8 Railroad Innovations Promoting Environmental Awareness (PHOTOS)

With the 41st anniversary of Earth Day quickly approaching, organizations and corporations all over the world are focusing on new initiatives to promote environmental awareness and conservation - particularly the railroad industry. Of all freight-transportation options, rail is the most environmentally friendly way to move goods over land. In fact, if just 10% of the nation's freight were shifted to rail, fuel savings would approach a whopping one billion gallons annually. Given that pollution and climate change are two of this era's most deliberated issues, we looked at nine CSX freight-rail innovations that encourage environmental prosperity and make our world a cleaner, safer place.

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SPONSOR GENERATED POST FROM CSX

Trees for Tracks

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The Trees for Tracks program is a pledge to plant more trees than CSX must remove to maintain clear views of tracks and ensure safe passage. By planting trees, the company is improving air quality, offsetting carbon emissions, creating noise buffers, improving wildlife habitats and adding beauty to the communities they serve.

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The Trees for Tracks program is a pledge to plant more trees than CSX must remove to maintain clear views of tracks and ensure safe passage. By planting trees, the company is improving air quality, offsetting carbon emissions, creating noise buffers, improving wildlife habitats and adding beauty to the communities they serve.

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Comments

[leftyirishwoman]

11:22 PM on 05/23/2011

Through their lobbyists, the oil industry has been blocking the US from passing a comprehensive rail bill by arguing that highway transportation must be included in the legislation.

These petroleum pushers will do anything to keep the American consumer hooked.

[Kenz300]

05:48 PM on 04/21/2011

As the price of energy (OIL) continues to rise we will all be looking for ways to use it more efficiently.

[John Mainstream]

05:39 PM on 04/21/2011

It takes over 24 hours to travel from DC to Florida by train, and you can't take your pets. Bus service isn't much better. Same trip by air takes 2 hours.

[liberation of Antipolo]

05:24 AM on 04/22/2011

I think the article was about freight (CSX).

[Arthur Pendraggin]

02:15 AM on 04/23/2011

And yet congressmen refuse to invest in high speed rail...
It gets freight there faster, commutes between coasts are shorter, yada yada yada...
and there would actually be jobs for a great number of people

[revokin]

03:15 AM on 04/21/2011

republicans have been fighting against high speed rail as if their lives depended on it.
governors refuse billions in federal dollars and lie like the dogs they are.
repubs are a backwards lot, ignorant and reactionary. they echo the comment, No bread, let them eat cake,uttered by an empty headed doomsday monarch, about to lose her head( her least valuable asset). hopefully,similiar fates await the many fellow monarchs in america, playing "lets pretend" to believe in democracy. and all the while thinking, let them eat cake(starve).

[liberation of Antipolo]

05:26 AM on 04/22/2011

Thats the problem haveing a large political group walking in lock step.

[Thremnir]

11:13 PM on 04/20/2011

I won't knock the good pointed out, however, many are not aware of just how much wild
life is killed each year with trains traveling across deer and elk migration routes. Not only
deer and elk, but eagles as well that feed on the carrion trackside.

[revokin]

03:18 AM on 04/21/2011

why don't you try to see the big picture for once in your life. climb down from your eagles nest and walk around with us for a change.

[Anonymous17]

05:31 PM on 04/21/2011

Not nearly so much as is killed on our highway system trust me. Although I will say railroads are probably the number 1 slayer of opossums and raccoons.

[Anonymous17]

11:31 PM on 04/19/2011

Since beginning posting here, I have witnessed a lot of people complain about the cost of maintaining and upgrading the current rail system in the United States.

Let me enlighten you on the lessons learned by several small North Central and North Western Kansas towns. Roughly 25 years ago the Union Pacific shut down a rail spur that ran from Salina, Kansas up to the very NW Corner of the state. Roughly 300 miles of rail. The cooperatives and towns along the way had the opportunity to save this rail by guaranteeing so many grain cars per cooperative terminal every year. They refused to make this guarantee which would have been simple for them based on the amount of grain shipped from the area. Instead they chose to rely on truckers for shipping.

Within 5 years they had learned their mistake. The increased truck traffic had decimated the local road systems and infrastructure. These areas to this day still can not afford to fix their infrastructure to the place it was prior to the Rails being removed.

Point being. Next time you consider the cost of the rails being upgraded/fixed. Consider the cost of what the long haul trucks are going to do to your local roads, bridges, parking lots...

[MULE2009]

02:38 AM on 04/19/2011

Despite the large annual investment by rail and government it is completely inadequate to maintain the current rail system. Most bridges are 100+ years old, the almost 2 million freight cars are over 30 years old, even the almost 30k locomotive fleet in the US is over 20 years old. The passenger train must be completely reinvented since there isn't any American technology or equipment available. It will have to be imported from countries like France, Sweden, Germany and Japan. Most of current American technology is designed by interior decorators who know nothing of the real demands of railroad equipment and facilities. America's corporate and government leaders have starved a broad range of US infrastructure of needed capital for over 2 generations and the bill is coming due. It will be very expensive. You know where America's priorities are when you cannot spend $2 billion on Amtrak or High speed rail development in a year, but no problem spending that in one week bombing Libya, Afganistan, Iraq or Pakistan. It's matter of priorities. I see horses and buggies in America's future.

[BoudiccaBlanc]

11:33 PM on 04/19/2011

Very true f'd & f'd

[StewII]

07:20 PM on 04/20/2011

Not True, Since deregulaiton RR's have become increasing more efficient at moving freight. They've been through what the rest of the naiton is going through now, getting lean, managing with data, increasing safety, and inversting big time in infrastructure. The rest of the transportaiton industry could take a lesson from them.

