I live in a condo on the 4th floor just several blocks from the tracks (CN Newmarket SD). Was talking to my neighbour about pollution & he was complaining about all the pollution from the trains. Usually 4 freights pass by daily with 2 or 3 C44-9W) 2 locals daily one ( SD60 or SD70) and two Ontario Northland psgr (GP38-2). He was saying with the train pollution and the prevailing winds it was permeating our building. Of course I argue thatwith the modern locos there is little pollution, but I need facts.
How much pollution do these locos produce as compared to automobile, truck and bus traffic, which traffic is minimal here.
Just an aside, The chimneys of the mines in Sudbury were very tall, but not tall enough as the pollution killed all the folliage around Sudbury. The stacks were made taller and now Sudbury greenery is flourishing, but the prevailing winds are blowing the fumes quite a few miles away down to the cottage country here and causing concern with our health.
further to the above…speed limit here is 20 mph , Level track bed for miles, The 4 C44-9w’s usually pulling 80-110 cars, The 2 locals pulling usually less than ten cars and the ONR psgr with four cars. and no discernable smoke coming from any of the units.
This is well outside my field and general knowledge, but it seems to me the relatively few diesels, for the relatively small amount of time they are present, are contributing next to nothing compared to all the industry within a 200-300 km radius of Newmarket, not to mention all the trucking, commuting automobiles, and so on. Heck, in the winter, 50 static diesels idling all day wouldn’t, off the top of my head, match the pollution from oil buring furnaces within 10 miles of your home during that same period, and maybe moreso if the temps outside were below minus 20 Celsius.
Present day average numbers – which may not be representative of the locomotives in question or the rubber-tired vehicles in your province, are, in gallons per gallon of fuel burned for locomotive and grams per average rubber-tired vehicle-mile traveled:
CO: Locomotive 26.60; 3.45
NOX: Locomotive 102.82; 12.10
Particulate matter: Locomotive 3.35; 0.48
Hydrocarbons: Locomotive 5.31; 0.47
If you assume the average rubber-tired vehicle is 15 mpg, then the emissions rates are significantly higher for rubber-tired vehicles in terms of gallons of fuel burned.
If your apartment building has an oil-fired heating system, it’s going to produce more pollution than the trains, all by its lonesome. Never mind the cars and trucks…
I wouldn’t worry too much about the sulfur dioxide pollution from Sudbury. It’s quite true that 40 years ago it was pretty bad up around there (used to work there), but somewhere around 30 years ago scrubbers were put on the main stacks (same time they were enlarged) and almost all the sulfur dioxide now is captured as sulfuric acid and shipped off site. The place is recovering very nicely now.
I was quite aware of the low pollution from the diesels passing through here, but I just needed some data that I could pass on to our neighbour who will be coming over for lunch next week & thanks for all the info. Our units in the condo are individually heated with gas. Thanks for the info about Sudbury. Trains passing thru here consist 3/4 or more of sulphuric acid tank cars. One train consisted of 70 sulphuric acid cars and 28 misc cars. Would all this acid be coming from Sudbury mines & where would it be headed to?