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Canada Proposes Locomotive Emissions Standards

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Canada Proposes Locomotive Emissions Standards
Posted by Victrola1 on Monday, June 20, 2016 11:48 AM

The Canadian government has proposed its first-ever regulations to limit locomotive emissions.

Developed under Canada's Railway Safety Act, the proposed regs would limit air pollutant emissions, also known as "criteria air contaminants," from locomotives operated by railroads under federal jurisdiction through "increasingly stringent emission standards and reduced idling," according to a Transport Canada press release. The emission standards, which were published June 18 in the Canada Gazette, set out in the proposed regs will "align with those of the United States," the agency added.

 
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Posted by NorthWest on Monday, June 20, 2016 4:25 PM

Not really a big change...I can only think of one order for a Canadian railroad in the last two decades that failed to meet US emissions standards; a CN order for ES44ACs about 2 years ago. With both CP and CN having extensive US operations it doesn't make much sense for them to order large amounts of locomotives that would be confined to Canada.

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Posted by traisessive1 on Friday, September 23, 2016 11:46 AM

They didn't fail. 

I'm sure it was just a case of CN running out of credits due to the build date of the locomotives. 

10000 feet and no dynamics? Today is going to be a good day ... 

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Posted by NorthWest on Friday, September 23, 2016 12:03 PM

I think that the vagueness of language is getting in the way here... The locomotives fail to meet the standards in the sense that they do not meet US emissions standards for the time they were built (and CN didn't have enough EPA credits for them). CN knew this when they bought them and understood that they would be restricted to Canada. Ferromex has done similar things in Mexico. It wasn't that GE built them expecting to meet the standards but didn't.

Canada's railway regulation has typically mirrored the US' policies, and so it is interesting that it has been taking this long to institute the lowered standards.

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