficiency; we get a long battery life; we have the
ability to operate for long periods of time. This locomotive engine can be switched off
and run inside a building and probably run for a whole shift. We tested it when we were
in Chicago and we ran for about 50 miles on battery only. Once again, with a large
battery, we have few constraints.
Our philosophy in operating the battery is that we run it at a partial state of charge – 60
and 80% state-of-charge. It appears that in batteries most of the wear takes place when
you return the battery to a full state of charge. We do not return the battery to a full state
of charge, we stop around 80%. The strategy for charging the battery and terminating the
charge is depletion and replacement of ampere hours. The battery life depends upon
usage, temperature, vibration and shock. The target we are hoping for is about 10 years
of life, and the battery economics are simple. In explaining it to the customer we say the
replacement cost is comparable to the cost of a major engine overhaul of a traditional
diesel locomotive. So, if you know what it cost to overhaul a conventional mediumspeed diesel engine, you get an approximation of what it costs to replace the set of
batteries.
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Our field trials have included an 18-month test of the Green Goat®. Our first test was in
Roseville, California. We started the serious testing July of 2002 and we ran through to
December. The locomotive performed very well. We had unusually hot weather, about
45ºC in July and August. Late in the year, we decided that we needed to do some cold
weather testing, so we took the Goat to Illinois and we tested it through into 2003 when it
experienced temperatures as low as -10ºF. Once again, it performed very well. We were
able to develop full power under those conditions. What happens with the battery is that
you lose performance when the battery is cold.
In July 2003, the Green Goat® went to Pacific Harbor Line (PHL) in Los Angeles. PHL
is a highly productive operation. The management wanted to see if they could get an
equipment reduction. The job that normally took two SW1200’s was replaced by the one
Goat, and it did very well, except that we were not replacing the energy as fast as it was
coming out of the battery.
Over a period of about eight hours, we saw about 1,000 kilowatt hours of usage. During
four of those eight hours, we saw a usage of about 200 kilowatt hours per hour and we
ended up, at the end of the day, with about a 500 kilowatt hour deficit. What we have
learned from our experience at PHL is that we are going to have to size the generator up
because energy was going out much faster than it was coming in, and we actually had to
stop operation. The Green Kid has been tested at Southern Rail in B.C. and at the
ChevronTexaco oil refinery in El Segundo, Los Angeles.
Environmental Benefits:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
80-90% reduction in NOx and in particulates. 98% is possible with a diesel
particulate filter and SCR. The Goat really lends itself to post-treatment because
the hardware can be sized for the small engine and we run at a constant
temperature.
50% reduction in greenhouse gases, simply, we burn a lot less fuel because we are
extremely fuel-efficient. You burn less fuel, you produce less greenhouse gases.
Virtually eliminates noise pollution. You walk 100 feet away from it, you can
barely hear it running.
Easily meet the Tier 2 regulations for locomotives and the expected, whatever the
Tier 3 is. However, because the prime mover is only 90 kilowatts, we just do not
fit the criteria for the locomotive. So, this is kind of in limbo as to what we are.
We are exceeding all the local government requirements. In California, the local
air quality control standards are sometimes much tighter on industrial sites than
the EPA.
The nice thing about the Goat is that in this day and age of recycling, it basically
was built from a lot of recycled parts.
We are looking at emissions credits. They are traded publicly, and it looks like
even though it is not a point source, we can take advantage of that and market
them.
Government grants are available and we have already applied for them.
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•
And one thing we keep on hearing, going back to noise, is that the noise is
something that affects all railroad operations. Because what has happened is that
on the land that used to be just industrial, now residential, railroads constantly get
calls about idling diesel locomotives. The Green Goat® is very quiet and it
certainly seems to help in those regards.
Our consultant put some information together for us. In comparing a GP-38, which is
kind of the locomotive of choice now that is being cascaded down into yard service, we
are getting a very good reduction, about 86% in NOx.
There are actual cases that have been submitted for funding under the Carl Moyer and
Texas Emissions Reductions Program. We are also looking at very good reductions in
fuel consumption, in the order of 50-80%.
The graph in Figure 5.6 was first produced by Southwest Research and it shows the
family of diesel locomotives. You can see that inside of the Tier 2 box, there are two
engines, truck engines. The Goat has an industrial engine that is not quite as good as the
truck engines; however, because we get such good economy because of the hybrid cycle,
we actually do better than those two spots. So we are way inside of the 2 Tier box.
Figure 5.6 EPA Locomotive Exhaust Emissions Regulations
Line Haul PM (g/hp-hr)
0.8
0.7
0.6
CP38&35
AMD-103
SD50
0.3
F40PH
SD60
0.2
0
B32-8
Tier 1 = 2002 - 2004
0.4
0.1
MP15
Tier 0 = 1973 - 2001
0.5
Tier 2 = > 2005
2002
Trucks
1998
Trucks
2
SD70MAC
F59PH
C44-9
4
6
8
10
C40-9
12
14
Line-Haul NOx (g/hp-hr)
Source: Southwest Research Institute
Summarizing, the Green Goat® technology achieves significant reductions in emissions
compared to standard practices on diesel fuel. We use standard diesel fuel; we are not
using alternative fuel. It is a cost-effective way of achieving emissions reductions.
Thank-you.
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Question:
Are you looking at regenerative braking applications with the Green Goat?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
In the yard, there is not much opportunity because it is ½ mv² and when you are moving
it 5 miles an hour, it is hard to do. However, what we are looking at is that there is one
customer that does want dynamic braking in a hump and I think we can do it.
Regenerative braking is a little more difficult but it is doable. There are applications we
are looking at where there is high speed involved and it does make perfect sense, like in a
commuter application.
Question:
Your yard experience sounds rather convincing. I deal a certain amount with shortlines
in my own area, and a tourist pike. I wonder, would this be something I could
recommend to the operators for shortline operation or for tourist train operation? In other
words, would the continuous movement over a longer distance sometimes at a higher
speed, sometimes not be too challenging or is this something that the Green Goat®, at
least, could handle?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
Well, I think in a lot of instances, shortline operations, the limited branch-line switching,
yes, this makes perfect sense. We have used it in those applications. In a tourist
operation, we probably, what comes to mind when I think of tourist operation might be
the NAPA Valley wine train in California, and this would be very doable.
Q: John Spacek – Province of Manitoba
Frank, did the Green Goat® have regenerative braking?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
It does not because it adds complexity. However, we could have a variant of it that
would have regenetive braking. Where it would make great sense is high speed, a
commuter application.
Question:
What are the rough numbers of that unit cost in that, your Green Goat®?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
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Right now, everything remanufactured, we are looking at about $700-750,000 U.S.
However, there are ways to reduce that, some of the operators want to buy kits and they
can do it for a lot less money.
Q: Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
You mentioned that cold weather was a bit of a constraint. How far north, or into our
region, could you push that technology before the cold temperatures start to make it
inefficient?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
The manufacturer of the battery has its specification to -40º, so I think we can operate
most places in Canada. I do not think it is a problem. The only thing we would have to
worry about might be that it might get so cold that the plastic on the battery might crack,
in real cold temperatures. When you start working the batteries, the batteries generate
heat and they self-heat so I do not think it is a problem.
Q: Jim Popplow – Manitoba Health
I am interested in accident prevention. You have invented a quiet engine. Will that fool
people on the yards, that they are used to noisy things being ready to move any time.
Something that is quiet might just have an accident?
A: Frank Donnelly, RailPower Technologies Corp.
You are right, it is a concern. One official mentioned that if we had a second bell on it, it
might be a good idea. This is dangerous, yards are very dangerous to begin with, and
when they are backing a long line of cars and the locomotive is on the other end, it is the
same thing. So, I think there needs to be some added vigilance, there is no question about
it.
Robert Dunn – Consultant
Biodiesel as a Locomotive Fuel in Canada
Thank you. I would like to acknowledge the Transportation Development Centre of
Transport Canada, who funded this project.
This discussion will deal with the potential of using biodiesel, as an alternate fuel, in
railway locomotives.
Canadian railroads have been very pro-active in evaluating alternate fuels. They were the
first railways to use locomotive fuel derived from Canada’s tar sands, and have been
using such fuels since 1972. With the energy crisis of the early 1970’s, they tested
bunker blends, of up to 10% bunker in diesel fuel, to try to reduce fuel costs. That
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program stopped when significant mechanical problems developed. They also had a lot
of interest in the natural gas program of both Burlington Northern and the Union Pacific.
They performed their own studies to see what could happen in Canada with natural gasfueled engines. Later they developed their own “locomotive-type” diesel fuel that is
different from on-highway fuel. A Canadian General Standards Board specification for
locomotive-type diesel fuel developed as a result of this work.
The interest in biodiesel follows this interest in alternate or different fuels. The railways
are interested in biodiesel because of the potential for government incentives for
greenhouse gas emissions reductions. As we heard on Monday morning, the Province of
Manitoba will be announcing initiatives on biodiesel. The Government of Ontario has
already removed the road tax on biodiesel, Alberta is considering similar incentives.
Quebec was considering some action, but it did not get into the last budget with the
change in governments. It does show, however, that there is interest by governments in
biodiesel. The railways would like to position themselves to be able to take advantage of
any government initiatives, if it becomes cost-effective.
Greenhouse gas emissions reductions associated with biodiesel are life-cycle reductions.
It is unlikely the railways would see any reductions in their operations but it might
become interesting to them if emissions trading develops in Canada. The railways would
work out purchasing agreements with the biodiesel suppliers to take advantage of
greenhouse gas emissions reductions trading. The Railway Association of Canada
generates an annual report on locomotive emissions and included in the report are
statistics on greenhouse gas emissions. The Canadian railway industry, therefore, has the
mechanism in place to follow greenhouse gas emissions.
The government initiatives are taxation related. The Ontario government has removed
the road tax from the biodiesel component that goes into biodiesel blended fuels. This
has had the effect of lowering biodiesel costs that have made it interesting for fleet users
such as bus companies and Toronto City Hydro, who now have extensive in-service
experience. The City of Montreal’s bus program was funded by NRCan and the Quebec
government. The biodiesel was supplied by Rothesay.
The taxation issue will be important to the railways. As Provincial government
incentives evolve, the railways will evaluate the cost benefit and react accordingly. It
could quickly become interesting to the railways. The purpose of the biodiesel program
was to get a better understanding of the issues of using biodiesel in railroad-type
locomotives.
The environmental benefits are:
•
•
Life-cycle greenhouse gas reductions of 75-80%,
Lower particulate emissions.
The environmental negatives are:
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•
•
NOx appears to be higher. NOx, as shown in the locomotive emissions
monitoring report generated by the RAC has been flat since 1990. Increasing
NOx would be a negative. A balance must be established between GHG
reduction and NOx increase which should be monitored closely.
The energy content of biodiesel is slightly less than regular diesel which suggests
higher fuel consumption.
The objective of the biodiesel project was to answer questions: What is biodiesel?
Where does it come from? How is it made? How do they get it to the railways? Why
should the railways use it? Or perhaps – are there any reasons not to use biodiesel?
What are the properties that are critical to the Canadian railways? What experience is
there? Will the locomotive operator, the people actually driving the locomotives, see any
power difference when they try to power up? Will there be any problems when climbing
the mountains into B.C. with a load of coal behind? There are some major issues
regarding warranty on new locomotives and for the locomotives under contracted
maintenance and the associated performance guarantees. What happens with the use of
biodiesel regarding EPA compliance? All new locomotives are being purchased to the
latest U.S. EPA compliance level, Tier 1 which will become Tier 2 by 2005. The costs of
biodiesel blends are higher than railway diesel fuel. Finally, there has been very little
locomotive testing on biodiesel, aside from one locomotive at Southwest Research.
What is biodiesel? The technical term is “Fatty Acid Methyl Esters.” The feedstock for
the process could be either seed oils, which in Canada, would likely be canola oil. In the
United States it is soya oil and some processors may import palm oil from Asia. It could
also be animal waste from the rendering industry. Dead stock could be processed into
biodiesel, as well as spent cooking oils from the fast food industry. All of these materials
are fatty acids of different types which, when treated with methanol, yield a fatty acid
methyl ester. The technology is well known and the process is not difficult.
Where in Canada is biodiesel processed at the present time? The City of Montreal had a
bus program in operation for one year, which was very successful. The supplier was
Rothesay and a variety of feedstocks was used to produce the fuel. The fuel was
delivered to one of the City of Montreal’s seven garages for buses assigned to that
garage. The trucker would fill up 80% of his truck at the diesel fuel rack and then top up
at Rothesay with hot, 35ºC, biodiesel. Biodiesel is totally soluble and disolves quite
easily. This mixing process, in the delivery truck, is called splash blending.
Canadian railways should be concerned about the following physical properties of
biodiesel blends:
1. Cloud Point. Canadian winter diesel fuel is very different from the American winter
diesel fuel. The American railroads generally have to add kerosene to get suitable winter
diesel fuel properties. In Canada, fuel is delivered by the refineries for the area of usage
and their guideline is the 2 ½% winter design temperature. Temperature measurements
are made at every airport in Canada and this data has been collected by Environment
Canada which has produced temperature charts for every area in Canada. For example,
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in Edmonton, in the middle of December, January and February, the 2 ½% winter design
temperature is about -38ºC which means that 2 ½% of the time the temperature, during
the course of the day, could drop below that temperature. They also have curves for 5%
and 10%. The 2 ½% winter design temperature is the guide from which Canadian
railways buy their fuel.
In Canada, the railways are very large users of fuel derived from the Athabasca tar sands,
which has a naturally low cloud point. The tar sands fuel in 1972 was actually a crude
cut. It changed to a gas-oil sidestream for many years and now is on-road truck quality.
In eastern Canada, the situation is different. The cloud point is controlled at a certain
temperature and the use of flow-improver additives are common. These additives keep
the wax crystals at very low particle size, so they can pass through fuel filters.
The railways have invested in hot wells. That is, the warm fuel returning from the engine
is directed, in the winter, through a 3-way valve, to a certain area of the fuel tank where
the fuel uptake to the engine is located.
Biodiesel is completely soluble in diesel fuel but there is a concern regarding large wayside storage and cold weather precipitation of the biodiesel component.
2. Operating Range. The railways travel about a thousand miles between fueling. In
other words, they go from Halifax to Quebec City or from Toronto to Winnipeg. If they
cannot make it that distance, a trucker is called to fuel the locomotive. With the lower
energy content of biodiesel, this could be an issue, and expensive truck-to-locomotive
fueling could result.
3. Contamination. Glycerin contamination is really a quality control issue. Glycerin is
butter-like in consistency and quickly blocks fuel filters.
4. Lubricity. Canadian railways have not experienced any lubricity problems in Western
Canada with the use of low sulphur fuel from the tar sands. In eastern Canada the
sulphur levels are 2,500 ppm and lubricity is not a problem. Environment Canada will be
regulating railway diesel fuel sulphur levels to 500 ppm by 2007. On-road diesel fuel
suphur levels will be regulated to 15 parts per million. The railways use on-road diesel
fuel for direct-to-locomotive fueling. Sulphur levels are therefore going down. Lubricity
could become a problem in the future. Biodiesel, with excellent lubricity properties could
be of benefit if lubricity becomes a problem.
5. Performance. What is the preferred blend of biodiesel? It could be anywhere from 520%, although 20% would likely be the blend ratio of choice. Would separate biodiesel
fuel storage tanks be required, or will direct-to-locomotive fueling be required? On small
operations direct-to-locomotive fueling would be preferred. Wayside storage would be
required for fleet-wide operation.
6. Warranty. There has been no clear statement from the engine-builders yet on
biodiesel. The Canadian railways do have contract-maintenance for their fleet and
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performance guarantees. New locomotives are being purchased at Tier 1 which will be
Tier 2 by 2005. As well, the Canadian railways have been upgrading their older
locomotives to Tier 0 at time of overhaul. There is a clause in the EPA rule-making that
says that if the fuel is changed the locomotives must be retested for compliance in the
EPA test procedures again. This would be an expensive proposition.
