SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Air Resources Board has approved a grant that would allow the Napa Valley Wine Train to replace — and, under regulatory requirements, destroy — six vintage diesels with two Tier 4 compliant switchers.
The approval, which occurred earlier this year, according to the CARB website, covers two of the Wine Train’s signature ex-Canadian National, ex-VIA Rail Canada FPA4 locomotives; an ex-Southern Pacific RS11; a GP9R; an ex-U.S. Navy GE 65-ton switcher, and an ex-U.S. Air Force GE 80-ton switcher. All of the locomotives involved were built in 1959 or earlier. They would be replaced by two 1,560-hp Knoxville Locomotive Works locomotives. Napa Valley Wine Train has told the Bay Area Air Quality Management District the two new units “will be able to perform the same scope of work as the six [replaced] units, despite the overall decrease in horsepower,” according to the CARB’s approval.
Napa Valley Wine Train received more than $2 million for the locomotive replacement when federal Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement Program, or CRISI, grants were announced in September [see “Federal Railroad Administration awards more than $1.4 billion …,” Trains News Wire, Sept. 25, 2023]. The CRISI announcement indicated the tourist railroad would “replace seven highly polluting locomotives with three near-zero-emission locomotives;” no explanation of the difference in figures between the state and federal documents was immediately available. Napa Valley Wine Train and the Bay Area Air Quality Management Districta are to provide 75% of the funding for the project.
Share this article
