From Russia With Electric Rail
- David Pettit
- Director, Southern California Air Program, Santa Monica, CA
- Blog | About
- Posted August 21, 2009 in Moving Beyond Oil
I was reading an article in the New Yorker by Ian Frazier about the Trans-Siberian railroad, the world's longest, when I ran across his statement that the rail line ran under electric power for both passengers and freight. This was a surprise to me because I've been hearing nothing but excuses from California's two major railroads about why they can't electrify their freight operations.
It turns out that it took Russia 71 years to fully electrify the 5,750 mile long rail line. The electrification project started in 1929, not a happy time in Russian history, and was completed in 2002. Now, most freight in Russia is carried on electrified lines.
Russia is not the only country with electrified rail for carrying freight. England and France have the "Chunnel" train that travels under the English Channel. Netherlands and Germany share an electrified freight line that ends at the port of Rotterdam. The Swiss rail system is almost all electric.
Why should we care about this? Big railyards in the U.S. are notorious polluters and railroad companies are famously resistant to local environmental laws. Railyards also tend to be located in or near low-income, minority communities that suffer heavy burdens from air pollution. There is one huge intermodal railyard (where containers that have been offloaded from ships and trucked to the railyard are put onto trains) near the Los Angeles ports; its owner proposes to double it in size, and another behemoth intermodal yard has been proposed for the same area.
The pollutant of concern from the railyards is diesel particulate matter, found in diesel exhaust. The simplest way to get rid of it would be to switch from diesel to electric locomotives - so long, of course, as we don't just trade locomotive emissions for emissions at a powerplant that generates electricity. In fact, the publicly-funded Alameda Corridor, a dedicated transportation corridor for trains from the ports to access the railyards near downtown Los Angeles, was built with electrification in mind.
Yes, it will be expensive to electrify rail lines. But think what a great "green" stimulus project this would be: lots of good jobs for many years, with potentially huge benefits in reduced air pollution. It doesn't have to take us 71 years like it took Russia. Let's get started now.
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Comments
Earl Killian — Aug 21 2009 09:53 PM
Do you realize that in 1915 the US had an electric railway over the Rocky Mountains? The trains heading downhill on the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad would put energy back into the wires that helped power the trains heading uphill.
Of course it is gone now. They got rid of the electricity starting in 1973, just in time for the first oil crisis.
Beth Jervay — Aug 22 2009 05:50 PM
I grew up near an incinerator in Southwest Philly. I was far enough away to not have to deal with the daily dusting of particulate matter and visible pollution, but many of my friends weren't so lucky. The oil refineries and freight railroads shared space with the incinerators.
Work like yours helps so many people who can't. just. move. or have the pollution controls changed. And your work reminds people with the NIMBY mindset that it's not okay to do nothing as long as they believe it doesn't affect them personally. It does.
Thank you for shiny a light on these issues of classism, racism and thank you for trying to protect us all no matter where we live. We're not only all connected, we are also all related.
The issue is very simple: What type of society and world do we want to have?