Service Industry...People Business
By Keila Szpaller of The Missoulian - Choo-choo train neighbors soon will breathe easier, thanks to a $1.13 million grant going to Montana Rail Link.
"It's a big huge step for our company and our community and the cities that we operate in within the state of Montana," said Claude VanWinkle, chief mechanical officer for MRL.
Diesel fumes around the railyard have sickened and irritated some neighbors over the years, but engines should puff much less smoke this coming fall. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization the grant to do the job, and the funds will outfit 34 locomotives with Auxiliary Power Units, or APUs.
"This (device) allows us to shut the engine down ... and lets this little engine run and keep the oil and water circulating and warm," VanWinkle said.
The APUs produce some 90 percent fewer emissions than the main engine, according to a news release from the Missoula Office of Planning and Grants. The machine is cleaner and greener.
On Monday at the North Depot, VanWinkle opened the door of a locomotive already installed with an APU. It's roughly 4 feet by 5 feet, a motor with small tanks and hoses. He said the APU runs on half a gallon of diesel an hour, compared with four or five gallons an hour.
MRL has been upgrading its fleet for the past six years and has spent roughly $32 million doing so, VanWinkle said. The company has 119 locomotives, and with the EPA grant, its entire fleet will have the latest technology to cut emissions.
Once the new units are ordered, VanWinkle said MRL will install them at a pace of roughly a couple a month, beginning in August. The trains idle in the yard when temperatures are 40 degrees, so he believes neighbors who have smelled diesel fumes should notice a difference come September.
"We're going to start with the units that are in Missoula," VanWinkle said.
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MRL locomotives typically were built in 1972, he said. Sixteen newer ones have a mechanism that monitors the engine and outside conditions, and start up and shut down automatically. Those are five years old. The APU is a retrofit for the older ones.
"The APU is, for older locomotives, one of the best technologies you can get," VanWinkle said.
MRL typically operates six locomotives in the Missoula yard, but the Missoula City-County Health Department notes the engines travel across the state so the benefits will too.
Environmental health director Jim Carlson said diesel fumes add to the overall particulate in the air and have been a concern, especially for people who live closer to or downwind from the fumes. They and others in Montana will reap the benefits of cleaner air.
"We're also very happy this grant allowed us to help Montana Rail Link convert all of the remaining engines in their system so that regardless of whether you're in Missoula or Helena or Bozeman or other MRL towns in Montana, they'll be benefitting from this project," Carlson said.
Office of Planning and Grants senior transportation planner Ann Cundy said the deal not only improves air quality in Missoula, it reduces dependence on fossil fuels. The grant came out of the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Cundy said she believes the Missoula award is the first one from the diesel emissions reduction act to upgrade locomotives.
"It's going to be a tremendous boon for Missoulians to breathe cleaner air," Cundy said.