Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicles I I. (319.1)

Locomotive emissions reduction

This story begins in early 1989 at the Southern Pacific. At that time I was Assistant Vice President of Operations.

Early one morning in March the VPO, Ken Moore, walked in to my office on the sixth floor of number one Market St,.
he tossed a thick file on my desk saying look in to this and fix it.  That file was about smoking locomotive fines on the LA Division.

At that moment the accumulated fines amounted to well over three million dollars.

Turns out it was not going to be all that simple.  
The ultimate fix is now the tier four locomotive spec.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I ran into someone who helped me and the whole US railroad industry come up with the solution.
,forty years ago.

(This will be a long story.  There were many events worth telling along the path to the Tier four locomotive of today)

First question. Where were all of the fines coming from.  It turned out that these were all from smoking locomotives operating In territory under the. jurisdiction of the Southern California Air Quqlity Management District or SCAQMD.  And, the total bill was just not tickets but penalties assessed for failure to pay the fines.  The tickets were going to the Mechanical Department and they had first been ignored.  Then SCAQMD decided that the SP was just going to ignore the citations, thus the escalating fines and much more focus on the SP.   a very significant number of tickets we being issued on Beaumont Hill and Cahon Pass.   We were under the microscope for sure.  

After more than a year mechanical asked the law department for help.  They tried several approaches to no avail.  We were the Octapus and the SCAQMD inspecters were convinced we were ignoring the regulations.   All of the SP's mechanical problems and chronic power shortages were not their problem.  However. a locomotive that smoked sure was.

So  after another's years worth of tickets the Law Department dumped the file on the VPO's desk and from his strait to mine.
After a look at the file and a few phone calls,   I invited the Chief Mechanical Officer and the head of the Power Bureau to a little meeting in my office.

I also invited the Lawyer handling the case to join us.




mdo
 



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/20 13:05 by mdo.

Welcome back!
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

   Mike, I vsaguely remember that the Smoke Inspector would hang out at that truck weigh station just east of Banning, and instructions were out to isolate any smoking units on westbound trains, if possible going by that point.  Trouble was, usually the train was on one of the steepest parts of the grade right there, so it was rarely feasible to do it.
   Corrections, additions, Mike?

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

Thought they had some sort of test rig down at the engine facility at West Colton to check for smokers.

tehachcond Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>    Mike, I vsaguely remember that the Smoke
> Inspector would hang out at that truck weigh
> station just east of Banning, and instructions7
> were out to isolate any smoking units on westbound
> trains, if possible going by that point.  Trouble
> was, usually the train was on one of the steepest
> parts of the grade right there, so it was rarely
> feasible to do it.
>    Corrections, additions, Mike?
>
> Brian Black

yes,  one of their favorite spots. One of those birds lived over around Indio. He allegedly would drive west on I10 and pace a likely west bound writing the ticket as soon as the train entered the SCAQMD jurisdiction  which was about old Owl. That also had been the east end of my territory when I was the Trainmaster at Colton.   

this birds next move was to drive down San Timiteo canyon road, along the double track and check all the eastbounds.  Lots of tickets theire, too.   I think he also liked to hang out at El Casio lake and the crossovers at Hinda.
mdo



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/20 13:10 by mdo.

PHall Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Thought they had some sort of test rig down at the
> engine facility at West Colton to check for
> smokers.

that rig was called a wager meter.  I am coming to that soon

mdo