Written by William C. Vantuono, Editor-in-Chief, Railway Age Magazine; November 10, 2017
Florida East Coast Railway has become the first North American railroad to adopt LNG (liquefied natural gas) for its entire line-haul locomotive fleet. FECR on Nov. 9 officially rolled out its 24-unit fleet, consisting of 12 pairs of back-to-back GE ES44ACs with a purpose-built Chart Industries fuel tender in between, at Bowden Yard, Jacksonville. FECR, a Class II regional, is also the first railroad to haul LNG as a commodity, under a Federal Railroad Administration waiver.
LNG, which has been tested as a locomotive fuel for the better part of 25 years and is still under evaluation by several Class I’s, among them BNSF, works for FECR both as a fuel source and a commodity, for two reasons. One, the FECR line-haul locomotive fleet is captive, operating solely on the railroad’s Jacksonville-Miami main line. Two, FECR has a ready source of LNG: Florida East Coast Industries owns and operates an LNG plant in Titusville. The $250 million facility got the green light in January 2015; FECI affiliate Tico Development built the now fully operational plant at the south end of Titusville.
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