Green Options

The Norfolk Southern Railway recently debuted a green transportation option that’s among the first of its kind. It’s currently only a prototype, but is just the beginning of things to come; with plans by 2011 to unveil a long-range locomotive that will produce zero-emissions.

Traditional corporations continue to move towards sustainable energy, and Norfolk Southern Railway is at the forefront of this trend.

On November 13th, the company announced that a 50 kilowatt wind turbine supplied by Entegrity Wind Systems of Boulder, Colorado was installed at its railyard in North Kansas City.  This wind turbine can generate an estimated 100,000 kilowatt hours annually, and is built with three 24-foot rotor blades mounted on a 100-foot tower.  This is enough energy to offset the electricity consumed by the pumps and controls for the treatment plant.

After nearly destroying a forest and obliterating a species, one corporation does a 180 and becomes an EcoHero.

The story begins in the 1830’s, when the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company (SCCRC) bought a 100,000 acre plot of longleaf pine forest near Dorchester, South Carolina. Timber from the forest was an essential element in SCCRC’s expansion, development and continued operation. Not only did timber provide material for cross-ties, trestles and bridges, but most of the then steam powered locomotives burned wood to heat their boilers. This meant a nonstop and insatiable demand for timber which the forest was unable to support.

Following the destruction and carnage of the civil war, more timber was needed to repair the railroads of the South. Reconstruction was successful; too successful in fact, and SCCRC developed new lines, became overextended and ran into financial trouble. In 1893, the railroad was reorganized as Southern Railway. Most of the mature timber was gone by this time, and nearly all but 14,000 acres of the original 100,000 acre forest had been parceled out and sold off. Red-cockaded woodpeckers, who depend on longleaf pine forests for their survival, were also close to extinction.

Southern Railway’s 180

In 1920, the railway began replanting longleaf and loblolly pines for pulpwood production. Soon afterward, it began to construct a demonstration area for local landowners who were interested in reforesting their land. Southern Railway also opened up its land to forestry students from Universities all across the South.