Costs. What are the costs of biodiesel? This is the most difficult property to predict and
will be determined by the actions of both the Provincial and Federal governments,
particularly with respect to incentives. The railways do not pay road tax but they do pay
consumption tax, which varies from province to province, but it is about 4-5¢ a litre. The
net result is that railway fuel is about 10¢ a litre lower than on-road diesel fuel. Costs
will be affected by:
•
•
•
The size of the biodiesel plant – commercial size or batch operation,
The price of railway diesel fuel,
The introduction of emissions trading programs.
Canadian railways need more precise data on exhaust emissions from locomotive-type
engines. Southwest Research performed a single test on a GP-38 that indicated higher
NOx. Testing on railway type could be performed in Montreal, at the Engine Systems
Development Centre, ESDC. Malcolm Payne can provide you with more about ESDC.
They have a single cylinder railway-type engine where a lot of data can be obtained very
quickly, with different blends. A locomotive could also be brought into their plant to
confirm the data on a full-sized locomotive.
Where could biodiesel be introduced? Yard locomotives, which are not emissionscertified engines, or commuter rail operations such as GoTransit are two possible choices.
GoTransit is an interesting possibility because they have a single fueling location and are
always interested in public image.
In conclusion:
•
•
•
•
•
Technically, locomotives can use biodiesel,
Greenhouse gas emissions are reduced but the railways themselves will not
generate lower GHG emissions. It is the producers of biodiesel that will generate
lower emissions,
Commercial-size plants are required to lower costs,
There are outstanding challenges, such as warranty and EPA compliance,
More testing on locomotives in Canada is required.
Q: Doug Duncan – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Being the accountant in the group, what is the financial driver for the railways? What
would be the relative comparative biodiesel to straight diesel?
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A: Robert Dunn, Consultant
If we can get the costs down, it might be very interesting, and costs are important. If the
costs remain where they are, I cannot see the railways having a lot of interest. But the
railways would be interested in government incentives and emissions trading in the future
which could make biodiesel an interesting potential fuel.
Q: Normand Pellerin – CN
Bob, can you clarify a bit on the life-cycle aspect of this, because I think the point may
be, who is getting the savings on the GHG?
A: Robert Dunn, Consultant
The way it is at the present time, is that the railways would not get credit for GHG
emissions reductions. The GHG’s emissions reductions will be credited to the supplier.
There was work done a couple of years ago that showed where the reductions come from.
They came from absorption of carbon dioxide in growing the grains, less fuel use in the
manufacturing process and removing fuel from the processing in conventional refineries.
From a railway operator’s point of view, there is almost no GHG reduction. But I can see
in the future that if prices do become interesting, there may be some interesting
negotiations between the railway purchasing people and the suppliers, to try to get some
of those GHG credits.
Q: Zachary Patterson – McGill University
What kind of sources would there be, or where would you be able to get the source for
biodiesel fuel in large enough quantities for, say, railways?
A: Robert Dunn, Consultant
Biodiesel can be obtained from small batch operators, from companies such as Rothesay.
As well, BIOX in Ontario has a demonstration plant that is producing significant
quantities. Both Rothesay and BIOX have announced that they are planning to build
larger facilities, say 50 million litres a year facilities. Or biodiesel can be imported from
the United States.
Q: Zachary Patterson – McGill University
I guess maybe I did not clarify, I meant raw materials.
A: Robert Dunn, Consultant
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The raw materials come from either the rendering industry or from seed oils. Seed oils in
Canada would probably be canola oil. The driving force for the Provincial government is
to provide new markets for their farmers.
Anthony Perl – Professor
University of Calgary
Making Zero Emission Urban Transportation a Reality Today: Calgary Transit’s
Wind Powered LRT
Thank-you, John. I am very glad to be here and I wish I could have come earlier and
partaken of the full conference, but as some of my colleagues at University that I see in
the room will confirm, our day job with teaching students has to come first. So, I am
sorry and if I do sort of overlap or somehow miss connections with things that have been
discussed already, please excuse me on that.
What I am going to be talking about is the policy and primarily administrative and
organizational innovations that allowed existing technologies in urban rail transportation,
electric-powered LRT and windmill generating sources of electricity, to come together in
a new and very innovative way in Calgary, which puts both Calgary and Canada, I would
say, at the forefront of railway and environmental innovation in an urban setting.
Now, when we talk about urban environmental pollution, transportation is usually the
largest or the second-largest contributor to air pollution emissions in urban areas in
Canada and major American cities as well. There are many programs for various air
quality emissions management programs in both Canada and the United States. These
programs focus on new technology, introducing new technology into either private
passenger vehicles, a very little bit into urban freight delivery vehicles, and a fair amount
into urban transit, primarily bus vehicles. New vehicle technology, new energy sources
and long-time horizons for future development are where many of the programs in North
America that deal with urban transportation emissions have focused.
As well, alternative energy supply initiatives are a piece of that puzzle, coming up with,
whether it is biodiesel or, in this case, a hydrogen-fueling experiment in southern
California. The efforts to develop these infrastructures and have a whole network in
place at the time you need it to power these urban transportation alternatives is under
development. Interestingly enough, the support for this type of long-term and fairly
costly and ambitious type of technology transformation seems to come from the two
extremes on the spectrum. There are, of course, some real environmental activists and
strong technology boosters who are doing it because they really want to push the
envelope and bring in the next generation or beyond what may seem even the next
generation’s worth of technology, like hydrogen fuel. But these same programs tend also
to be supported by, I would say, environmental skeptics. George W. Bush in the United
States, for example, has put his energy and environmental emphasis on hydrogen, in my
estimation, mainly because that puts the implementation off for at least a generation. So,
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you get people from either extreme looking at these sort of major changes in fuel and
technology in urban transportation.
Meanwhile, in Calgary, we have become the only jurisdiction, the first jurisdiction, in
North America to convert an existing urban rail transportation system to 100% emissionsfree renewable energy source, wind power. This happened because people in the middle
won out from either extreme, rather than either putting things off for a generation or
focusing just on pushing that envelope and bringing it a few years closer or faster to
fruition. Pragmatists who said, “Well, what can we do? What is available out there now
to actually make a difference in terms of the environmental impact of an urban rail
operation?” came up with a way to connect dots that exist already.
Calgary is not necessarily the place you might, or some people might, first imagine
renewable energy zero emissions-type sourcing to emerge first. As we all know, Calgary
is the headquarters in Canada of the non-renewable energy sector and there are an awful
lot of people, businesses and organizations based in Calgary that make their money and
have their interest in non-renewable energy, at least for the current generation. So, when
I tell people that Calgary was the first jurisdiction in North America to do this, and they
know a bit about Calgary, they start to scratch their heads. Those who know Canadian
politics and policy, the areas that I work in, are even more surprised because, in many
ways, Calgary is sort of known to be the headquarters for skeptics of both the
environment and Kyoto more generally.
There you see Alberta’s Environment Minister explaining why the Province is against the
Kyoto protocol and Canada’s position on it. There is a typical billboard that some people
have put up in town about Kyoto, the National Citizen’s Coalition. One of my fellow
Calgarians, Esra Levant, has a book out there which I would hesitate to recommend,
since I have not read it, but it is available and sort of claims that Kyoto will be the end of
Canada as we know it. There is a lot of vocal activity that says, “These environmental
problems should not be priorities.” The last thing you would expect is for a municipal
agency in a setting like this to be the first to change its energy source to completely
renewable sourcing.
Well, I am going to try and explain that to you in terms of organizational innovation, and
I would say there are three components that made the difference in this transformation. I
think that, whether it is wind-powered electric energy or biodiesel or other innovations, I
think some combination of this type of vision in leadership is a key ingredient in actually
implementing and realizing environmental gains in rail transportation, particularly in
urban areas.
First, Calgary municipal government, the City Council of Calgary, has made a corporate
commitment to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions. We will get into more detail on
that, but that was an essential enabler to have the City committed to this because Calgary
Transit is an agency or a division of city government. It is not a separate stand-alone
entity like TransLink in the lower mainland or the TTC in Toronto or GoTransit. Also,
Calgary Transit, it may or may not surprise you, is the most successful operator of “new
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start” light-rail transit in North America. We will go into details on that, but that gave us
sort of a credibility; they know what they are doing in terms of running a LRT system.
Then on the energy supply side, we had both the municipally-owned Enmax, which used
to be called Calgary Electric, and a green energy pioneer in southern Alberta, known as
VisionQuest Windelectric, both primed as a result of deregulation of the energy sector,
which produced all sorts of interesting consequences, some of which were intended and
some of which were not. One of the consequences is that energy distributors and new
producers were available and interested in pushing different sources, including green
energy out there. So, those three dimensions came together in a very fortuitous and
successful combination.
Calgary, as a municipality committed, made a corporate commitment that across the
board, the City, in all of its operations, will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 6% below
its 1997 levels by the year 2012. Perhaps a little bit less ambitious than Canada’s Federal
Kyoto commitment, but within the context of Alberta, certainly this was one of the
leadership moves in terms of any level of government, putting this forward in about 2000.
1999-2000 was when the commitment was made in principle. Of course, once the
commitment is made in principle, then the challenge is, “What are you going to do in
practical terms to achieve that?” Urban rail transportation turned out to be one of the
areas that came at the head of the queue in terms of implementation.
We in Calgary are very fortunate to have such a successful light-rail system. Our newest
equipment has just recently been acquired in the last year or two from Siemens. The
latest ridership surveys, which actually were given to me late last week from Calgary
Transit, show that we are now carrying on a weekday 200,000 riders in a city of 950,000.
Just for a point of comparison, if you go to the United States, people will say that the
most successful LRT in North America is the San Diego trolley, because they do not
count Calgary or much of what happens outside of the U.S. Within the U.S., it is true
that the San Diego system has been one of the early success stories, but in a city of 1.2
million, they get 90,000 riders a day. The bottom line is that 40% of the jobs in Calgary
are still concentrated in the central business district. Calgary Transit is actually able to
carry even more than that rough average they are carrying, 42% of the trips into the CBD
are made by transit. Figure 5.7 is a schematic map of the system, which has 100 light-rail
vehicles, 33 kilometres of track and some expansion plans, and 33 stations.
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Figure 5.7 Calgary C-Train Map
Now, the other piece of the puzzle is electricity deregulation. We had a very successful
LRT operation going which used electricity, as you could imagine, in large amounts. In
late 2000/early 2001 Alberta threw the switch on electricity deregulation, which initially
led to price spikes and great swings, ups and downs, and unpredictability in power
pricing. In terms of large-scale consumers like Lethbridge Iron Works, which almost
went out of business as a result of having to pay triple the rates for electric power during
the winter of 2001, and many other small and medium-sized businesses really were
pushed to the wall by the unpredictability and the price spikes that were going on. This
affected every user, including municipal users of electricity. There was a lot of criticism
of the deregulatory policy. One of the quotes that sticks in my mind when I was
researching this came from the Alberta Federation of Independent Businesses, that
represents small and medium-sized businesses. Their president publicly stated that he
could have picked three monkeys from the Calgary Zoo who would have implemented
deregulation more successfully than was currently happening in the province. This is a
province where business generally tends to support the government, and vice-versa. So
there were some real policy tensions, uncertainty and unrest coming out of this electricity
deregulation.
Into that mix stepped the three gentlemen who are standing there on top of that Vestas
wind-power generator down in southern Alberta in the Pincher Creek area. I interviewed
one of them as part of this project. These were three fellows who went through school
together, were really seeing the technology and the environment as complementary and
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had a vision of entering into production of green energy. Of particular vision, that
electricity could be generated that would have an integral added value from the fact that it
would be emissions-free and renewable. That you could charge a little bit more for that
just like you can charge more for certain brands of wine or whiskey when they really
have very similar molecular content to one another. They saw the future for themselves
and a business venture where they could capitalize on the added value of green energy.
They were the ones who initially approached Calgary Transit on the possibility. In fact,
literally the claim is that, their office, like 40% of the other jobs in Calgary, was on that
stretch of LRT between 8th Street SW and City Hall. The LRT trains went right by the
window, and while they were in the start-up phase of their business early on, one day
they literally saw the train roll by the window and thought, “Well, that is a huge electric
power consumer. Why don’t we try and power that with wind-powered energy and
create added value for the image of public transit?”
In the public’s mind, actually, public transit has a very mixed environmental image.
What many people see are diesel buses, maybe not biodiesel, but traditional diesel buses,
and they see the particulates spewing out from them. In opinion surveys and public
awareness, people do not necessarily associate public transit with green environmental
solutions to the extent that it actually is, simply because the image that most of them have
is being caught in traffic behind the bus when it starts up and having to suck in all the
particulates from it. So the idea of connecting green, emissions-free, renewable energy
into the C-train started, from the producer’s point of view. They made the case and made
the initial case with Calgary Transit and the City government. What they wound up with
was a 10-year supply contract, which was signed in 2001, to purchase 26,000 megawatt
hours annually from VisionQuest Windelectric, from those windmills. That allowed
VisionQuest, which did not have those windmills, those particular windmills up and
running, to go out and get financing for 12 more wind turbines, each of which generates
660 kilowatts, and have them on-stream by September 2001, which was when the Ridethe-Wind initiative was launched.
Now, the idea originated with the producers but this was at a time of deregulation and
deregulation often brings a lot of new players into an energy market: new retailers,
distributors and lots of claims, not all of which turn out to be valid. Calgary Transit and
the City of Calgary both wanted some third-party assessment. Consequently, the
Pembina Institute, which has a long history in Alberta, was brought in, as well as Climate
Change Central, which is the Provincial coordinating body for climate change initiatives
in the Province of Alberta. It is supposed to be the leading friendly supporter within
government for climate change adaptation and initiative. Both of these organizations
were given copies of the business plan, the proposals and did their own assessments of,
specifically, the greenhouse gas and other urban air environmental consequences of going
ahead with this power purchase. At one point, there were questions about whether this
would, perhaps, open the door to a public, Federal or, maybe, Provincial funding stream.
Transport Canada’s Moving On Sustainable Transportation (MOST) grant program
funded a little bit of this early research and there was at least the potential that this might
bring in Federal resources. That did not happen. The deal went ahead even without a
Federal contribution or a Provincial contribution. But these assessments did provide an
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independent seal of validation that this green power actually would deliver both the
greenhouse gas reductions and other urban air quality improvements.
Now, as I mentioned, the City had made this commitment in general to reduce its
greenhouse gas emissions 6% over 1997 levels by 2012. To actually implement it, each
of the departments of City government, including Calgary Transit, was given targets that
they were supposed to plan on meeting. But to actually go ahead and sign a long-term
contract that did have a slight cost premium, which we will get to, over coal-fired electric
supply, needed a political champion. Alderman Bob Hawkesworth on City Council
turned into that political champion. He was someone who has been a strong supporter of
rail transit in the city, has understood its strength and its success story. He happened to
be at that time (no longer) on the Board of the City-owned electric supply company,
ENMAX, and he also happened to be on the Board of Climate Change Central, the
provincial climate change activity and incubator. So Alderman Hawkesworth was very
well-positioned to be able to connect the dots, and be the leading spokesperson in
deliberations at the municipal level, which were contentious and brought forward the full
range of views that you might expect, including skeptics that this was just another
scheme with smoke-in-mirrors and that it would not actually reduce any pollution
because you would not be turning off coal-fired electric power plants. But Alderman
Hawkesworth was essential I think, in moving this proposal from a concept to a contract.
The results of the deal have been an emissions reduction, one that has been validated by
two external bodies: 26,000 tonnes a year in annual CO2 reductions. That is by
switching Calgary Transit’s annual electric consumption to the wind-powered generation.
