The natural gas locomotive project on Burlington Northern Railroad

Author

Ditmeyer, Steven R.

Author_Institution

Res. & Dev. Dept., Burlington Northern Railroad, Overland Park, KS, USA

fYear

1993

fDate

6-8 Apr 1993

Firstpage

35

Lastpage

39

Abstract

Burlington Northern Railroad (BN) has undertaken extensive safety measures and studies to ensure that the concept of a natural gas powered locomotive, its implementation, and operation are safe. BN has trained maintenance personnel and train crews in safe operation and briefed local emergency response teams in the safe handling of refrigerated liquid methane. These issues are discussed here. BN concludes that the equipment that has been developed is both reliable and safe. The current test program confirms safety projections as well as quantifies the benefits. BN believes that natural gas fueled locomotives have the potential to make BN far more competitive in the transportation marketplace

Keywords

locomotives; safety; Burlington Northern Railroad; maintenance personnel; natural gas locomotive project; refrigerated liquid methane; safety; test program; train crews; Chemical products; Costs; Fuels; Liquids; Methanol; Natural gas; Petroleum; Refrigeration; Research and development; Testing;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Railroad Conference, 1993., Proceedings of the 1993 IEEE/ASME Joint

Conference_Location

Pittsburgh, PA

Print_ISBN

0-7803-0963-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/RRCON.1993.292966

Filename

292966