Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicles II. #319.4. The first Consent agreement

The first Consent Agreement was between the SCAQMD and the Southern Pacific.
I think we had the basics worked out fairly soon after Markwald  joined our locomotive emissions team.  Seemed to me like it took forever, but probably was mostly in place within three months.

First off we admitted we had a major problem with SPs locomotive fleet.
Second, we agreed to self report chronic smokers
Third, we agreed to a protocol to fix them as they were identified, or at least to not operate them in Southern California until fixed

Two elements in the consent agreement have already come up in comments to the first three posts in this series

The wager meter test prior to release from maintenance.  And the free pass to the shop for a locomotive self reported by SP.  

Part of the agreement reduced the outstanding fines.   And some of the ticket liability went in to a fund to study locomotive emissions reduction
technology.  This turned out to be an AAR project performed by Southwest Research and Texas A&M.


Before we singed the consent agreement I gave my counterparts at the ATSF and the UP a heads up and a warning.
Because, it had become obviouse that once we signed up, SCAQMD inspectors were going after the other two Southern California railroads.
 That is exactly what happened.  The focus of inforcement shifted from Beaumont Hill  to Cajon Pass.
SP still got occasional tickets, but the UP got the lions share, Santa Fe not so much, but way more than before.


Not to long after this we set up the Southern California Locomotive emissions study group and soon invited the BN
to join the group.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/20 13:15 by mdo.

Did SCAQMD go after any of the thousands of trucks traversing the roadways in and out of California?

They went after the really bad ones in their service area which was Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
SCAQMD stood for South Coast Air Quality Management District. Other parts of the state were covered by other districts.

PHall Wrote:
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> They went after the really bad ones in their
> service area which was Los Angeles, Orange,
> Riverside and San Bernardino Counties.
> SCAQMD stood for South Coast Air Quality
> Management District. Other parts of the state were
> covered by other districts.they did tend to leave the harbor draymen alone yet they were some of the dire rest tractors in the Basin.

as to the other regional districts,  my father had been a member of the SF Bay Area permit appeals board for many years.  This gave me something of both a window and a sounding board   Of course are major information source was Markwald and Associates

RRTom Wrote:
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> Did SCAQMD go after any of the thousands of trucks
> traversing the roadways in and out of California?

I remember times at both the SB San Onofre scales and the EB Banning scales when they setup and were doing smoke exhaust tests on trucks.

jst3751 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> RRTom Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Did SCAQMD go after any of the thousands of
> trucks
> > traversing the roadways in and out of
> California?
>
> I remember times at both the SB San Onofre scales
> and the EB Banning scales when they setup and were
> doing smoke exhaust tests on trucks.

Sounds like a twofer!

mapboy

They loved to come out to Box Springs grade of 2+ on the Santa Fe  San Jacinto branch when the old power was pauling hard.