USA: Innovative Rail Technologies has converted two industrial
shunting locomotives used at United States Steel Corp’s Edgar Thomson and
Clairton sites from diesel to battery power
using its Advanced Technology Li-Ion Adaptive System turnkey propulsion and
control package.
This is intended to reduce fuel consumption and airborne
particulate matter, and demonstrate the use of emerging technology to help the
steel company reach its goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050.
US Steel has invested more than $2·3m in the project, with
further funding from Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s
Marine & Rail Freight Movers air quality improvement grant programme
‘Mon Valley Works is the first industrial site to deploy this
technology to reduce small particulate matter emissions from its locomotive
fleet’, said Scott Buckiso, Senior Vice-President & Chief Manufacturing
Officer at US Steel when the locos were unveiled on October 30.
IRT Principal Ira Dorfman said ’battery propulsion technology is
already in use throughout many modes of transportation, and rail transportation
is the next step’.