MINNEAPOLIS – A new Minneapolis-based organization, the Coalition for Sustainable Rail today announced plans to rebuild and modify ex-Santa Fe 4-6-4 No. 3463 into “the world’s first carbon-neutral higher-speed locomotive.” The engine was built by Baldwin in 1937 and has been on display in Topeka, Kan., since 1956. The group has already acquired the locomotive from the Great Overland Station Museum and Education Center in Topeka.
The coalition is a collaboration of the University of Minnesota’s Institute on the Environment and the nonprofit Sustainable Rail International. Sustainable Rail is the brainchild of four people: Rob Mangels, Shaun McMahon, John Rhodes, and Davidson Ward. Mangels and Ward have been involved for several years in the “Friends of the 261” organization, which operates Milwaukee Road 4-8-4 No. 261. Their new group is not affiliated with the 261, even though both are based in Minneapolis.
Ward, who serves as Sustainable Rail’s president, said he and his partners have been working on the idea of a clean steam locomotive for several years, but made the project public today as efforts to raise funds and move the locomotive get under way. He told Trains that the idea is to develop a steam locomotive using today’s technology that can produce a more powerful locomotive that will cost less to operate than diesels in passenger applications, such as commuter service. Seeking to develop a high profile and prove its technology, the group plans to use a modified 3463 in an attempt to break the world speed record for a steam locomotive, operating it at speeds up to 130 mph. It has named the venture “CSR Project 130.”
The key to the project, Ward said, is the lower-cost fuel that the locomotive will burn. It will run on torrefied biomass (biocoal), a biofuel that exhibits the same energy density and material handling properties as coal. The organization said that unlike coal, biocoal is carbon neutral, contains no heavy metals, and produces less ash, smoke, and volatile off-gases. With the ability to burn biocoal efficiently, and without negative impact on the environment, the coalition claims its steam locomotive will exhibit significantly better horsepower output at higher speeds than diesel locomotives that pull the majority of passenger trains in the United States today.
The group hopes to apply its technology to more than just locomotives. The engineering on combustion and boiler technologies could allow CSR to develop power boilers and electric generators for use in homes in the United States and the developing world. “Every dollar spent on engineering support of CSR Project 130 can generate up to three times the benefit in outgrowth technologies to solve energy problems in the United States and around the world,” the organization said.
“Participation in the Coalition for Sustainable Rail has enabled our team to pursue one of the more exciting and potentially groundbreaking research projects in the history of the Institute on the Environment,” Rod Larkins, special projects director of the institute’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, said in a news release. “Once perfected, creating the world’s first carbon-neutral locomotive will be just the beginning for this technology which, we hope, will later be used for combined heat and power energy in the developing world as well as reducing the United States’ dependence on fossil fuels.”
Plans are to move No. 3463 within the next year. The group is searching for a suitable site in the Twin Cities area to house and rebuild the 4-6-4. Ward said the organization hopes to raise funds with the assistance of the University of Minnesota, and that several railroad industry professionals have been approached and are interested in the project. For more information, see the July 2012 issue of Trains magazine, and visit
www.csrail.org.