The cost premium over 2001 electricity prices, which was built into the 10-year contract,
works out to about half a cent per LRT passenger, and that is because Calgary’s LRT has
quite a healthy and growing ridership base to spread that over. One of the things that the
contract offered, that was a real advantage in 2001, and I think will prove its worth over
the life of the 10-year period, is a fixed 2% annual price escalation. Unlike the supply of
non-renewable energy in Alberta, especially that which goes to power electricity which
has had these real spikes in price and huge fluctuations in cost, Calgary Transit now has a
predictable cost for its electric energy needs for the next 9 years now, or 8 ½ years, to be
able to work within a municipal budgeting framework that, again, does not lend itself to
lots of quick re-budgeting based on energy price spikes.
In conclusion, I think that this initiative offers a few lessons that should extend beyond
Calgary. There are other urban transit operations and there is commuter rail, certainly in
Montreal, that is currently powered by electricity. There are other regional rail and
transit operations that could be electrified in the medium term, certainly sooner than a
hydrogen-powered fleet of vehicles is likely to be the dominant energy source in an urban
setting. I think that innovation as we have seen it in Calgary, emphasizes the
organizational component, the fact that you can create by adjusting some of the
expectations and ways in which markets and supplies are organized. You can stimulate
innovation, get people connecting the dots in different ways and producing these new
initiatives that allowed, in this case, wind power to be both cost effective and exceed
Calgary Transit’s relative share of Calgary’s emissions reduction strategy. In other
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words, Calgary Transit is now able to exceed that quota and that helps other municipal
departments to make their adjustments still within the total envelope.
Where you have electric infrastructure to power urban transportation, or rail
transportation in particular, although there are some bus applications as well, in
Vancouver, but where you have the electric infrastructure in place, it is just a matter of
plugging in a renewable energy supply to get a quick-win. I think I can say this from
personal experience, having returned to Calgary after a year and a half away, there really
is a public consciousness, at least at the University. With people that I come across and
to whom I mention this project that I have been working on for this presentation, there is
an awareness that the LRT is now really a clean form of transportation, which was not
there with the dirty diesel sort of bus imagery. That gives: 1) momentum, 2) support to
people in the municipal government, in the power industry and, really, across the board,
3) opportunities to keep environmental leadership initiatives moving forward in Calgary
and, I would hope, elsewhere across Canada if similar initiatives were to happen in other
jurisdictions. Thank-you.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000
Thank-you, Anthony, for a scintillating presentation. I know the Regional Environmental
Council in Gatineau has been urging an adoption in western Quebec and Ottawa of
electric transit based on an initiative like that in Calgary, whether it be wind or some
local equivalent, whatever that might be. Maybe just hydro-power, which is produced
abundantly by the Gatineau and Ottawa Rivers.
That said, I would like your comment on the following thesis, and I will just briefly
present the paradigm here. It is that, in the minds of Transport 2000 activists, the socalled alternative to LRT, the bus-way, is seen as a way of putting off real rapid transit by
simply fiddling around with the deck chairs on the Titanic. In a new way, pour more
asphalt and run more buses, produce more pollution, that is our prejudice. Perhaps we
are wrong.
In Winnipeg, the Mayor talks transit but proposes bus-ways and then Council benignly
zones at least one CN line, which was identified as a Transit corridor, just this week as a
commercial property, and residential is in their minds as well. So, the virtual bus-way is
rather short-lived, in that case. But, I would like your comment on this theme, in
Winnipeg and in Ottawa, and elsewhere, are bus-ways the asphalt equivalent of hydrogen
for administrations to put off real rapid transit?
A: Anthony Perl, University of Calgary
Well, that is a challenging question, Harry, as I would expect from you, no less. I guess
it depends on the results of the activity and then where governments go, or other
organizations responsible for transportation planning in the region. I think that the
results, and in Calgary this dates back now at least 25 years for the roots of the LRT
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system in both Calgary and Edmonton and I know that there were proponents of bus-way
alternatives at that point, but the results in Calgary really do speak for themselves.
I guess I would say that the judge of a bus-way paradigm, if you will, or approach has to
be in the outcomes. Has Ottawa been able to increase the share of travel into the major
transit markets, central business districts or other nodes, by developing these bus-ways?
What have the results been? What has the pay-off, if you will, from those investments
been?
I would like to think that one could make an objective assessment rather than basing it
entirely on the values associated with different technology. But if bus-ways can be
shown to increase the usage of public transportation to get people out of their cars, then I
think there is a case to be made for them. If, on the other hand, it is just a matter of
moving some people from local buses or generating new trips onto the bus-way and not
really demonstrating an ability to attract users out of personal vehicles, of one sort or
another, then the case for bus-ways is correspondingly weaker. Then the deck-chair
analogy would be, perhaps, more apt.
I think you should focus on the results of the existing projects and hold a close light up to
other proposals in that perspective. What will they do in terms of outcomes? If it is just
about moving people around differently, without really changing the emissions and travel
mode within urban areas, then, whether it is a bus-way or some other innovation that does
not have the track record that LRT now does, certainly in Calgary, I think you have to
question whether it is the most promising solution. So it is an answer that suggests
looking at the outcomes, I suppose, to make your judgment on that.
Question:
Yes, very nice presentation. I have just got a couple of quick questions. When the wind
does not blow, if you checked it in the last years you have been running this, what was
the response? Obviously, you just feed into the grids. The question is: How many times
when wind did not blow, if the trains had to stop, what type of effect would that have had
if you only used wind power? You never talked about the supporting energy powers you
talk about. And has there been any comment in visual pollution in Pincher Creek and
that for the wind towers and that? Did that go into your calculations at all?
A: Anthony Perl, University of Calgary
Well, I have had lots of people raise the issue of visual pollution. To my knowledge,
there has been no morbidity or mortality ever attributed to visual pollution in Canada or
any other jurisdiction, whereas there are literally thousands of people who die every year
in urban areas because of air pollution. So I think it is sort of a non-starter for me. I
mean, it is an aesthetic issue and then we are into values again. Some people, when I
moved to Calgary, I moved into a neighbourhood that looked rather similar to where I
had grown up, with trees right along the river valley. I remember talking to colleagues
who said, “Well, what would you want trees around your house for? They just block
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your view of the mountains.” So it really depends what you are used to looking at. I
would be willing to make a wager with anyone in the room that, a generation from now,
the children who grow up in Pincher Creek, hopefully into a more sustainable world, will
actually enjoy looking at those windmills between them and the mountains. As opposed
to people who might see them as some sort of intrusion on the natural landscape.
On the question of the variability of wind: I asked that question of both Calgary Transit
and the producers at VisionQuest Windelectric. The contract is structured financially so
that there are penalties in place, or rebates if you will, that allow Calgary Transit to
purchase alternative energy, in this case non-renewable sources, if they are not, for either
maintenance or climatic reasons, the wind farms are not producing enough to meet the
needs of the system. So the trains will not shut down because it is a grid.
Of course, the more one can diversify the inputs into that grid the greater the chances that
renewable energy sources will be able to complement each other in terms of availability
and cycling. Wind power is not, by any means, the only form of renewable energy that
can be used to produce electric energy. There is also some hydro-power in Alberta, and
there could be other sources as well. But for the moment, Calgary Transit has a financial
clause in there that allows them to not pay a premium, to actually get compensation if the
wind power is not available and they need to buy non-green power. Because, again,
VisionQuest is sort of making its case in its market that they are offering premium power
at a slightly higher price and, when that is not available for any reason, you do not pay a
premium. In fact, you gain a financial rebate on that.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000
Anthony, I did write a review of the Ottawa Transit System’s performance and found
that, in the 10 years after the introduction of the bus-way, ridership went down. A review
of the system carried out by, among others, Professor John Backer of the University of
Alberta at Edmonton, produced a recommendation that a pilot project for light-rail be put
in place. An 8.5 kilometre-long line is carrying 30% more people than predicted whereas
the bus-way is carrying less people than predicted.
A: Anthony Perl, University of Calgary
Well, I guess that might suggest that, just like ‘green power’ has a potential value-added,
light-rail can also bring a value-added in terms of customer or traveler’s preferences and
does seem to carry a premium with it, in terms of building changes in urban travel.
John Spacek, Province of Manitoba
Session Chair
Thank-you very much, Anthony, and a fascinating talk. Gordon, your comment about
visual pollution, we visited the California wind alley several times from a government
perspective. What the area residents tell us, and the government officials there tell is, is
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that it was noise pollution with those, believe it or not, which they have conquered with
these larger windmills, the type they are using in Alberta. But, certainly the first and
second-generations were noisy based on the smaller size.
Lastly, Harry talking about Winnipeg’s BRT program, I am modestly involved in that
and most BRT’s that I have been on have grade separation for cross-traffic. This one will
not in one place, and it is the access to the VIA Maintenance Centre. So that is the only
level access that is going to be on BRT and actually is a safety issue for us.
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SESSION 6 PANEL – CANADIAN EMISSION STRATEGIES: ARE WE ON
TRACK?
Barry Prentice – Director
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Panel Chair
Thank-you very much, Bill. It is a pleasure to be here today and, as Anthony said earlier,
the difficulty of trying to keep that day job as well has prevented me from attending the
full conference, but certainly, it seems that from the comments I have received from
people and what I have seen – this has been a very successful conference. Our first
speaker is Robert Taylor, the Executive Director of Policy Development and Economic
Analysis, the Railway Association of Canada.
Panelist 1
Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
I am going to cut right into my notes here. Today in Canada we have an emissions
problem. It is not rail-related. Environment Canada’s plans for stringent regulation of
critical air contaminants may address certain emissions, but there is no realistic Federal
plan to significantly reduce GHG emissions. We have seen, in presentations over the past
two days, that global and Canadian shippers already recognize the benefit to the
environment, to their cost-base and to society at large of a shift to rail and intermodal.
This is relevant, not only from a climate change perspective, but also on the contribution
of higher mean and peak temperatures in smog creation.
In the case of rail, we have seen declining or flat levels of overall emissions and
declining emissions on a tonne-per-kilometre basis. When the MOU model is working
well, we should continue to leverage its success. It is a model of cooperation in progress.
It offers many benefits such as annual reporting, and is similar to other industries in
producing annual reports. Not other modes.
Meeting current and future EPA standards will put Canadian continental railways at a
competitive disadvantage with their U.S. counterparts and North American trucking
companies without changes in tax policy, particularly CCA’s. Without these changes, in
a NAFTA-based economy all Canadian shippers and exporters will be disadvantaged.
The rail industry is also in discussions to lower sulphur in the fuel we use. We recognize
that other modes in the U.S. will be at ultra-low sulphur levels and we are challenging
fuel providers to meet this challenge on a cost-effective basis. We expect them to meet
this challenge.
Rail has an intrinsic fuel efficiency advantage and we are improving. Considerable
reductions in truck emissions on a per unit basis, something in the order of a magnitude
of 3-5 times, will have to be garnered before the situation changes. This is in the context
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of the exciting developments we are implementing and have coming in the future. We
have talked about a lot of these over the last couple of days. I am going to list just a few:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
New Tier 1, Tier 2 locomotives,
SmartStarts,
Top-of-Rail lubrication,
APU’s,
Hybrid switcher locomotives,
Fuelcell locomotives,
Increased asset utilization,
By-directional running,
Heavier car loadings.
The list is long.
Data availability in Canada is also a serious problem. We need estimates of emissions by
source before we can systematically target the problems. Furthermore, data on
transportation is weak and comparisons are very difficult. We need better data to make
more informed decisions. A lot of work needs to be done in this area. Jurisdictional or
other issues must not block progress in the building box for this informed policy analysis.
Also from a policy perspective, we should not look at emissions on a mode-by-mode
basis. The goals should be reducing overall emissions of each type of emission on a
least-cost basis. Targets must also allow for changes in the transportation strategies of
shippers, and we talked about some of these already in the last couple of days.
Other policy levers that are available to government, such as fuel tax, infrastructure
spending, CCA’s, truck size and weight must be considered in the context of emissions
reduction. Low CCA’s in Canada for locomotives are at a particular competitive
disadvantage. That is having a direct tangible effect on Canadian railways’ ability to
renovate its fleet at a faster rate and achieve better emissions.
Working together with or without the MOU. E.C.’s projection, 105 kilotonnes of rail’s
NOx emissions in 2020, may be high in the context of the up-take in Canada of Tier 1
and Tier 2 compliant locomotives over the next 17 years and we certainly expect to see
Tier 3 or Tier 4 in the years to come.
Ultra-low sulphur fuel and after-treatment of emissions also may be the reality for all
modes in all jurisdictions, including Europe and around the world. Given this, the rail
industry in Canada, under the framework of the current MOU, will revisit this estimate
over the coming months. Do not be surprised if the next estimate contains 2 or more
scenarios: one that is based on the current CCA structure, and one that is based on a
more favourable CCA treatment.
I would also like to challenge the government to introduce a Canadian version of the U.S.
SmartWay program and also explore credits for emission reductions. In addition, we are
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also open to exploring third-party verification of our reporting under the LEM report to
ensure credibility and progress in this area.
In closing, I would like to reinforce the point that Canadian railways are very proud of
being an environmentally friendly mode. Our progress on reducing emissions is very
important to us. Government and all stakeholders will have our full support in ensuring
that Canadians have clean air to breathe and a stable climate to live in for decades and
generations to come.
I would just like to leave you with a little quote and I think, Barry, I am quite ahead of
my time limit. This is a quote by Edward Wilson, I do not know if that rings a bell for
people in this audience but he is a Harvard professor who won two Pulitzer prizes and I
think he has published over 20 different books on bio-diversity. I find this quote very
interesting, and it kind of puts us in perspective, I think. “If all mankind were to
disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed
10,000 years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.”
Thank-you.
Panelist 2
Russ Robinson – Environment Canada
Before I start into the comments, I think it is important that we realize there are two
separate issues that are being talked about in terms of emissions. One is the – clean air,
criteria air contaminants, regulated emissions – there are a number of different names for
them, but generally NOx, VOx, and particulate and so on. On the other side, the other
major issue is the greenhouse gases. It would be really nice if we could talk as one on
both of these and deal with all of them at the same time. But, in many cases what we find
is what will assist one of these issues, may actually harm the other, we have to be aware
of that. If we can find that silver bullet that does both at the same time, then it is going to
come to the top of everybody’s list in terms of support, and so on.
But we need to keep in mind there are separate issues being discussed here. I think part
of the reason I say that is, generally, Environment Canada has the lead role on the clean
air issue and Transport Canada has the lead on the greenhouse gas issue. Certainly we
talk to one another often and we do try and keep the two issues coordinated, but there is a
different approach and different way of doing things between the two issues.
I would like to make a couple of comments on what I have heard at the workshop and I
will start with the good news, and that was the comments from the engine manufacturers
that the Tier 2 standards are achievable. That was the term that they used, and not only
achievable but achievable with readily-available technology and know-how. What is
being worked on at the moment is the durability and reliability issues around the
technology. But that certainly is good news to hear, that the technology will be coming
on line and we are going to see this on schedule.
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To also reassure the engine manufacturers, they made this comment a couple of times,
that they would really be happy to see regulations in Canada harmonized with those in
the U.S. It is certainly our wish that we not come up with a uniquely Canadian solution
for the emissions problems, and certainly nothing in the rail area that would require
unique Canadian technology to deal with it. It is the same air pollution and same
problem and we will do everything we can to harmonize activities in Canada with those
that have gone on in the U.S. and with the reg’s that the EPA has already put in place.
Next, I think the group that we heard from loud and clear was the rail companies. It
certainly seems like in the past few years, they have been very progressive in what they
have done, both from a business sense, times are good and profits are up, but I think they
are also becoming very aware of the environmental footprint left by the rail sector in
Canada and are prepared to deal with it, and it is very encouraging to hear that. We still
see the criticism, I think the word that was used the other day was ‘over-zealous
regulations’ and I am not sure that we have ever been over-zealous in anything but I
guess that is our own perspective on it.
