CSX’s Barr Rail Yard in Riverdale, IL
The second stop on the tour was CSX’s Barr Rail Yard in Riverdale, IL, where tour participants viewed completed N-ViroMotives up close and in action. While in the rail yard the tour bus’s engine had to be shut off so the train’s engines could be heard as an N-ViroMotive was driven past the tour group. CSX employees also demonstrated the locomotives’ remote control functions and their in-cab, push-button start up process. This invention saves engineers from going through the time consuming idle process which requires several steps outside of the vehicle in conventional locomotives. While rail yard application was the original use of the N-ViroMotive, more powerful N-ViroMotives are now in use for mid- to long-haul freight runs. In early 2010, NREC will begin to produce passenger models which exceed the 120 mph threshold, set by the Obama Administration for the nation’s High Speed Rail Network.
