Like a Tesla Model S, but for trains. City receives $4.95M for zero-emission locomotives
Tacoma is getting three zero-emission trains, weighing as much as 350,000 pounds each and chugging by at speeds of up to 10 mph. The city has received some fiscal help to cover the cost of the green machines.
The City Council adopted a resolution April 30 accepting a $4.95 million grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation. The money is going toward the acquisition of the locomotives and to install charging infrastructure.
The new trains will look just like the others in Tacoma Rail’s fleet, said assistant superintendent Alan Matheson, but with a key difference: They can be recharged. They also are leaner; a larger locomotive can weigh around 425,000 pounds or more.
Tacoma Rail has looked at the quiet zero-emission locomotive operating at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach as an example.
“They’ve been pretty tight-lipped about that project, but it’s still ongoing, so we’re encouraged by that,” Matheson told The News Tribune. “There are other short-line railroads around the nation that are starting to experiment with this, but we’re definitely leaders in this space in the Pacific Northwest.”
The city mentioned the train-funding efforts in the recently released 2030 Climate Action Plan progress report: “Tacoma Rail was awarded a cumulative $12.69M to acquire two zero emission battery-electric locomotives. An additional award of $3.3M from the VW Settlement fund will enable the addition of a third zero emission locomotive to their fleet.”
The battery-electric-train project is aligned with the city’s climate plan, which seeks to slash greenhouse emissions as much as possible, Matheson said. The ultimate aim is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. The effort also aligns with Tacoma Public Utilities’ environmental sustainability-focused guiding principles.
Matheson and company initially believed that meeting such climate goals would be challenging for Tacoma Rail. Then came the grants, including one from the federal government earlier this year for nearly $4.1 million.
Dan McCabe, Tacoma Rail’s chief informational/financial officer, emphasized that the City of Destiny is acting as a locomotive luminary.
“We have a great opportunity to get some battery-electric locomotives for Tacoma Rail,” McCabe told Tacoma Report in October. “They’ll be the first in the area, and what’s so exciting about the ones that are coming to Tacoma Rail is that they will be powered by Tacoma Power, our sister utility, which is mostly hydroelectric power. So they’ll be the greenest in the area.”
Matheson estimates that the city will have the trains sometime in the 2025–26 time frame. He told The News Tribune that they could be used to deliver anything from petroleum-based commodities to scrap steel to roofing shingles.
The project will help Tacoma hit its climate goals by cutting approximately 90,000 gallons of diesel fuel annually, Matheson said. Some $380,000 in health benefits will be felt each year because of the drop in diesel-pollution exposure, The Center Square reported in January.
“I think from a climate-justice perspective, Tacoma also scores 10 out of 10 for fine particulate-matter pollution,” Matheson said. “Given that these are zero-emission locomotives, we’ll be able to contribute to that improvement as well.
“It doesn’t solve the problem, certainly, but we want to at least be a positive contributor.”