The industry does seem to be a little hung up on the idea of capital cost allowance as the
only issue out there. The bottom line of any company is far more complex than a single
issue and a single point. However, we hear you and we would love to be able to use the
tax system to deal with environmental issues. There are so many issues out there that we
could move on right away if we set tax policy. I think, personally, it would be a little
scary if you thought the environment department was setting tax policy in Canada. But
there is not an issue out there that we could not solve with taxes and not have to do any
environmental regulations at all. We would just do it all through taxes but I think we
would end up with far more problems than we do at the moment. Maybe the good news
for the rail companies is that the last improvement in capital cost allowance for the
railways was under the term of Finance Minister Martin and soon-to-be-Prime Minister
Martin and perhaps you have got a window of opportunity and a receptive ear to discuss
those issues with him. Neither Environment Canada nor Transport Canada can help you
directly with this issue.
The one thing I did hear from the rail companies that I think was a little concerning, and
it was mentioned a few times, that these newer, cleaner engines will end up on the northsouth runs or will end up all the time in the U.S. To your critics, that would appear that
you care more about the air quality and health of Americans than you do of Canadians. I
think that, somehow, we have got to balance that out a little bit more. It has to be very
obvious that that best technology, that clean technology, will be used everywhere that
you run engines.
I think there were a lot of good news, again, on alternative fuels, alternative drive
systems. The R&D that is going on out there is very encouraging and obviously giving
the results that are being looked for. But, for any of this R&D activity out there, you
need to keep in mind that it will not come to the marketplace unless there is a clear driver
for it, unless there is a need. If it does not do something for the bottom line of the
companies, or unless it is there to deal with environmental regulations, then we are going
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to see real great R&D but we are never going to see that progress ever make it to the
marketplace.
Again, I was very impressed with the shortlines and the information from shortline
operations. I find that is one area that is extremely creative in the rail industry. We had
the opportunity to tour the shortline operation in Ottawa, and it was quite amazing, the
kind of things they do, aside from running railways, much of which will actually help the
environment, if we could just quantify it a little better in terms of what they are doing.
The one point, there, of a bit of a concern is they also could end up being the ‘dumping
ground’ for the worst of the dirtiest of the engines that are out there. Economics being
what it is, they will continue to run them long after the major railways would have
scrapped them. In terms of any movement forward on regulatory activity, clearly, we are
going to have to be very sensitive to the very nature of the shortlines and the fact they just
could not afford to deal with those kind of regulations. We will have to find some other
programs or approaches to deal with the shortline problem.
Nice to hear from the activity in the U.S., both from EPA and from the engine folks.
They always kind of point us in the direction of where we will be going, where we are
going, and the kind of things that we should be looking at in terms of emissions
reductions for any of the equivalent transportation activity in Canada.
A lot of talk on intermodal activity, and it does seem that this kind of activity, if it is good
for the bottom line, it is going to happen for economic reasons. I think it would be very
difficult to sell it solely on its emissions benefit or environmental benefit, but it is
certainly positive to think it can be done. It is not going to be a major contributor to any
emissions reduction program but it is also safe to say there are no major contributors out
there. There is just a whole series of little things that need to be done, and that may just
be one of the ones on that whole list.
Now, I had prepared a couple of slides, I had put together a couple of slides last week. I
thought the intention on this section was to do a synopsis to put forward our own
perspective on the issues. I have talked about what I saw coming out of the workshop but
there are a couple of things that I think need to be reinforced. Some of this is a follow-up
to the slide presentation that was done on Monday by Environment Canada. I will not go
over all of the details but there is a lot of information in there, in terms of the future and
where we are going and what it means.
Figure 6.1 shows the NOx emissions forecast. The particulate emission forecast does the
same thing. We take a lot of pride in the fact that those areas where we see major
emissions reductions, those parts of the transportation sector are areas that are being
regulated. Now, we certainly cannot take all the credit. These are regulatory activities
that have started in the U.S. and we have gone forward with harmonizing, and we can see
the benefit of that. Those areas without regulatory activity, at the moment, are scheduled
to worsen. Some of those we are already dealing with and we will be back shortly with
revised slides. It does highlight that there are some issues out there that are completely
unregulated and it shows in terms of the future of their emissions compared to the rest in
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transportation. Certainly, aviation, rail and marine are issues that are going to have to be
dealt with, and there is a lot happening there. The low-sulphur fuel will have an impact
there, certainly on the particulate side, and that is likely to kick in at the end of this
decade.
Figure 6.1 NOx Emission Forecast - Transportation
1800
N O x ( k ilo to n n e s /y e
1600
1400
1200
A V IA T IO N
M A R IN E
R A IL
1000
800
O F F -R O A D G A S O L IN E
600
400
O
F F -R O A DDIESEL
D IE S E L
OFF-ROAD
200
ON-ROAD
O
N -R O A DHEAVY-DUTY
H E A V Y -D U T Y
O
N -R O A DLIGHT-DUTY
L IG H T -D U T Y
ON-ROAD
0
20 00
20 05
2 0 10
2 01 5
2020
Note: includes effect of current regulations (i.e., not off-road engines/fuels)
I think that Figure 6.2 is the one that is a little troubling, this slide was presented on
Monday and shows that, at some point in the future, total NOx from rail will, in fact, be
higher than all on-road heavy-duty vehicles. The point that is of concern to us is that we
want to be careful that we do not bring in climate change programs, intermodal programs,
any of the programs that would move truck to rail for GHG benefit today that, within a
few years, could turn around to harm us on the clean air side. That is an area where we
do need to bring both of those programs together and come up with a common solution
that gives us everything we want.
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Figure 6.2 Forecast of NOx Emissions from On-Road Vehicles – Canada
Forecast of NOx Emissions from On-Road Vehicles - Canada
Source: SENES & AIR Inc. October 2002
1,000,000
900,000
NOx (tonnes per year)
800,000
ALL ON-ROAD VEHICLES BASE CASE
700,000
Base Case
(Tier 1, NLEV, low sulphur gasoline,
500 ppm diesel, I/M in LFV & WQC within ON)
600,000
500,000
400,000
HEAVY DUTY
ON ROAD VEHICLES
Regulations Proposed Under the NOI
(Tier 2, HDV Ph 1 & 2, 15 ppm diesel)
300,000
ALL ON-ROAD VEHICLES
200,000
100,000
00
1995
1995
LOCOMOTIVES
(RAC/EC
(RAC/EC Projection)
Projection)
2000
2000
2005
2005
2010
2010
2015
2015
2020
2020
2025
2025
Year
Certainly, Figure 6.3 is the kind of slide that, for us, deals with why we love the idea of
harmonized mandatory emissions standards in Canada. We do not write regulations for
the sake of writing regulations. I think the rail industry, among others, has said, “You
know, why would you bring in a regulation if we are going to voluntarily comply with
the new engines emissions standards?” But there are a number of reasons behind the
scene, a number of other issues that come to play in this issue. The first one being
documentation, certification that the engines meet the standards. This is something that
is important to us. There is such a big difference between somebody’s claim that they
“meet” an emissions standard versus being certified to an emissions standard. Certified
means something to me, meeting something does not mean anything at all except one
engine, at that one point in time. We need to be able to verify that the standards are being
met.
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Figure 6.3 Harmonized Mandatory Emission Standards
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Documentation (Certified)
Transparency
Mandatory Maintenance
OEM Parts Supply
Recalls
Equity – within the industry and the sector
Cross Border Movements
MOU as a learning curve
I think everybody needs to know that these deals or MOU’s or agreements are not being
made behind closed doors. Carrying out a full regulatory program means that everyone
in Canada gets their chance to comment on the regulations, be aware of it and realize that
everyone is being treated equally on this issue. Bringing in the standards would enforce
the mandatory maintenance that is required to maintain these engines as clean as they
need to be. OEM parts supply tends to have more relevance in terms of on-road vehicles
where, in the past, we have seen differences between Canadian and U.S. emissions
standards and over a period of time there were problems with getting parts supplies on
those uniquely Canadian vehicles. We need to avoid that. Any recalls on the engines, we
would like to know that those recalls are also applying in Canada and that the same
remedial action will be taken.
There is also the issue of equity within the industry and also between industry sectors,
maybe not quite as much within the industry sector for rail in that the sourcing of the
engines will all be U.S. But certainly, some of the on-road and off-road equipment
manufacturers are very concerned that someone will use Canada as the dumping ground
for older, dirtier engines and they just cannot compete in that kind of a marketplace.
Cross-border movement, something that is an issue and has been dealt with by the
industry, but I think going forward with the mandatory emission standards, this whole
issue simply disappears.
My final point on the creation of an MOU. We would like to talk about doing the MOU
route first. It is the learning curve for both sides in terms of how we would ultimately
comply with a mandatory emissions standard. We would certainly be interested in
further discussion on the specifics of MOU’s that would mirror what we will do in terms
of mandatory programs.
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Panelist 3
Robert Lyman – Transport Canada
First, I want to congratulate the organizers, the participants and the speakers of this
conference. I think it has been extraordinarily interesting and useful, and I have learned a
lot. It has been much more than a dialogue between people in the rail industry and people
in government. I think that the presence of rail equipment manufacturers and shippers
brought another perspective to the event, which has really enriched the conference. I
think it is the sort of thing one should continue and repeat again in the future.
I think whether rail is on track is something that one needs to answer both from the
perspective of the past, the present and also the future. With respect to the past, I guess
my central message is that I heard you; I heard the industry. I think rail as a
transportation mode offers considerable advantages in terms of air emissions, congestion
relief and inter-city movement, and land use from an environmental perspective. The rail
industry has, since 1980, made really considerable and, indeed, impressive gains in
improving its performance in terms of energy efficiency and emissions per tonnekilometre freight. I think that has to be acknowledged. I think it also has to be
acknowledged that regulations in the United States and the development of voluntary
agreements in Canada and the United States will likely assure that improvements will
continue for the future. So, in many ways, the industry is on track and should be
recognized for that.
I heard that industry faces a very difficult competitive situation. Certainly, the
competition for freight from trucking is strong because of certain advantages that the
trucking industry currently enjoys in terms of service and flexibility. The rail industry is
clearly in the midst of quite significant changes for a whole variety of reasons that have
to do with global markets, North American markets, and technology. The creation of a
large number of shortline companies has added a very interesting entrepreneurial element
to the industry that, perhaps, has been lacking since the earliest days of the rail industry.
New investment opportunities in intermodal are really challenging and I think we could
look to new technologies in the future.
So those are some of the key messages that I heard. But there are a couple of messages I
think I would like to leave with you. One is that the opportunities for the rail industry to
continue to have a very good level of environmental performance in the future is not just
dependent upon one single strategy. In fact, there are lots of options here and many of
them came out. Clearly, over the longer term, there are some very promising new
technologies. We heard about them both in terms of the equipment and in terms of fuels
and operating practices.
I particularly appreciated the point that innovation is not just about long-term transition to
new technologies that may take 20 or 30 years and beyond. It often has to do with
finding ways to use the technologies that are currently available and use them better. We
did not hear a lot about this but I think it is, in fact, a fairly significant point. It is one that
is emphasized in many of our programs: the question of best operating practices. Many
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of us are managers within our own organizations and we have heard some of the
principles of total quality management. A lot of that has to do with the matter of how
you assure that you integrate into your business planning and into your operations the
principles of continuous improvement. It is about looking at ways to re-engineer the
company, looking at ways to constantly improve processes, and adopting a kind of
discipline that applies from the most senior levels of the company down to the lowest
levels. In many ways, what we are talking about for the environment is just simply doing
that but including environmental considerations within the realm of how the company
manages.
Part of quality management is client responsiveness. I think that there is a very real
possibility that, as we heard from IKEA, there will be shippers who will demand
increasing levels of environmental performance from the rail industry. So, it will be very
good business practice to demonstrate that you are being responsive to that.
Entrepreneurial skill is more than finding new ways to make money. It is also finding
new ways to save money, finding new opportunities, and finding new ways to partner
with other companies and partner with government. As part of my presentation, in an
earlier session, what I tried to say is that Transport Canada has a number of programs
where we are trying to help you by offering some funding, particularly for technology
demonstrations or, in some cases, for the more rapid dissemination of technologies that
are already in the marketplace. That offer of partnership stands.
A lot of this has to do with the question of corporate culture, and whether the rail industry
and rail companies in particular, see the environment as a value, as something that is
really worth pursuing, and is reflected in the business plan. It is in some sense an
element of social responsibility. I am familiar with other sectors of the economy where
the commitment to do that has, in fact, enriched the company; not least of all because it
leads to employee engagement, and to union engagement. It means that a company can
use its high level of environmental responsibility or social responsibility as a message
that makes employees proud to work for this particular company. I would not
underestimate the potential for creativity that comes out of that kind of an approach.
One final comment, and I say this with respect. I get the impression that, in many
respects, the rail industry is in a bit of a defensive mode on environmental issues,
notwithstanding the good performance, and quite concerned about the possibility of
tighter regulations, too rigorous regulations, unrealistic approaches to meeting the Kyoto
target. So the approach, in some respects, is to say, “Well, we are not going to do that
unless you give us this.” Deal with the tax system or deal with level playing field issues
related to public funding of roads or deal with other issues. I would not, in any way,
suggest that those are not important issues, but I would suggest to you strategically that,
to hold forward movement on environmental performance hostage to resolution of those
other difficult issues is not going to serve you well in the long term. Engage on both
fronts at the same time and take advantage of those within government who want to be
your partners. Thanks very much.
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Panelist 4
Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
Messieurs, Mesdames. I have been asked to provide the viewpoints of ‘industry’ vis-àvis, “Are we on track regarding railway emissions issues in Canada?”
I would like to first say that, regarding the category ‘industry,’ I interpret the purview to
cover all constituents of the rail sector except, of course, the operating railways and the
governmental regulatory agencies as represented by the other three members of the panel.
Examples of ‘industry’ participants are the locomotive and engine OEMs, the rebuilders,
the maintenance support and service companies, the equipment and parts suppliers, the
fuel and lubricants suppliers, the developers of new technology, on which we have heard
several presentations on Canada-based innovations that are influencing North American
rail operations – and I think I take a little exception to Russ Robinson saying that, “we are
glad to hear what is going on in the States, because we sort of follow.” Well, I think
there is an opposite trend that is ongoing, and it is not only in locomotive-based
technology but also in rolling stock and infrastructure-related technology. I also like to
include in this industry category the university researchers, where significant
breakthroughs are being made; for example, in sensor technology, combustion, airflow
dynamics, computation, fluid dynamics, etc., and of course, the consulting sector, both on
the hard and the soft sides of the emissions issue. Also included are various advocacy
groups like Transport 2000, interest groups, syndicates, and even the legal and
accounting fraternities because they have such an influence on, for example, how things
are measured and justified.
All these groups generate economic activity from or in association with the railway
transportation sector and hence are affected by its economic well-being. The regulatory
climate of the various jurisdictions traversed and a wide range of ongoing challenges and
issues, be they technical, competitive, social or environmental, it goes without saying that
the challenge of emissions transcends all of these issues. How the railway emissions
issue is managed and governed in Canada has significance for every group.
Now, all the groups in the ‘industry’ section that I have just mentioned ask similar
questions about the issue: What track are we on in Canada? Why? and Where is it
leading?
For someone like myself, who is involved in research and development (R&D), testing
and evaluation of new transportation technology, international technology benchmarking
and transfer aimed at realizing new products and processes in Canada, the question I
always receive, when promoting a new initiative (I always seem to be on the leading
edge, stretching the elastic) is: What is the big picture? This is asked by senior
managers, Boards of Directors and funding organizations so as to assess what the
potential market is, what the opportunities and risks are and, in particular, what is the
regulatory climate.
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If the response to these questions can be quantified, then this is the collateral that is
offered up to obtain the clearances to proceed. Like Mr. Vena said yesterday, “You have
really got to have a good story to get the money.” I emphasize this word ‘collateral’ and
the situation on the emissions regulatory climate is part of the challenge of getting the
collateral that is offered up to obtain clearances to proceed. It goes without saying that
the unclear situation at present, regarding locomotive emissions regulations in Canada
does not facilitate this and compromises obtaining the collateral to obtain resources to
develop and deploy emissions reductions technology in Canada. In point of fact, it stifles
innovation. I think that innovation is one of the important goals of Canadian
governmental programs – on the same level the Kyoto Protocol goals.
