General Electric was the first to deliver locomotives that met Tier 4 standards. GE is working on producing more than 1,000 locomotives for BNSF Railway from early 2015 to 2017. The first 39 units of the order will be the ET44C4 class, with additional retooling to the production line for newer locomotives.
GE’s main North American competitor, Progress Rail / Electro-Motive Diesel, has been lagging behind in the production of Tier 4 diesels. The once longtime dominator of the domestic diesel market released a pair of SD70Ace-T4 locomotives, with the 12-cylinder type-1010 engine in November for testing at the AAR Transportation Technology Center near Pueblo, Colo.
Another locomotive manufacturer is entering the Tier 4 market. Cummins rebuilt a former Union Pacific EMD SD90MAC with the company’s Tier 4 compliant engine: the QSK-95. The one-of-a-kind locomotive is undergoing testing on the Indiana Rail Road.
For the last 10 (business) days of the year, Trains editors will present the Top 10 stories of the year in reverse order starting Dec. 16 and finishing on Dec. 31.
OK, so there are a few hundred older railroad locomotives that emit visible participate from their stacks. There are hundreds of thousands of over the road large diesel trucks and who knows how many diesel pick ups that have been field modified to produce visible exhaust "displays" ("rolling coal" it is called when a pick up truck passes a pedestrian or bicyclist and covers person with black cloud) and what does the EPA do about this? NOTHING. My estimate is that the entire North American locomotive fleet produces about 1/1000 percent of all the visiible and invisible emissions from internal combustion engines.
I will say that the "glorification" of ancient diesel smoke displays on the internet and in magazines does NOT help the image that most all locomotives produce a whole lot pollution per ton of goods transported compared to road vehicles.
The EPA and other government agencies seem to ignore the real source of air pollution and instead make trains their whipping boy!!
Just can't leave out how EMD dominated the diesel locomotive business in the past can you Trains. They will never dominate again as long as GE is in the business!
Tier-5, mule power next, so long as they don't emit any methane gas!
O.K…..Once this is accomplished what will the EPA require next? No matter what, it will never be enough for this out of control arm of government.
Jim, coulda left out "arm of."
Amen to that Mr. Norton