Imagine cutting 90,000 gallons of diesel fuel from your annual budget. That's exactly what Tacoma Rail in Washington is doing, and the resulting savings will go well beyond a reduced gas bill.
The publicly owned short-line railroad is set to swap in three battery-electric locomotives for diesel-powered ones, The News Tribune reported in May. Its 14-locomotive switcher fleet moves rail cars at the port, getting them to freight locomotives so they can travel across the country, according to an October video release by the city.
The new engines will arrive in 2025 or 2026.
The city earned $16 million in grants and funding to make the change, The Tribune reported, and is matching some of the funds. It's a project years in the making and one Tacoma moved on after it eyed similar deployments at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, according to The Center Square. The Port of Baltimore has also embraced electric engines, per Progressive Railroading.
"There are other short-line railroads around the nation that are starting to experiment with this, but we're definitely leaders in this space in the Pacific Northwest," Tacoma Rail assistant superintendent Alan Matheson told The Tribune.
The outlet reported that the locomotives, which move at 10 mph, will look the same as the diesel ones but weigh 350,000 pounds instead of 425,000. They're also quieter.
The change is expected to significantly lessen the rail's diesel pollution, especially fine particulate matter, which will result in workers and residents realizing approximately $380,000 annually in health benefits "due to reduced exposure to diesel pollution," as The Center Square reported in January.
It fits right in with the city's goals to decrease its pollution "as much as possible," as The Tribune put it, and reach net-zero carbon pollution by 2050.
It's also another step in an industry makeover, happening from the United States and Canada to Italy.
"We have a great opportunity to get some battery-electric locomotives," Dan McCabe, Tacoma Rail's chief information and financial officer, said in the release.
"They'll be the first in the area, and what's so exciting about the ones that are coming to Tacoma Rail is that they will be powered by Tacoma Power, our sister utility, which is mostly hydroelectric power. So, they'll be the greenest in the area," he added.
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