The unclear situation also compromises the collateral needed by those federal and
provincial funding agencies which manage advanced science and technology programs
which rail sector participants can tap into. Examples are the National Research Council’s
Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC),
the Program on Energy Research and Development (PERD) of Natural Resources
Canada, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and so on,
plus such organizations that may not readily come to mind as the Canadian Institutes for
Health Research (CIHR) or the Manitoba Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology.
None has a specific budget item for railway-related research and development, but all of
them could be tapped for funding to initiate private sector activities, and they also
become strong partners. When evaluating approaches for funding assistance, they also
want to know, ‘What track are we on and where we are going.’ If it cannot be identified,
then these organizations have no ‘collateral’ to support emissions reduction technology
and energy efficiency strategies in the railway sector, and hence, we all lose in Canada.
Right now, I would say Canada is on a track, but:
•
•
•
I am not sure what the destination is (sometimes it feels like being on a train in
which each passenger has a different idea),
I think the train is stalled, and
I think the signaling and communication system has to be upgraded. (I say this
because when people see all the new developments we have heard about in this
workshop, they have an idea of working toward a cleaner environment. I feel it
could be done in a more coherent and coordinated way, and, in fact, even if there
were one group in Canada that had a database of all the things going on, that this
would be the first step to upgrade the signaling and communication).
So, I ask Transport Canada to provide a policy statement regarding locomotive
emissions, is it either:
•
continuation of the status quo (no regulation), or
• rubber stamping of the U.S. EPA regulations (issued in both official languages) or
• a ‘made in Canada’ regulation or emissions containment framework.
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I hope everyone knows that it is Transport Canada which is empowered with the
authority to regulate locomotive emissions (not Environment Canada which regulates
other modes).
People say to me, “We don’t need an emissions regulation in Canada when we have the
Kyoto Protocol as a precedent, which means maximizing energy efficiency and
minimizing CO2 emissions.” Well, one reason for having clarification on diesel
locomotive emissions in Canada stems from my asking Marti Lenz yesterday if we could
have a locomotive in Canada, say the new SD70ACe, which has been specially tuned to
maximize its energy output and minimize fuel consumption. Since there are no
locomotive-specific regulations in Canada on NOx emissions, then there is nothing being
violated or anything to enforce. Marti explained that the SD70ACe can be now be
changed from Tier 2 to Tier 1 to Tier 0, or otherwise, just by remotely electronically
advancing and retarding the timing (which is how NOx is mainly reduced). So, you
could imagine this locomotive operating legally in Canada at Tier 0 (or even better for
maximum fuel efficiency, since in Canada, we do not have any regulations for NOx) and,
as soon as it crosses into the U.S.A., there is an electronic trip-switch via satellite
communication that will put it to Tier 2 status so as to meet U.S. EPA NOx regulations.
One cannot then refute Hunter Harrison, CEO of CNR when he says, “Our company
abides by all governmental regulations.” I just put that out as an example, not in a trivial
way, to show that with the miracle of modern electronics a locomotive’s emissions rate
can be changed remotely as it passes through different jurisdictions – which should spur
Transport Canada to establish a position.
So, what track do I think Canada should be on? Well, my response is:
1) A track that will lead to a targeted reduction in emissions for the railway sector. (The
voluntary RAC-EC Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) will expire December 27,
2005. The track should lead to an emissions regime that is more rigorous and reflects
the reality of today’s concern about the environment. The scenario could be an MOU
with more teeth in it, or standards that could be verified and enforced);
2) A track that will stimulate innovation in the Canadian railway sector that will lead to
enhanced service to shippers and the traveling public, and enhanced economics for the
operating railways; and
3) A track that will attract to the railway sector the best and brightest of Canadian
university graduates to address complex, multi-disciplinary transportation targets.
(One area I suggest being addressed is how to effect a modal shift from trucks to rail,
with the resulting reduction in emissions. The chart in Figure 6.4 portrays this in a
self-obvious way. It was borrowed from the AAR / U.S. DOE report on Research and
Development Opportunities in Railroads (formerly called the ‘Road Map’)).
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Figure 6.4
16
Small railway sector can leverage
reductions in larger truck sector
Histor y
History
Pr ojec tion
Projection
E n erg y U se (M M B D O E )
14
Freight
Transport
Ra il
Rail
12
10
Assuming
modal shift
from truck to
rail
8
6
4
2
0
1 970
1 97 5
198 0
19 85
19 90
1 995
2 00 0
200 5
20 10
2 015
2 020
(Chart courtesy of Frank Stodolsky, Argonne National Laboratory of U.S. DOE)
There is a plethora of needs and opportunities for research, development, testing and
evaluation of new technology and processes for the Canadian railway sector. I take this
opportunity to suggest ‘The Track’ for a ‘Locomotive Emissions Reduction Program for
the Canadian Railway Sector.’ The principal elements would include, inter alia:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)
h)
i)
j)
k)
l)
Program Management / Interaction with U.S. DOE program and other U.S. initiatives,
Setting Targets for Emissions Reduction in the Canadian Railway Sector,
Baseline Measurement Actions,
Survey and Assessment of Applicable Emissions Reduction Technology,
Reinforcing the Infrastructure to Test and Measure Emissions Compliance,
Research and Development of New Technology and Processes,
Operational Trials to Evaluate New Emissions Reduction Technologies and Fuels,
Operational Research and Systems Analyses aimed at Modal Shift Trials,
Data Gathering, Monitoring and Reporting Actions,
Development of Human Resources Knowledgeable on the Subject,
Transmission and Diffusion of Knowledge Generated,
Enhancing Innovation by Identifying Sustainable Financing, Outputs and Markets.
The envisaged resource requirements to mount the above program would be $500,000 to
$1 million per year. It is recommended that there be linkage with similar R&D initiatives
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in the U.S.A. so as to lever scarce Canadian R&D funds. The suggested administrative
structure could either be an:
a) Integrated Cross-border Program, or
b) Separate Canadian and U.S. Programs, but with regular consultations.
I recommend an integrated cross-border cooperation modeled after the 10-year, $10
million Track Train Dynamics Program undertaken jointly in the late 1970s and early
1980s by the AAR / U.S. DOT / RAC / Transport Canada. It resulted in significant
improvements in the safety, reliability, durability and cost effectiveness of rolling stock
and the rail structure. I foresee that a similar cooperation arrangement could exist for the
locomotive emissions reduction challenge.
I have spoken with, and obtained
encouragement from, for example, the head of the U.S. DOE program, Sid Diamond, the
U.S. DOT FRA’s John Pulwani, the AAR’s Brian Smith, and the Southwest Research
Institute’s Steve Fritz. Such an arrangement would certainly focus what the emissions
reduction targets could be for Canada, starting with measurements to establish baseline
data. In this regard, one thing that we have in Canada is the largest in-house testing
facility for diesel locomotives in North America, that is, the Engine Systems Development Centre Inc. in Lachine, a suburb of Montreal. This totally private initiative is
cleared for EPA certification and testing of all locomotive and diesel engine parameters.
Lastly, I am sure that you are saying, “Where is that money going to come from for this
R&D activity?” In this regard, I end my remarks with a challenge to Bill Rowat,
president of the Railway Association of Canada (RAC): in addition to lobbying to have
the Capital Cost Allowance period for locomotives shortened, he should also lobby
governments to double the funding available for railway-related R&D. For 2002, I
identified about $300K in federal funding for railway-related R&D projects (not counting
SR&ED tax rebates), while in 2002 the railways paid $644.1 million in taxes to federal
and provincial governments (as displayed in Figure 6.5). This is a return for R&D of
about one-twentieth of one percent of the taxes paid! I challenge Mr. Rowat to lobby
governments to double the return for R&D, that is, to one tenth of one percent of the
taxes paid).
In closing, I leave as messages a request to Transport Canada regarding locomotive
emissions policy clarification, and a challenge to the Railway Association of Canada to
lobby to double the return for R&D of the taxes paid by railways. Thank you.
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Figure 6.5
TABLE I
The breakdown of taxes paid by the operating railways in 2002 to federal
and provincial governments is ( x $000 ):
Locomotive
Other Capital tax
fuel & excise Property sales & customs
tax
tax
tax
duties
Alberta
4,051 9,924
67
0
British Columbia
15,241 32,372 24,991 3,811
Manitoba
9,400 14,031 11,940 1,794
Nfld. & Labrador
0
105
0
0
New Brunswick
1,525
841
102
160
Nova Scotia
0 1,900
0
115
Ontario
29,534 34,821 40,105 6,256
Quebec
5,191 35,951
9,366 10,716
Saskatchewan
31,664 13,221
8,586 4,144
Northwest Territories
47
0
0
0
Federal
71,167
0
1,958 14,642
Totals:
167,820 143,166 97,115 41,638
Payroll taxes
Income
tax
QPP
515
1,499
0
1,231
1,441
3,966
12,937
0
0
16,514
38,103
Grand
total
CPP UIC Health
44
34
6,381
14,601
77,948
43,546
105
3,859
205
3,661
13,444 128,126
13,030
23,127 110,318
57,615
47
54,666 45,323
204,270
13,030 54,666 45,323 43,236 644,097
Source: Railway Association of Canada, 26 September 2003
Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Panel Chair
I would like questioners to come to the mike, but before we start and while you are
preparing your questions, I would like to offer the panel members an opportunity if they
have questions of their own or rebuttal for what they have heard. Go ahead, Robert.
Panelist 1
Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
I would just like to take a minute and I have to say, Russ, I just want to comment on a
few of the things you said. In terms of railways making money. We have just, in the last
couple of years, gotten sustainable in terms of our cost of capital. We invest about 25%
in infrastructure and I think you want to look at these numbers before you throw out
excess profits, because the Canadian Transportation Agency and Transport Canada,
which we saw in Straight Ahead and John Dobson presented, have a different view.
In terms of CCA’s, we are not talking about broad tax policy and about solving the
environment in terms of tax policy. We have a CCA in Canada that takes us 20 years to
write off a locomotive, it is written off in 8 years in the U.S. and a truck is written off in 8
years in Canada. We have to buy new locomotives to be EPA compliant, and obviously,
it costs us a lot more. This is a disadvantage, not for us, but for shippers as well.
I just want to make a comment, also, on cross-border, that is about 2/3 of our business.
That is the entire growth in our business. That is where we put, not only our new
locomotives, but also our new management systems, our new information systems, all of
our strategy, at both CN and CP, has been geared on continental activities. So it is not
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just that we are putting locomotives there for EPA compliance. It is the core part of our
business and without NAFTA and growth in cross-border traffic, the marginal success we
have had would not be here today.
The other thing I would just like to comment on is that chart that we have seen a few
times. I think we are going to go back and look at our 105 but I would like to know
today, what NOx emissions for trucks are. I would kind of like to know where that 2000
and 2005 number, what the methodology is. Even going to 2010 because everything I
see, and the U.S. experience has much better data than we have, shows that trucks are up
6% at overall levels. That 6% is probably more than the entire rail sector contributes to
NOx. So I would just like you to talk a little bit about your methodology.
The last point I would like to make is about the Rail Safety Act. The Rail Safety Act has
been a glowing success because it is not prescriptive, it is performance-based. We have a
safety management system; we put it forward. It is approved by Transport Canada and
we do not have 1,000 Transport Canada people coming out kicking the tires of rail cars.
But we know very, very well, unless we decrease fatalities, unless we decrease accidents,
we have a problem. In 2003 in Canada, I think, regulation generally has moved in that
area. That is why a model like the MOU, which has resulted in lower emissions and will
result in significantly lower emissions in the future, has worked so well. I think
prescriptive regulation is very expensive for taxpayers and it is also very expensive for
industry, and I think that is relevant.
Panelist 2
Russ Robinson – Environment Canada
If I could comment, specifically, on the data situation in terms of emissions, we are
always happy to have another look at emissions numbers and the data that is available,
the emissions factors and so on. As you know, we just recently changed the emissions
factor that is used within the LAM Report. I am certainly very concerned that this factor
– we essentially distill the entire rail sector down to one number which is emissions per
amount of fuel used – may not be fully representative of the sector. However, my
concern would be that, if we looked very closely at the data, it may actually come out
worse than our current emissions estimate. Certainly, moving forward on better data
collection and better data analysis is something that we would always be happy to discuss
with you or with any other group. I would point out that the road emissions numbers are
taken from a Senes report from about 2 or 3 years ago. We would certainly be happy to
make available a copy of that report.
Senes is a consulting firm that does a lot of the number crunching. If you are interested,
you can take a look at the assumptions that they have made, the factors they used, and get
a better feel for yourself of the accuracy of the results. This analysis is the basis of a lot
of the regulatory analysis related to road transport and we believe these to be reasonably
accurate numbers. I would say that, if anything, we would be more concerned that what
we have on the rail side is not as accurate and we would be interested in undertaking
more work to improve the data – from more emissions testing to better modeling, more
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information of the amount of time at notch settings which is critical for the total
emissions, and so on.
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Q: Grete Bridgewater – Canadian Pacific Railway
Russ, I just thought I would provide a little more clarification on this notion that our new
high-power locomotives are all going down to the U.S. Yes, we have a continental
strategy. But yes, we have some very big mountains in the West that we have to carry
bulk commodities through to the port of Vancouver and so on. So I assure you that the
higher percentage of our high-power new AC fuel-efficient, EPA-compliant locomotives
are heading to the west coast – that is just geography. So, hopefully, that information
will be of some comfort to you.
Robert, you had mentioned some very forward-thinking notions in terms of social
responsibility and some comments about, perhaps the railways could be presenting
themselves in a better light in terms of environmental enlightenment. You may well
know that both the Class 1 railways in Canada are responsible care partners, we are
partnering with our customers. That is a fairly rigorous process and we have undergone
an external verification where the verifiers were very impressed with our environmental
health and safety management systems. We have also just released the second of our
annual social responsibility reports where we demonstrate what our commitment is to the
environment, including specific targets and goals and objectives and do report on our
performance. To that end, we recognize that it is an integral part of our business. Our
customers are recognizing it, our investment community is demanding it and recognizing
it, and we certainly have partners throughout the industry that are recognizing it. We are
engaging our employees; in fact, we have a gain-sharing program so that there is a direct
buy-in from our employees to implement our fuel efficiency measures. What we are
asking is and what we are wondering is, why the government is not recognizing it.
Q: Chris Jones – Railway Association of Canada
Russ, I just want to pick up on a couple of the comments you made, as well that my
colleague Robert did not mention. What I find somewhat disquieting about some of what
you had to say concerns the continued nature of a ‘silo’ mentality within the government.
You made reference to us having to deal with finance on our own because Transport and
Environment would not be in a position to offer much help there in terms of the CCA
rates. As Robert will know, I just finished participating in the Department of Transport’s
Sustainable Development Plan for the next three years. I finished on a Friday afternoon
and I went back to my office, The Department of Industry called me up and I then spent
half an hour talking to them about their sustainable development plan. It occurred to me
that it might make sense for government to link these plans together so that we do not
have this continued sort of ‘silo’ approach. The problem with that is it is resulting in a lot
of issues falling through the cracks. Take the U.S. government, it has an office of
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intermodalism in the Department of Transportation. We do not have any such agency in
Canada, we essentially are working at cross-purposes in many cases, and the upshot is
that environmental policy is affected by that.
Just one other comment about intermodalism. One single double-stacked intermodal
train can take about 200 containers off the road. So I am not quite sure how one could
make the assertion that it is not really a significant part of the solution. So, I just wanted
to leave those.
Q: Richard Gilbert – Centre for Sustainable Transportation
I, too, want to congratulate the organizers and offer the strong suggestion that this
workshop or conference be held every, at least every other year and not every 4 years.