[MULE2009]

02:59 PM on 04/22/2011

Lean by eliminating service, poor management geared to crisis after crisis, paying lip service in safety and on a national level a complete lack of investment in the nations future. Safety? Look a highway crossings...look at Cab signal Positive train control systems that have been around since WWl and never widely adopted. Infrastructure investment like High speed Rail has practicly killed by America's political and corporate leaders in 2011. Again the bill is coming due. The current capital budgets only maintain a declining 19th century transportation system that is worn out. It's all about priorities $1 Trillion for wars annually vs $2B for Amtrak and High Speed Rail.

[Aquest]

08:39 PM on 04/18/2011

Norfolk and Southern is working on running their trains from advanced battery packs.

[Tulka2]

07:09 PM on 04/18/2011

This young generation would love nothing more than being tasked with the building of a fantastic new railroad system.

I have ridden railroads around the world and this is a true thing:  Unless you can take your dog... unless an individual can transport goats and crates of chickens... all you have is  glorified Disney ride.  Railroads must sell classes of seats.  If they want to sell railroads they have to sell the idea of convenience, utility and luxury.

[alteredstory]

10:03 PM on 04/18/2011

Back when we DID have a solid rail infrastructure, you COULD take pets, livestock, luggage, and so on.

Your view of trains is born of the remnants left over after the rail companies were driven out of business. Now we can no longer afford cars, and we can resurrect the rail. A lot of the infrastructure is still in place, and just needs repair and maintenance.

[Tulka2]

02:45 PM on 04/19/2011

I have this vision of community bike  paths wrestled away from the little towns that have pulled up the track.  It will be sad if bikes are pitted against trains.

[jaredbrain]

09:14 AM on 04/21/2011

we need a high speed rail system that can compete with the airline industry.

[alkamm]

06:23 PM on 04/18/2011

Railroad companies got a mile on each side of the tracks for their work on the intercontinental railroad. All they had to do was provide passenger service in perpetuum. This was overturned by Congress, in part, due to the efforts of big Energy.

There could be a very lucrative passenger train line coming into Las Vegas, but the commercial railroads wanted to charge a fortune to let Amtrak use it. And then there's the Gov. of Florida blocking HST. Dreadful.

[alteredstory]

10:04 PM on 04/18/2011

I think we're well past the point where we need to start figuring out how to work around people like that.

We shouldn't give up on changing the government, but we need to get cracking on the work at hand, with or without them. We can't afford to wait.

[HoosierInMaryland]

10:09 PM on 04/18/2011

Actually, it was five square miles on each side of the track - checkerboard pattern.

[alkamm]

07:41 AM on 04/19/2011

I stand corrected! I'd give citizenship to illegals who agreed to work cheap on HST for a couple years. sort of like the Irish and Chinese.

[amtrak92]

05:41 PM on 04/18/2011

As a railroader,all of this is true, and they still left some things off. I love this. The railroad is where it is at.

[Anonymous17]

04:07 PM on 04/20/2011

Which RR do you work for? I'll go out on a limb and say Amtrak lol. I was a conductor for BNSF for about 4 years.

[amtrak92]

10:18 PM on 04/20/2011

Not Amtrak actually. I work for a shortline in South Carolina. The Rockton Rion&Western. I work train service. I call it training, as it is volunteer, but we do have a work schedule. We run old Baldwin Diesels. I usually work every weekend shift. As that fits with my other job planing excursions. So technically not working, but I still work. As I put in a hard days work. I love BNSF

[Rooster Coburn]

04:41 PM on 04/18/2011

Speaking of trains, I was passed by an Amtrak passenger train while travelling on I-95 in Maryland at about 75 MPH. Curious to see just how fast it was actually going I sped up and clocked it at around 107 MPH before going back to cruising at about 75.

[amtrak92]

05:33 PM on 04/18/2011

The speed limit on that line is 125 for Amfleet trains, Long distance and Northeast Regionals, 135 for acela. The Acela is always

[Rooster Coburn]

06:27 PM on 04/18/2011

Traffic was light and I didn't have to pass anyone to do it or I wouldn't have.

[wonmean]

07:22 PM on 04/18/2011

Hehe. Fun little measurement.

[Rooster Coburn]

07:29 PM on 04/18/2011

Especially in an Evo X !

[Timothy Knight]

02:48 PM on 04/18/2011

Working against high speed rail, because they hate sharing track! Opps that did not fit in there, did it.

[TMc73]

03:04 PM on 04/18/2011

True.

However, how many aging and under utilized or abandonded 'Right of Ways' are there in our country?

Thousands of miles...

That is the lynch pin behind high speed rail development. The track has to be built from the ground up anyways, but it is the 'right of way' that give access.

[PRR Fan]

03:03 PM on 04/18/2011

Actually, America owes more of its prosperity to the railroads than any other country. Especially after the Trans-Contintental RR opened, America moved on rails and they were the chief mode of transporation for passengers and frieght for about 70 years. Even now, railroads are the most efficient and cheapest way to move goods over long distances overland. Passenger rail is a thing of the past but railroads are quintessentially American.

[toffee]

05:12 PM on 04/18/2011

Not anymore, our economy is based on folks buying more cars and pumping more gas. As a proud tea party conservative, I make sure to live my american dream by a F250 crewcab 4x4, a Caddy and Vette.

[LibDrummer]

04:42 PM on 04/18/2011

Same fools where against the national higways for the same reasons.

[Uhgg]

01:52 PM on 04/18/2011

Wow now the Barron's of the 19th century want to make a come back

[alteredstory]

10:07 PM on 04/18/2011

Even if that was true, it'd be a better deal than the ones we have now. See, part of what made the old railways so problematic was an absence of labor laws. As long as the folks on the Right don't do away with them (which they seem to be trying to do), we have protections.