BNSF Natural Gas

According to a headline I saw on the Wall Street Journal, BNSF is going to test using natural gas to power its locomotives. I will see if I can find a link.

Here is a link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 19344.html I am not sure if this is old news, if it is I am sorry for posting again. I just thought it was an interesting development. I wonder if those of us who grew up with diesels will someday be lamenting the good old days in a world filled with natural gas-powered locomotives.

The bulk of the WSJ article is buried behind the "paywall",but this is not the 1st time Natural gas has been tested as a fuel source
for locomotives,ATSF and BN tested Natural Gas in Ca and the pacific northwest with mixed results.

Yes, sorry about the pay wall. It came up on my machine complete and I don't have a subscription, so I thought it was open. It is an interesting idea and for the time being a relatively cheap fuel source.

Who will be building this locomotive?

The past experments have been with EMD prime movers,CAT has build millions of small Natural Gas engines used in
Forklifts,so some sort of hybred between the two may already in the test stands.

Here's the link to BNSF's own press release:

http://www.bnsf.com/employees/communica ... -06-a.html

A Financial Times article with reactions of the other US Class I carriers.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/12513874 ... z2R0wvodCl

Mr Moorman called LNG conversion “an extraordinarily interesting opportunity”. But he queried whether gas-powered locomotives would generate the power of diesels.

Mr Koraleski acknowledged it was undoubtedly possible to run a locomotive on natural gas, but he added: “The question is, can you do it economically, can you do it safely and can you do it on a consistently reliable basis?”

This almost sounds like the experiments they did with Methane back in the mid 90s.

From what I remember, they modified a couple units (SD60s I believe), that were coupled to a tanker, which was essentially a fuel tender full of methane. But, I don't recall if they published a follow-up article to discuss the results of the experiment.


I would suggest they start exploring the options of electrification, myself, but that's a topic for a different discussion.