Hardly anything could be more important for Canada’s transport future than rail because
of its environmental advantages. This kind of workshop is a beautiful way. So, I think as
NRCan has the Windsor Workshop on Automotive Technologies, there should be the
biennial Winnipeg Workshop on Rail and the Environment.
I would like to make a proposal for the one to be held in 2005, and that is more attention
be given to what is probably for the future the most important environmental advantage
of rail, and that is its ability, through rail-fed or wire-fed systems, to use a large variety of
renewable fuels, getting its electricity from rail or wire, tethered systems. It was featured
just once in this workshop, Anthony Perl’s paper, and if that continues, when you have
the 7th biennial Rail and Environment conference in 2013, there will be a lot of regret as
to why it has not been given more attention. In 2013, it will be realized that, like natural
gas cannot keep up with demand now, oil world-wide will not be keeping up with
demand. The hydrogen economy and fuelcells and everything associated will be
exploded as expensive and unrealistic myths. Canada, which depends more on transport
than any other country in the world, will be left without a means of looking after itself in
this most important respect. The future of rail is tethered systems, getting their power
from wire or from rail. It has got to be a component, and an increasing component, in
thinking about rail in this country and, indeed, everywhere else. So, I hope for the 2005
conference, we see more than one paper on this topic.
Q: Harry Gow – Transport 2000 Canada
I would certainly support remarks made about the quality of the conference and the
organization and again, that it be held again in two years. To compliment, in particular
Environment Canada and Transport Canada, for the hard work done in implementing the
ideas which the rest of the organizational panel, like myself, floated knowing that we
would not have to bear the brunt of making 100 phone calls to get one speaker. I think
that is noteworthy and a successful effort on the part of people like Joanna here, and Russ
and others, who put themselves out to achieve this, and I cannot emphasize that enough.
I found, in general, that I only disagreed once or twice with what people had to say, and I
think that is a record for the 20 or so railway conferences I have attended in the last 10
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years. That is an achievement, too, because people have strained out a lot of the dross
and have come up with some pretty good data.
I was somewhat dismayed by disingenuous suggestions that, possibly, the railways might
be engaging in hostage-taking around CCA and was also concerned at the notion that
railways might somehow contribute to a worsening of environmental conditions by
carrying more traffic. That said, on the subject of hostage-taking, I would think that, in
the future, Transport 2000 and other groups in this area, and I should mention we are not
a lobby group, despite the press interpretation of our advocacy, we shall have to do
advocacy where we take no hostages in future in order to obtain things like CCA. My
question is addressed to nobody in particular and to all of you as a group, based on Peter
Eggleton’s excellent suggestion of an increased research and development effort: would
people be interested in taking another look at NOx through a specific rail-centred
research effort with serious contributions from partners such as Transport Canada,
Environment Canada, the RAC and the railways and so on, maybe even the truckers, to
try and get to the bottom of this. Because I find it very difficult to believe that NOx on
railways has not gone down and will not go down. On the other hand, people have a right
to a point of view, but in the end, viewpoints have to be converted into research questions
and then verified, validated or nullified. So that is my question. What about a research
effort on NOx?
A: Robert Taylor – Railway Association of Canada
Sure, we are definitely going to revisit our estimate for our NOx emissions in 2020 based
on Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, Tier 4 and low sulphur fuel. So I just wanted to provide
clarification around that. I do not think that 105 is a great, great number, I do not know
what the number is, I am not the person. But I think a process which would look at that
number is relevant in the context of quantum leaps in NOx emissions and in the context
of after-treatment of emissions coming out of Tier 3 or Tier 4 and 2012. But I think we
definitely, the RAC and Mike Lowenger is the guy, would be open to more research but it
is really at the locomotive manufacturers’ level. We do not build these things we just use
them. We do not tinker with them, either, too much. So I think the manufacturers, in
conjunction with operating railways and the AAR and the RAC – I do not know if Bob
Fronczak wanted to add anything. I know the AAR does quite a lot of that in Pueblo so
there might be some synergies that could be beneficial.
A: Peter Eggleton – TELLIGENCE Group
Connected to this, let’s get down to the basis of the NOx issue. We know that the MOU
will expire on December 27, 2005. (How do I know December 27? It happens to be my
birthday and I happened to notice that it was signed in 1995 on December 27). So, prior
to the expiry date, one scenario is that the MOU will be renewed and one would think
that some things in it could be modified or changed. One of changes could be addressing
in a more rigorous manner the reporting of the NOx emitted each year, to establish just
how it is to be measured and derived and that sort of thing. Of course, electronics are
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advancing very rapidly so there may be ways of getting this to be more accurate and more
automated.
Barry Prentice – University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Panel Chair
Thank-you very much. On this last word, I think I would like to draw the panel to a close
and Bill Rowat has invited me to give a few closing remarks, as well.
First of all, I think it is (what I heard) some important issues in terms of the railways
contributing to our Kyoto goals, beyond just what the railways do. This is really a goal
for transportation. It is all forms of transportation and the railways have, I think, an
incredibly important role in reducing our total emissions from transportation, and I think
that is what the conference was really about.
Simplistically, if I look at the issue we have, there is really two strategies: you can
change what comes out of the tailpipe or the smokestack as it were, and you can change
the number of tailpipes. Those are the two things you can do. We heard a lot about
taking things out of the tailpipe, some really innovative and interesting ideas, just burning
less fuel because of either better lubrication on the top of the track or having a hybrid
railway battery-powered, but very innovative and interesting idea of how to reduce those
emissions. So there is a lot of ways that we can reduce what comes out of the railway
smokestack, but perhaps the biggest opportunity in terms of the environment, is the
ability to reduce the number of tailpipes in total. That comment about 200 containers on
a double-stacked train representing 200 trucks, I think that is a very significant change. I
presume that those charts that show the reduction of truck emissions must have within
that the assumption that those trucks are moving over to rail. So, even though rail
emissions are perhaps not going down, you have to come up with what is the net
contribution as opposed to just the absolute contribution that might be there, certainly
some innovative ideas.
I was quite taken at the end of the conference. We heard Minister Sale’s comment about
electric trains come back with Anthony Perl’s comment on electrification. Certainly
there are places that you can electrify, I am not sure that you can push that quite as far as
a national system, for various reasons, just in terms of economics. But one thing that I
am not sure, I was not here for the whole time, there is a question of where the emissions
occur. I mean, total emissions is what we have focused on but the real question is
“Where do they happen?” In a train that is putting forward emissions in the wilds of
northern Ontario, it would be quite a bit different from one idling in a yard in Toronto,
given that there are already a lot of emissions there. I do not know whether we have
actually addressed that question as to: Where is the concentration? and How do we
reduce it to critical point? as opposed to just emissions in total. Because there are two
issues, one of which is climate change but the other is health. So again, the focus of the
conference, as I see it, tended to be very broad and touch on these issues but we maybe
need a bit more refinement. Certainly, we would welcome the idea of having this
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conference every two years in Winnipeg. I am not sure the organizers, Russ and Joanna,
would really, or up to this very moment, contemplate another conference any time soon
after going through the experience and the work of doing this, and they have done a
marvelous job. But, certainly, we would be very willing to assist at the Transport
Institute.
This conference does form a milestone, as did the previous one. It is a very useful point
of reference, that you can look back and see where we have progressed and how far we
have to go. I think that is important in a number of ways, perhaps the most important of
which is that the clock is ticking, if we are going to meet the goals that have been set in
terms of trying to reach the Kyoto commitments. There are really two questions
outstanding in my mind in that regard. The first one is: Are the incentives adequate to
permit the players to make the changes that have to be made to reach those goals? and Is
there sufficient time that really allows that to happen? I think those are the big issues
because it takes a long time to make that investment in infrastructure. The new yard that
you observed the other day, yes, that was built fairly quickly once they had the
commitment to build it but it was a tough battle to sell that. Those of us living in
Winnipeg know that that has been on the agenda for many, many years. Of course, the
questions is: Where do you put that investment? Do you put the investment in things
that are going to really reduce emissions or do you put it into areas that are going to help
the flow of the railway? Maybe we will attract and move traffic off trucks onto rail but
there has to be a balance in those, too. Obviously we need to invest in all. So those are
my closing comments Bill, and I invite you to come and officially close the conference.
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CLOSING REMARKS
Bill Rowat – Railway Association of Canada
Conference Chair
Thank-you very much, Barry. I guess just a few closing comments. I did thank everyone
involved the other night at the dinner on Monday night and I will probably leave it to
Russ in his closing comments to thank you again. But I would like to just re-emphasize
and thank Russ and Joanna and the rest of the team that it has been a really exceptional
effort over the last number of days. It is hard to pull these things together and they are
always worthwhile, even when there are a few areas of disagreement, but they are very
worthwhile having.
I should just say, overall, I found the conference very heartening in the sense that there
are a whole lot of new innovative approaches, technologies and a lot of new innovative
thinking that I think are going to encourage us in the rail industry, as Robert said, to
revisit some of our numbers, some of our estimates and forecasts, particularly of the NOx
number. There are clearly some things there that we have to reassess. We are very proud
of where we have come from over the last 10 years. We are very proud of where we are
today, vis-à-vis, and particularly other modes. We know and we feel and we believe that
we have to achieve the kind of targets that we have talked about over the next 10 years.
I guess where I would register some disappointment is, I am hearing a very clear message
that mandatory regulation, mandatory approaches are the way to go and any voluntary
agreement is a way to learn what we need to learn so we can move into more mandatory
regulation. I do not personally agree with that. I think there are many new measures,
incentives and so on, that we can use and, I would say, that we have successfully used in
many broad areas in rail working with governments over the last number of years.
I guess the second point I was a bit disappointed in, and I think a number of the
questioners have raised it as well, is that, there is a tremendous potential in terms of
multi-modalism, intermodalism, moving more product onto rail that I think will have
bottom-line results. I think that we have to continue to revise our analysis on that and
government has to have a harder look at that, and we have to have better numbers in that
area.
The only other point I would make, as well, is that I would really like to encourage and
challenge my government colleagues that we want to deal with the Government of
Canada. It is extremely important. I think Bob Lyman talked a bit about us acting
defensive. Maybe we are defensive in one sense, that we are being asked to work and
achieve a very valid and valuable set of objectives in one area in the environment but we
are basically saying, “To do that, we need some help in some other policy areas.” I
guess, dealing with my Government of Canada, I would say the standard is not good
enough to be told, “My job is this, and go and see somebody else on that front.” When
we deal with our Government of Canada, I think the silo approach has to be bridged and
we have to find a way, internally with the Government of Canada, to pull together a team
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of the respective Finance people, of Industry Canada people. NRCAN, for instance,
yesterday, I had not realized that Natural Resources Canada was actually contributing to a
project and I think it was a bit of a surprise to some of my government colleagues, as
well. We have to be able to deal with our Federal Government on major issues in a
cohesive fashion and not be sent to a number of different desks on something as
important as this is to the future, to our future as Canadians.
So those may be disappointments but I take them and put them out also as challenges to
all of my colleagues. So thanks, again. It was really a first-class conference and a good
three days. I want to thank Barry for taking up the quick challenge at the last minute to
make a few comments, he did a fine job. So thanks again. Russ, I will turn it over to
you.
Russ Robinson – Advisor, Sustainable Transportation
Environment Canada
There are a number of people who need to be thanked as a result of this excellent
workshop. It has really come together well and it has been delivered very well and that is
certainly because of the hard work of a number of people and a number of different
groups. First, I would like to thank all of the speakers who went through an excellent set
of presentations over the last 2 ½ days, very informative, I think really, really
worthwhile. It was a good agenda that was put together.
I would like to start the specific thank-you’s with Joanna Bellamy and Francine Lavallee
from Environment Canada who both worked hard for months and months on this. I think
Joanna was still in the office up till 8:00 on Friday with the last of the details and still
working on it, so, certainly excellent work on their part. I would also like to thank a few
folks with the University of Manitoba Transport Institute: Christy Sokol, Karime AbdelHay, who did all of our electronics and Megan Warachka. They arranged for the
registration, arrangements for meals, looking after logistics, and all of that has just been
excellent all through this 2 ½ days, a real good job.
EC would also like to thank the organizing committee who worked over the last 6 months
to develop the program for this workshop: Harry Gow of Transport 2000 Canada; Nicole
Charron and Lionel King of Transport Canada; Terry Zdan and John Spacek of the
Province of Manitoba; Anthony Perl of the University of Calgary; Roger Cameron and
Mike Lowenger of the Railway Association of Canada; and Doug Duncan of the
University of Manitoba Transport Institute. Certainly Doug and his staff gave us a lot of
help in finalizing all the conference programs, contacting speakers and a special thanks to
them for a job well done. It was an excellent group of speakers who were brought
together.
I would like to thank the translators of the conference, Suzanne Hoard, Chantel Hamel
and Marielle Arsac who have been working away back there the last 2 ½ days. I would
like to thank the hotel staff of Hotel Fort Garry and, in particular, Helen Staines and
Sherraine Christofferson. Certainly this was an excellent hotel for this. It is the second
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time we have been here with this and they always do a great job of making us feel
welcome.
I would have no problems committing Environment Canada to doing this again in two
year’s time. I am looking at retirement in one year, two months and 11 days so I think a
two-year schedule would be no problem at all.
A special thanks to Jim Vena and staff of CN for arranging yesterday’s tour of the
Symington Intermodal Yards. Now I know everything there is to know about humping, I
am much better for it.
Finally, a thank-you to Bill Rowat, CEO of the RAC, for acting as Conference Chair over
the last 2 ½ days and doing an excellent job of keeping everybody on schedule. Thankyou, Bill.
Finally we certainly appreciate all of you folks for taking part in this Conference and for
your participation. It has been an excellent workshop and, yes, I think we should commit
to doing this in two years’ time. Thank-you.
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2003 PARTICIPANTS
SPEAKERS
(in order of appearance)
Bill Rowat
Tim Sale
Russ Robinson
John Dobson
Robert Lyman
Gord Owen
Robert Taylor
Lee Jebb
Tim Hibbard
Lionel King
Robert Fronczak
Terry Judge
Chuck Moulis
Harry Gow
Grete Bridgewater
Martha Lenz
Eric Panet-Raymond
Arnold Miller
Erika Akkerman
Donald Eadie
Steve Easun
Richard Gilbert
Barry Craven
Gord Peters
Sabina Strautman
John Spacek
Jim Vena
Frank Donnelly
Robert Dunn
Anthony Perl
Barry Prentice
Peter Eggleton
Railway Association of Canada
Minister of Energy, Science & Technology
Environment Canada
Transport Canada
Transport Canada
Environment Canada
Railway Association of Canada
Cando Contracting
Environment Canada
Transport Canada
Association of American Railroads
Kim Hotstart Manufacturing Company
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Transport 2000 Canada
Canadian Pacific Railway
GM Electro-Motive
Bombardier
Vehicle Projects, LLC
CN Rail
Kelsan Technologies Corp.
ZTR Control Systems
Centre for Sustainable Transportation
Canada Post Corporation
Cando Contracting
IKEA
Manitoba Transportation & Government
Services
CN Rail
Railpower Technologies Corp.
Consultant
University of Calgary
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
TELLIGENCE Group
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PARTICIPANTS
Karime Abdel-Hay
Neil Ames
Glen Appleby
Jason Barnes
Harry Beaton
Kevin Beechinor
Jurgens Bekker
Joanna Bellamy
Ronnie Brewer
Carol Burelle
Malcolm Cairns
Roger Cameron
Nicole Charron
Alan Clayton
Doug Duncan
Tim Feduniw
Jo-Anne Foy
Chris Gotmalm
Darrell Grywacheski
Daniel Hammond
Irene Hanuta
Chris Jones
Ashley Langford
Francine Lavallee
John Lawson
Harri Liivamagi
Bruce MacLeod
Josee Maillette
Chrissy Martens
Ron Mitchell
Don Norquay
Ash Olesen
Zachary Patterson
Malcolm Payne
John Pearce
Normand Pellerin
Andrew Pickell
James Popplow
Daniel Richmond
Bruno Riendeau
Patrick Rooney
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Transport Canada
Portec Rail Products Ltd.
