RailNews

Sierra Northern Unveils New Look for Hydro Unit

Sierra Northern Unveils New Look for Hydro Unit

By Eric Berger

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sierra Northern Railway has unveiled the paint scheme that will adorn its Zero Emission Hydrogen Switching Locomotive, an engine the railroad hopes will become the prototype for a new generation of yard power.

“We are more convinced today than ever that the Sierra Northern Railway Zero Emission Hydrogen Switching Locomotive will help ensure the switching locomotive industry will have a zero-emission solution in the near future,” said Kennan H. Beard III, Sierra Northern president.

The paint scheme is predominantly dark blue, representing hydrogen, with waves of green flowing up from the midpoint toward the rear of the locomotive to represent what the railroad described as “California’s green future.”

But the idea of a green future is one that is emblematic of the changes at a railroad which had a decidedly different image in the 20th Century. Built in 1897 to serve mining, lumber and agricultural interests to the east of Sacramento, the original Sierra Railroad had become a well-known anachronism by the second half of the century. It became one of the main providers of steam-powered trains for the film and television industry, beginning in the silent film era. In the 1960s and 70s, Sierra 3, a Rogers Works 4-6-0 that helped start the railroad, was seen weekly by tens of millions of Americans pulling the Hooterville Cannonball in the popular hayseed comedies “Petticoat Junction” and “Green Acres” and subsequently in “Little House on the Prairie.”

Many diesel fans came to love the Sierra for its trio of Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton S-12 switchers, two of which were purchased new in 1955 with the third coming used from Sharon Steel. Sierra remained on the short and shrinking list of Baldwin diesel operators through the end of the century, though they were eventually supplanted by a variety of used engines, mainly EMD Geeps. Two of the S-12s were scrapped in 2008, leaving only Sierra 42, the last engine Sierra purchased new.

That was then, but it’s a different railroad in this century, and not only in name. The separation of its freight business from the steam and excursion operations began with the establishment of Railtown 1897 in 1971.

The Jamestown shops, other buildings, turntable, yard and trackage rights were later donated to the California State Park system by Charles Crocker, a descendant of one of Sierra’s original investors. Its operation since becoming a state park has been overseen by the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Sierra 3 remains in steam excursion service there, along with Baldwin 2-8-0 Sierra 28. It also hosts a number of U.S. Army veterans including GE 45 and 80-tonners, a BLH RS-4-TC and Alco MRS-1s, though only the RS-4-TC is operational.

In recent years, Sierra Northern has used Gensets it purchased from Union Pacific. Photo by Steve Jessup. 

The Sierra Northern was created as a freight railroad upon the merger of Sierra Railroad with the Yolo Shortline in 2003. From the start, Sierra Northern showed an interest in new technologies. It welcomed the testing of a biodiesel-powered locomotive in its first year of operation. In 2012, it sent former Yolo Shortline 133, an ex-Southern Pacific GP9, to RailPower as the core for its first genset, an RP20BD. Another GP9, the former Yolo 135 (ex-BNSF 1324, nee ATSF 2794) would become the core for a second RP20BD two years later.

Though anti-pollution grant money helped finance the first units, Sierra Northern used its own money to purchase 25 former Union Pacific RP20GE and RP20BD gensets in 2019 and 2020. Union Pacific purchased those gensets with grants that required at least ten years of use and disposed of them when the ten years were up. Based on their experience and success with their own RailPower units and the chance to pick up the ex-UP gensets at near-scrap prices, Sierra Northern figured it could piece together enough working units to make the deal worthwhile, rather than try to rebuild and upgrade its aging fleet of Geeps.

It was also in 2020 that the railroad was awarded the state contract to develop and build a Zero Emission Hydrogen Switching Locomotive. As has been the case with other such programs, California is requiring Sierra to permanently eliminate the emissions from one of its older locomotives. The unit selected to have its prime mover rendered irreparable is SERA 47, a GP7 that was built as Reading 607 in 1952 and later became Central California Traction 60. Faust said the 47 will not be used as a core for the hydrogen-powered prototype but he does not expect it to be scrapped after it is disabled. “It may eventually be rebuilt as a hydrogen locomotive at some point in the future,” he said.

The engine that will serve as the platform for the new hydrogen design is one that has already gone through the rebuilding process once before,  SERA 2693. That engine was originally built in 1978 as Missouri Pacific 2306, a B23-7. It was retired in 2005 as UP 117 and sent to RailPower for conversion to RP20BD, followed by ten years as UPY 2693.

“We believe that this technology will be a game changer because it has the ability to be serviced and refueled within acceptable parameters relative to its duty cycle, something that we think is going to be a serious challenge for battery-powered locomotives,” said Mike Faust, project manager.  He said work is still in the design phase, but that the initial assembly work is expected to begin in early 2023.

“We are fully confident that we will have a successful prototype in operation prior to the December 31, 2024 deadline set by the terms of the grant,” Faust said. “I believe there will be tremendous interest in this across the industry.”

There has been just one previous attempt to utilize hydrogen fuel cell technology in a locomotive, BNSF 1205, which was built between 2007 and 2009 using a RailPower GG20B “Green Goat” from a cancelled Canadian Pacific order as a core. Classed an HH20B, it was tested at various sites beginning in 2009, but saw little activity after arriving in Topeka in 2014. It reportedly has been donated to a railroad museum but was last seen in Temple, Texas, awaiting shipment.

This article was posted on: September 22, 2022