LOS ANGELES — Railway Age magazine has named Wilmington, Calif.-based Pacific Harbor Line, Inc. 2009 Short Line Railroad of the Year for replacing and expanding its entire locomotive fleet with 22 low-emission diesel-electric units. Doing so also made Pacific Harbor Line the greenest railroad in America.
The railroad estimates fuel savings of seven to nine percent. Particulate emissions have been cut by at least 70 percent and nitrogen oxide emissions are 46 percent lower.
Pacific Harbor Line began operations in 1998 serving the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which are the two busiest container ports by volume in North America.
The changeover cost about $30 million and was achieved with financial assistance from the two ports and California’s Carl Moyer Program, which is administered by the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
The award will be presented at the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association’s annual meeting in Las Vegas, Nev., April 25-28. PHL will also be featured in Railway Age’s April 2009 issue.
In announcing the award, Railway Age Publisher Robert P. DeMarco notes, “This year’s winner has leveraged energy savings and environmental advantages to best effect among the many quality candidates nominated.”
PHL operates 75 miles of track owned by the two ports, serving nine on-dock intermodal terminals and numerous carload customers. It exchanges nearly two million on-dock containers each year with BNSF and Union Pacific railroads, and about 36,000 carloads–reducing the strain on the Los Angeles basin’s highway system.
Railway Age is the transportation industry’s oldest trade magazine, and celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2006.
— PRNewswire