Kim Hotstart Manufacturing Company
Transport Canada
Golder Associates
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Environment Canada
CN Rail
Environment Canada
Canadian Pacific Railway
Railway Association of Canada
Transport Canada
University of Manitoba, Department of Civil
Engineering
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Destination Winnipeg
Transport Canada
EcoTrans Technologies
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
Transport 2000
Prairie Adaptation Research Collaborative
Railway Association of Canada
Siemens Canada Ltd.
Environment Canada
Transport Canada
CN Rail
Winnipeg Airport Lands Corporation
Environment Canada
Manitoba Heavy Construction Association
Transport Canada
Manitoba Transportation & Government
Services
Canadian Pacific Railway
McGill University, Department of Geography
Engine Systems Development Centre
Transport 2000 Atlantic
CN Rail
Southern Alberta Institute of Technology
Manitoba Health
Rentar Environmental Solutions
VIA Rail Canada Inc.
Kelsan Technologies Corp.
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Gerald Sandell
Robert Sisler
Jackie Skinberg
Bob Smith
Douglas Smith
Christy Sokol
Lorraine Sourisseau
Graeme Tamson
Tony Turrittin
Ed Tyrchniewicz
Megan Warachka
Transport Canada
Transport Canada
NRCan
Transport Canada
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
Transport Canada
Transport 2000
York University
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
University of Manitoba Transport Institute
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SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
WILLIAM (BILL) ROWAT (Conference Chair)
President and CEO
RAILWAY ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
BILL ROWAT, President of the Railway Association of Canada since 2000, is a former
career officer in the federal public service.
He was educated at the University of Waterloo where he obtained a Bachelors degree in
Economics and went on to do graduate course work in the same discipline at Queen’s
University.
His experience in the public service was extensive, providing him with both policy and
operational management in several departments and central agencies of the Canadian
Government. As Associate Deputy Minister of Transport and, subsequently, Deputy
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, he had responsibility for managing tens of thousands of
public servants while overseeing budgetary envelopes totaling over a billion dollars.
While Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Oceans he was responsible for providing
strategic direction during the “turbot war” with Spain and the European Union and was
the Canadian Government’s Chief Negotiator during the ensuing talks. Also, during his
tenure at DFO, he oversaw the amalgamation of the Canadian Coast Guard into the
department.
As Assistant Secretary to the Cabinet for Economic and Regional Development in the
Privy Council Office, Bill oversaw a range of critical economic files and had
responsibility for mediating the differing expenditure demands put forward by line
departments. In this capacity he reported directly to the Clerk of the Privy Council. In
addition to his time in Ottawa, Bill has spent a considerable portion of his career in the
Atlantic Canada region.
Prior to his appointment with the RAC, he had been on secondment from the Privy
Council Office as a senior advisor to the Premier and Government of Newfoundland in
relation to the Churchill Falls hydro-electric power project. A secondary part of his duties
involved negotiating land claims with the Inuit people of Labrador. Since assuming the
reins of the RAC, Bill has given the organization a new impetus and direction with
respect to its advocacy, policy development and public affairs work. The 55-member
Railway Association of Canada represents virtually all freight and passenger railways
operating in Canada today.
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TIM SALE
Minister of Energy, Science & Technology
PROVINCE OF MANITOBA
TIM SALE, Minister of Energy, Science and Technology; Minister responsible for The
Gaming Control Act and Minister responsible for Manitoba Hydro.
Tim Sale was elected in 1995 to serve the Constituency of Crescentwood. For five years
before his election, Tim owned a successful consulting business serving the health care,
education and public finance sectors of governments across Canada.
His 25 years of experience in management included five years of senior management
experience in government. Tim taught at both the Universities of Manitoba and Winnipeg
in the field of economics, health policy and management.
Tim served as an Assistant Deputy Minister of Education from 1987-1989, and before
that as a Senior Policy Analyst for the Manitoba Government in the Finance Department.
From 1976 to 1985 he was CEO of the Social Planning Council.
Tim received his Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Theology degrees from the
University of Toronto.
A Minister of the Anglican Church of Canada, Tim served two terms as a trustee for the
Fort Garry School Division, eight years on the board of the United Way in Winnipeg and
was a spokesperson for the Manitoba Medicare Alert Coalition.
Tim and Irene live in Crescentwood where their now adult children attended public
school and the University of Manitoba.
He was appointed to the new portfolio of Minister of Science, Energy and Technology by
Premier Gary Doer on September 25, 2002. Previously he served as Minister of Family
Services and Housing.
After being elected in the 1995 general election as the MLA for Crescentwood, Tim was
named as the NDP Critic for Industry, Trade and Tourism. He has developed a reputation
as a strong advocate for justice and fairness for his constituents, maintaining contact
through 13 newsletters and regular meetings with community organizations.
RUSS ROBINSON (Session Chair)
Advisor, Sustainable Transportation
ENVIRONMENT CANADA
RUSS ROBINSON is currently an Advisor in Sustainable Transportation to the Director
of the Transportation Systems Branch of Environment Canada. Russ has worked for the
Federal Government for more than 32 years in various departments and positions. He
started his career with the Department of National Defence in 1971. He also worked for
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Public Works and Government services and Natural Resources Canada before coming to
Environment Canada in 1992. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Sir George
Williams University in Montreal.
JOHN DOBSON
Senior Policy Advisor, Rail Policy Branch
TRANSPORT CANADA
JOHN DOBSON is a senior policy advisor in the Rail Policy Branch at Transport
Canada. John has been with Transport Canada for 29 years and has worked in airports
marketing and financial planning in addition to rail policy. He has worked extensively on
issues related to grain transportation and most recently was involved in developing policy
options on rail transportation issues for consideration by Ministers subsequent to the
submission of the report by the Canada Transportation Act Review Panel.
Mr. Dobson has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of Manitoba. He is
married and has three children.
ROBERT F. LYMAN
Director General, Environmental Affairs
TRANSPORT CANADA
MR. LYMAN is a graduate of the University of Windsor where he obtained an Honours
BA in Economics and Political Science. He began his public service career in 1969 as a
Foreign Service Officer with the Department of External Affairs. While a Foreign
Service Officer, he was posted to the Canadian embassies in Caracas, Venezuela and
Washington D.C. In 1981, he joined Energy, Mines and Resources as Director, Special
International Energy Projects and, in 1984, he moved to the Canadian Gas Association as
Director, Government Affairs. From 1986 to 1992, he was Senior Director, energy
Policy Branch at Energy, Mines and Resources. During the period 1988-to 1992, he also
co-chaired the Federal-Provincial Committee on Climate Change. Mr. Lyman was
appointed as senior Advisor at the Privy Council Office inn 1993, a position he held until
his appointment as Senior Director, Oil Division with Natural Resources Canada in 1995.
In October 2002, Mr. Lyman was appointed as Director General, Environmental Affairs
at Transport Canada.
GORDON OWEN
Director General, Air Pollution Prevention
ENVIRONMENT CANADA
GORDON OWEN was appointed as Director General of the Air Pollution Prevention
Directorate (APPD) of Environment Canada on December 2, 2002.
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Mr. Owen holds a BSc (1982) and a MSc (1985) in Agricultural Engineering from
McGill University.
He started working for the Public Service in the Research Branch of Agriculture Canada
as a soil properties researcher in 1985, first, at the Fredericton Research Station and, then,
at the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa.
In 1991, Mr. Owen joined Environment Canada where he has held a variety of positions
in the Toxic Pollution Prevention Directorate, the Office of the Minister (Departmental
Assistant) and the Environmental Technology Advancement Directorate (ETAD), most
recently as Director General until his move to the Air Pollution Prevention Directorate.
ROBERT TAYLOR
Executive Director, Policy Development and Economic Analysis
RAILWAY ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
A respected economic policy professional, ROBERT TAYLOR was appointed to the
position of Executive Director, Policy Development and Economic Analysis, Railway
Association of Canada (RAC) in November 2000. His initial mandate was the
development of the Association’s policy platform and support for the expanded public
affairs activities of its 60-member freight and passenger railways.
Mr. Taylor directs the RAC’s annual research program through substantive public policy
development and economic analysis, develops the association’s annual policy book, and
authors numerous submissions, presentations and briefs. Working with the VicePresident, Operations and Regulatory Affairs, he provides strategic advice on key
environmental issues and climate change. A member of the Association’s executive team,
Robert oversees the industry’s Human Resources planning and training function, and
manages the RAC web site and database development.
Prior to joining the RAC, Mr. Taylor was Executive Director of the Labrador Hydro
Project for Newfoundland and Labrador Hydro, managing the team of legal, financial and
engineering specialists developing new projects and commercial arrangements related to
hydroelectric generation in Labrador. His responsibilities included negotiations with
Hydro-Quebec officials, contractors, aboriginal people and consumers associated with
planned new multi-billion dollar developments.
Robert also served as Senior Policy Analyst in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government
of Newfoundland and Labrador with responsibility for all economic policy Cabinet
Memorandum. A graduate of Dalhousie University, he holds a Master’s Degree in
Economics.
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LEE JEBB
Vice-President Manitoba/Saskatchewan
CANDO CONTRACTING
LEE JEBB is Vice-President, Manitoba/Saskatchewan Division of Cando Consulting.
He has been with Cando for about 2 years. Previously, he spent 9 years in business and
economic development in Brandon, Manitoba. He is responsible for the Operations,
Central Manitoba Railway. Cando handles about 10-12,000 cars per year. Principal
commodities are paper, fuel, metal products, grain and fertilizers. And they are partnered
with both CN and CP’s Class One railways.
LIONEL KING (Session Chair)
Senior Engineer, Environment, Rail Safety
TRANSPORT CANADA
LIONEL KING is currently a Senior Engineer with the Rail Safety Policy & Regulatory
Affairs Branch of Transport Canada, where he is responsible for examining and
developing options for the control of emissions from Canadian railway locomotives.
Prior to joining T.C., Mr. King spent 6 years as a Senior Project Engineer with the
Transportation Systems Branch of Environment Canada, where he dealt with air
emissions from aviation, rail and marine sources. He worked for 10 years as a consultant
in alternative energy sources and emissions technologies for vehicles, including gases and
alcohols together with advances in conventional engines and fuels. Mr. King holds a
B.Sc. (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering, and trained as a truck fleet engineer after
leaving university. Before becoming involved in emissions control and environmental
matters he held various positions concerned with the operation and maintenance of
trucks, buses and heavy equipment in Canada and the U.K. He is a registered
Professional Engineer in Ontario and a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers.
ROBERT E. FRONCZAK, P.E.
Assistant Vice-President Environment & Hazardous Materials
ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS
MR. FRONCZAK is currently Assistant Vice President Environment & Hazardous
Materials for the Association of American Railroads in Washington, DC. His
responsibilities include the development and coordination of railroad industry
environmental policy. Before joining AAR, he was a Senior Program Manager with
Radian Corporation in Milwaukee, WI. He spent six years with the Milwaukee Road
Railroad in Chicago, IL as Director of Environmental Engineering. He has a B.S. in Civil
Engineering from Valparaiso, University, and a Masters in Business Administration from
Depaul University. He is a registered professional engineer in the State of Illinois.
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CHUCK MOULIS
Environmental Engineer
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
CHUCK MOULIS is an environmental engineer with the United States Environmental
Protection Agency. He received degrees in chemical engineering and environmental
engineering from the University of Michigan and has worked in the Office of
Transportation and Air Quality for 17 years. While at EPA, he has been involved in
developing regulations in a variety of areas such as alternative fuels, on-highway and
nonroad engines, and diesel fuel quality. Since 1995, he has been EPA's primary contact
for issues related to locomotives, and was the project leader for the 1998 rulemaking that
established new exhaust emission standards for locomotives.
TERRY JUDGE
Director of Sales and Marketing
KIM HOTSTART MANUFACTURING COMPANY
TERRY JUDGE received his Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering
from Gonzaga University. He also has attained his Masters in Business Administration
degree from Seattle University.
Terry’s professional career experience includes engineering positions with Boeing, the
U.S. Department of Energy, as well as marketing positions with IBM and Hexcel. He is
currently serving as the Director of Sales & Marketing for Kim Hotstart Manufacturing
Company based in Spokane, Washington. During the past two years Terry has been
working with the U.S. EPA on their first funded project to reduce locomotive idling.
HARRY W. GOW
Founding President
TRANSPORT 2000 CANADA
HARRY W. GOW, B.A., Carleton, M.S.W. McGill, advanced studies with G. Allen
Roher Institute
Harry Gow learned the basics of transport and logistics from his parents who were both
professionals in the field. His first employment in transport was as a driver in the Army,
followed by five years with the Canadian Pacific Railway in various engineering support
roles.
After graduation from Carleton University, he went into work in applied criminology
with the Ontario and Québec governments (probation, parole and then agency
directorships). He obtained a Masters degree in Social Work at McGill University in
1971. He went on to teach for the Roher Institute at York University and the Institut
québécois de la Déficience intéllectuelle at the Université du Québec à Montréal, and
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latterly the University of Ottawa (a total of 16 years at U of O as Field Placement
Coordinator of the Department of Criminology).
In 1976, Harry Gow co-founded Transport 2000 Canada, a transport consumer network
across Canada with international affiliations. The association does applied research and
advocacy work, drawing on a multi-disciplinary team. Work has included in particular
creation of new service models, often adopted, for passenger and freight rail services, for
municipal and interurban bus and rail transit services, and air safety. Mr. Gow was in
particular a consultant for Transport 2000 for studies for the City of Ottawa, particularly
the By Ward access study which recommended the maintenance and improvement of
automobile access to the market as well as improvements to other modes. He has played
a role in much other work for Transport 2000, often in cooperation with the City of
Ottawa. He is currently coordinator of a project initially funded by Health Canada to
improve rural passenger transport in Western Québec.
Gow is vice-president of le Conseil régional de développement durable de l’Outaouais
(CREDDO), board member of les Transports Collectifs des Collines, and a member of
various economic development and environmental bodies. He is a member of the
Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
GRETE BRIDGEWATER (Session Chair)
Manager, Environmental Policy and Regulations, Environmental Affairs
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY
GRETE BRIDGEWATER’s current position is Manager Environmental Policy &
Regulations, Environmental Affairs, with Canadian Pacific Railway, based in Calgary,
Alberta. Ms. Bridgewater’s primary responsibilities at CPR include the development of
corporate environmental policies, strategies and programs to address environmental
issues and opportunities and to monitor and report on regulatory trends and compliance.
Prior to joining CPR in 1991, Ms. Bridgewater worked for several environmental
consultancies; taught environmental management courses at the Faculty of
Environmental Design (University of Calgary); and conducted research at the Department
of Epidemiology & Health (McGill University). She holds a B.Sc. (Biochemistry) from
McGill University and an M.E.Des. (Environmental Science) from the University of
Calgary.
MARTHA LENZ
Director, Engine and Engine Systems Design
GM ELECTRO-MOTIVE
MARTI LENZ joined GM Electro-Motive in 1981, and worked as a Project Engineer in
Engine Development for over 10 years. Since then, she has held positions in all facets of
the business, including Sales & Service, Engineering and Manufacturing Operations.
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After five years as Director of Quality, Marti returned to Engineering and is currently
Director of Engine and Engine Systems Design.
Marti attended Northwestern University as an undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering.
She received an MSME at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and later completed
her MBA at DePaul University in Chicago.
ERIC PANET-RAYMOND
Director, Marketing and Product Planning, High-Speed Rail
BOMBARDIER TRANSPORTATION
ERIC PANET-RAYMOND is Director, Marketing and Product Planning, High-Speed
Rail for Bombardier Transportation North America. He began his career as an Industrial
Engineer before moving on to management consulting. In 1999, Eric joined Bombardier
Transportation in the field of Strategic Planning. Since then he has held various positions
in Strategy, Marketing and Product Planning, including a recent assignment in
Switzerland. He is a Professional Engineer.
