Norfolk Southern Unveils Electric Switcher Engine

A prototype switching locomotive that Norfolk Southern Railway showed off this week is a plug-in electric unit with 1,500 horsepower of pulling energy, zero exhaust and a pack of 1,080 batteries.

And when the locomotive is braking as it stops, starts and stops again as it moves freight cars around a railroad yard or outside a customer’s plant, it recharges itself.

Railroads have been under federal and state pressure in many parts of the nation to reduce diesel emissions and adopt more sustainable ways to power their engines than continuing to burn diesel fuel. NS unveiled the new switcher at its Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, Pa., where it was produced.

Charles W. Moorman, the railroad’s chairman, president and CEO, said “sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint are solid business objectives that also provide enormous benefits to the communities we serve.”

He said NS developed the prototype – dubbed NS 999 -- in a partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy, Federal Railroad Administration and Pennsylvania State University. Brookville Equipment provided the dynamic braking system that helps feed the batteries.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood was on hand for the engine’s introduction. “The transportation sector currently accounts for just under a third of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, more than half of nitrogen oxide emissions, and almost three-quarters of our petroleum consumption,” he said. “We need to change that.”

Using alternative energy sources and technologies like the electric locomotive, LaHood said, can make transportation more energy-efficient.

A key to getting it done, NS said, was $1.3 million in federal funding secured by Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., ranking minority member on the rail panel of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “Without his active interest and participation in this project, NS 999 would still be merely a concept,” Moorman said.

Shuster said the work on this engine “will help usher in a new generation of green locomotives fueled by American ingenuity.”

Contact John D. Boyd at jboyd@joc.com.