ARNOLD R. MILLER, PhD
President
VEHICLE PROJECTS LLC
ARNOLD R. MILLER, PhD, is President of Vehicle Projects LLC, a company leading
the development and demonstration of industrial fuelcell vehicles. The company
conceives projects, raises project funds, organizes projects, and manages consortia that
execute project tasks. Its projects include a fuelcell mine locomotive, mine loader, and
locomotive for commercial and military railways.
Arnold Miller is also President of the Fuelcell Propulsion Institute, an international
nonprofit industry group whose primary mission is stakeholder education
(www.fuelcellpropulsion.org).
In 1993, Prof. Miller was Visiting Faculty Associate in the Electrochemistry Division of
the U.S. Air Force Seiler Research Laboratory, where he conducted research on direct
ammonia fuelcells. From 1993 to 1998, he was Research Associate Professor of
Chemistry at Colorado School of Mines, where he was co-principal investigator on a joint
fuelcell project in the departments of Chemistry and Physics. From 1994 to 1998, he was
founding Director of the Joint Center for Fuel-Cell Vehicles at Colorado School of
Mines.
For most of Dr. Miller’s career, he was a research faculty member at research
universities, including the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He has published
numerous papers in refereed journals such as the Journal of the American Chemical
Society, Journal of Organic Chemistry, and American Mathematical Monthly.
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Dr. Miller received his doctorate in chemistry from the University of Illinois, UrbanaChampaign.
ERIKA AKKERMAN
Environmental Systems Engineer
CN RAIL
ERIKA AKKERMAN graduated from the University of Alberta with a BSc in civil
engineering and a M.Sc in Environmental Engineering. She joined CN's Environmental
Department in 2001 as an Environmental Systems Engineer.
DONALD T. EADIE, PhD
Vice-President, Technology
KELSAN TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
DON EADIE is Vice President, Technology, for Kelsan Technologies Corp., based in
Vancouver. As such, he is responsible for all of Kelsan’s research, development and
engineering efforts. These are focused on development of innovative friction control
technologies for the global rail industry. A key aspect is the use of thin film friction
modifiers for the top of rail, to reduce fuel usage, greenhouse gas emissions, lateral
forces, rail wear and noise.
Don obtained a BA in Chemistry from the University of Dublin (1977), a PhD in
organometallic chemistry (University of Victoria, 1981), and held a Post-Doctoral
Fellowship at Cambridge University (1982/82).
Prior to joining Kelsan in 1999, Don held a number of Technology Management and
R&D positions in the Forest and Petroleum industries. During 11 years with MacMillan
Bloedel Research he held positions of Program Leader, Papermaking, and Section Head,
Fiber Chemistry, as well as Senior Technology Leader for Pacifica Papers. Prior to this
he was a Senior Chemist for six years with Imperial Oil Research in Sarnia, Ontario,
working with the global Exxon technology effort.
Don has published a variety of papers in the area of friction control for the rail industry
and has presented these at major international conferences.
STEVE EASUN
Account Manager
ZTR CONTROL SYSTEMS INC.
Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is STEVE EASUN and I am an
Account Manager for ZTR Control Systems.
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With offices located in London Ontario and the Minneapolis Minnesota, ZTR Control
Systems is involved in the design and marketing of monitoring and control system
solutions. The company has a special focus on the railway, power generation and
wastewater treatment industries. I have been employed with ZTR for approximately 3
years and I am responsible for the Railway accounts located in Canada and the North
Eastern USA.
My career has included 28 years in the Canadian National Railway- Mechanical
Department, Operations Training and CANAC International. After leaving CNR in 1998
I spent two years working on a CIDA funded Railway development project in
Bangladesh. I have also worked as a contact trainer/developer for International Technical
Services located in London Ontario. Major projects worked on at ITS included
Distributed Power Training for UP-EMD Service Engineers and as an electrical trainer at
the EMD training center in Chicago. IL.
RICHARD GILBERT (Session Chair)
Director of Research
THE CENTRE FOR SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION (CST)
RICHARD GILBERT is a consultant specializing in transportation and energy issues,
with clients in North America, Europe, and Asia. He serves as transport consultant to the
Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and to
Civic Exchange, a Hong Kong-based think tank, and also as part-time research director of
the Toronto-based Centre for Sustainable Transportation (CST).
Major reports published in 2002-2003 include Electrifying Hong Kong: Making
Transport Sustainable, for Civic Exchange; Soft Measures and Transport Behaviour, for
Umweltbundesamt, the German Federal Environment Agency; Energy and Smart
Growth, for the Neptis Foundation and the Government of Ontario; Policy Instruments
for Achieving Environmentally Sustainable Transport, for OECD; and Sustainable
Transportation Performance Indicators, for CST.
BARRY CRAVEN
Director, Logistics
CANADA POST CORPORATION
BARRY CRAVEN commenced his career with Canada Post in 1973 as an Analyst,
Statistical & Economic Analysis in the Operations Research function. Other roles held by
Barry include: Senior Analyst, Operational Planning; Planning Analyst, Facilities
Planning.
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After creation of the Canada Post Corporation in 1981, Barry assumed several roles
within the Real Estate department including Director, Planning & Control; Director,
Architectural & Technical Services; and Director, Real Estate Business Improvement.
After 17 years in Real Estate, Barry effectively changed careers in 1999 to become
Director, Transportation & Logistic Systems, where he was responsible for the National
and International transportation operations for Canada Post including an annual
expenditure of approximately $120 million spread between air, road, rail and marine
modes.
Barry holds a Bachelor of Mathematics degree in Computer Science and Operations
Research from the University of Waterloo.
GORDON K. PETERS
Chief Executive Officer
CANDO CONTRACTING
PERSONAL:
•
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Born and raised in Rapid City, Manitoba.
Resides in Brandon, Manitoba with his wife Diane and son Nicholas.
BUSINESS SUMMARY
•
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President and General Manager of Cando Contracting Ltd. - Brandon, Manitoba
President of Cando Contracting Inc. (US Operations) - Adel, Iowa
President of Central Manitoba Railway Inc. - Pine Falls/Winnipeg/Carman, MB
President of Athabasca Northern Railway Ltd. – Lac La Biche, Alberta
COMMUNITY ENDEAVOURS
•
•
•
•
•
•
Past Chairman (2002) and Active Director for Manitoba Chamber of Commerce.
Director of Canadian Chamber of Commerce (2002 to present).
Active member of the Business Council of Manitoba (1997 to present).
2000 Manitoba Entrepreneur of the Year Award.
The “Best in Business” Award 2000 (Manitoba Business Magazine).
“Success in Mind” Fundraising Campaign at Brandon University, Co-Chair (Brandon
Division 1999).
• 1999 President’s Award for “Businessperson of the Year” – Brandon Chamber of
Commerce.
Served on the Brandon Chamber of Commerce as a director, executive director, and
finally as president in 1991-1992.
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SABINA STRAUTMAN
Environment Transport
IKEA NORTH AMERICA SERVICES, LLC
SABINA STRAUTMAN has been dealing with environmental management issues both
nationally and internationally, including regulatory compliance and development and
implementation of operation policies and procedures, for over 20 years. Sabina had
worked in the consulting field providing expertise to the petroleum, chemical, utility and
other industrial sectors. Before joining IKEA, Sabina worked for Consolidated Rail
Corporation (Conrail) for close to 10 years until it was acquired by CSX and Norfolk
Southern. She holds a Master of Science degree from Texas A&M University and a
Bachelor of Science from University of Connecticut and has studied at the University of
Innsbruck, Austria with concentrations in engineering geology, geochemistry and
geophysics and is also a licensed Professional Geologist in several states.
JOHN SPACEK
Senior Director, Transportation Policy and Service
PROVINCE OF MANITOBA
MR. SPACEK is Senior Director, Transportation Policy and Service Development. He is
responsible for the development and implementation of integrated multi-modal
transportation policies and service development strategies and programs. In this capacity,
Mr. Spacek establishes, leads, and directs project teams to support, develop and promote
Manitoba’s transportation sector, private sector service developments, and general
transportation sector initiatives supporting international trade and industrial developments
in Manitoba. He also leads and directs the development of transportation policy options
and provides policy advice to government.
John Spacek represented Manitoba as a member of the National Transportation and
Climate Change Table as well as Chairing the Freight sub-table. He was awarded a
National Transportation Week 2000 Award of Excellence in recognition of his work in
climate change. John was also recently seconded to project manage the Manitoba Climate
Change Task Force secretariat. In 2003, John has also been included in Canada’s Who’s
Who.
Prior to entering government service, Mr. Spacek was Principal of Spacek & Associates
from 1988 to 1995, a consulting firm offering services in transportation, energy and the
environment. During this period, he was also Manager of the Canadian Oxygenated
Fuels Association from 1990 through 1994
During 1980, Mr. Spacek was employed by the Strategic Planning Branch of Transport
Canada to develop a Multi-Modal Strategic Plan for Newfoundland. The Newfoundland
Railway was abandoned and the highway and marine system enhanced, as recommended
by the Study.
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Mr. Spacek has an Honours BA in Economics (Dean’s List) from the University of
Western Ontario. He also attended (1972-1974) the Graduate School of Urban and
Regional Planning at Queen’s University on a CMHC Research Fellowship. John is also
a Director of the Centre for Sustainable Transportation.
JIM VENA
General Manager - Operations
CN PRAIRIE DIVISION
JIM VENA began his career with CN at the age of 16 with summer jobs on Engineering
Gangs and in the Equipment Department. He joined CN full-time in 1977 as a trainman,
and progressed through the ranks as conductor, locomotive engineer and yardmaster. He
moved into management as an Ops Trainee in 1984, and held supervisory positions at
several locations across Western Canada.
Vena's first Marketing appointment was in the Coal and Sulfur Business Unit in 1989,
followed by postings to Network Operations in Edmonton and then to Montreal as part of
the office of the Chief of Transportation. Vena re-joined Marketing as an account
manager for potash customers in Saskatoon in 1994 through 1996. He spent 1996-2000 in
Vancouver as Pacific District Superintendent. He assumed his present position as
General Manager, Prairie Division in February 2001.
Jim Vena holds an undergraduate degree, and a postgraduate business degree and
certificate. He is married to Karen and they have 2 children.
FRANK DONNELLY
Chief Technology Officer
RAILPOWER TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
FRANK DONNELLY is the original founder of Railpower Technologies Corp., a
company which develops specialized energy technology systems for transportation and
power generation. Frank provides technical vision and is responsible for developing key
proprietary technologies and products for Railpower. Frank has spent 30 years working
on railway equipment, including locomotives and passenger cars, performing such work
as modifying propulsion and control systems. His specialty is electronic design. Frank
has led the electrical design in the largest re-engining of switcher locomotives ever done
with Caterpillar engines. In addition, he regularly provides consulting services to VIA
rail, Finning and others. Frank has an Applied Science Degree in Electrical Engineering
Technology and a B.A. in Industrial Design BA with concentration in Electronics/Power
Mechanics.
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ROBERT DUNN
CONSULTANT
ROBERT DUNN is a specialist on railway fuels, lubricants and emissions. The scope of
his activities encompasses all aspects of railway fuels. In 2001, he completed the study
Diesel Fuel Quality and Locomotive Emissions in Canada, TP 13783E and in 2002 he
co-authored the study Influence of Duty Cycles and Fleet Profile on Emissions from
Locomotives in Canada, TP 13945E. As a professional scientist, he possesses a solid
understanding of the chemistry and physical properties of diesel fuels and alternate fuels
with respect to locomotive performance and emissions.
Mr. Dunn holds a BSc degree from McGill University (1965) supplemented by courses in
management. His career has included:
32 years with Canadian National Railways as a Senior Chemist, Research
Chemist and Manager of Analytical Services;
consultant to Centre for Surface Transportation Technology of the
National Research Council on fuels, lubricants and industrial chemicals;
independent consultant providing training/advice to railways, to the Railway
Association of Canada and to various government departments.
ANTHONY PERL
Professor
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
ANTHONY PERL is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary where
he teaches public policy and Canadian government. He received an undergraduate
honours degree in Government from Harvard University, and MA and Ph.D. degrees
from the University of Toronto.
Perl's environmental and transportation research has crossed modes and disciplines to
explore the organizational and political dynamics that influence transportation finance,
ownership, and management. His research has been widely published in scholarly
journals such as Transportation Research, Transportation Quarterly, World Transport
Policy and Practice, Journal of Air Transport Management, Journal of Public Policy,
Canadian Public Policy, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Canadian Journal
of Political Science and Scientific American. He has received awards for outstanding
papers presented at the World Conference on Transport Research in 1992 and the
Canadian Transportation Research Forum in 2001.
He has also produced three books. The Politics of Improving Urban Air Quality, which
he co-edited and co-authored was published in 1999 by Edward Elgar, U.K New
Departures: Rethinking Rail Passenger Policy in the Twenty-First Century was published
by the University Press of Kentucky in 2001. In 2003, the University of British
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Columbia Press released The Integrity Gap: Canada’s Environmental Policy and
Institutions, co-authored and co-edited by Perl.
Anthony Perl is married and lives in a traffic–calmed neighbourhood of Calgary.
BARRY E. PRENTICE, PhD, MCIT (Session Chair)
Director, TRANSPORT INSTITUTE
Associate Professor, I.H. ASPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS UNIVERSITY OF
MANITOBA
DR. PRENTICE holds degrees from University of Western Ontario (1973) University of
Guelph (1979) and University of Manitoba (1986).
His major research and teaching interests include logistics, transportation economics,
urban transport and trade policy.
Dr. Prentice has authored or co-authored more than 150 research reports, journal articles
and contributions to books. His scholarly work has been recognized for excellence in
national paper competitions and awards. In 1999, National Transportation Week named
him Manitoba Transportation Person of the Year.
Dr. Prentice serves on the Boards of Directors of several transportation organizations:
National Transportation Week (President, 2001 and 2003), Honourary President of the
Canadian Institute for Traffic and Transportation (2001-3) and the Canadian
Transportation Research Forum (Past President, 1997). He is Associate Editor of the
Journal of Transportation Research Forum. In addition, Dr. Prentice has served on
Winnipeg Airports Authority, Inc., Winnipeg TransPlan 2010, the Mid-Continent
International Trade Corridor Task Force, expert committees, and is frequently asked to
speak on the topics of trade and transportation.
PETER EGGLETON
Consultant
TELLIGENCE Group
MR. EGGLETON is the principal of the TELLIGENCE Group, a trans-Canada
network that he formed in 1996 to provide multi-sectoral consultancy for international
technology collaboration. His expertise is focused on innovation in transportation
technology, particularly for railway and high-speed magnetically levitated (Maglev)
systems, including the management strategies leading to implementation and operational
deployment. Mr. Eggleton also undertakes international science and technology
cooperation activities based on his experience as a science diplomat. He has a BApSc
(Mech Eng) from University of British Columbia (1961) and a MApSc (Mech Eng)
from Rugby College of Engineering, England (1968) - thesis on medium-speed diesel
engines. His career has included assignments in:
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mechanical engineering at Canadair, Montreal (F-104 fighter program), Free
Piston Engine Development Co., Kingston (diesel cycle gasifiers and air
compressors) and
Pratt & Whitney of Canada Ltd., Longueuil, Que. (PT-6 and JT-15D gas
turbines)
management of transportation technology R&D and testing programs at
Transport Canada’s Transportation Development Centre, Montreal (LRC
prototype, Budd RDC, B.C. Rail electrification, Track/Train Dynamics,
Skytrain LIM transit, Maglev)
transportation engineering consulting with Canadian Pacific Consulting
Services, Montreal (coal-water fuels pipelining, energy technology transfer,
rail passenger)
science diplomat with Dept. of Foreign Affairs (Japan, European Union
postings)
consulting in international technology benchmarking, diesel emissions
reduction technologies and scientific evaluations with TELLIGENCE Group,
St. Lambert, Que
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