Working on the railroad just isn't the same

Loud, black smoke-billowing engines used to be the image conjured up when people thought about trains running through town.

Now the image is "green?"

Northern California Railroad Company (CFNR), which runs trains almost daily through Tehama, Glenn and Colusa counties, was honored in June by Breathe California out of Sacramento with the 2011 Clean Air Champion Business Award for playing a model role in helping reduce noise and emission along their routes.

The short line freight service — covering 250 miles in Northern California through the Sacramento, San Joaquin and Napa valleys on leased Union Pacific Railroad lines — received the award because it has had its fleet converted over to ultra low-emitting, low-noise locomotives.

They are called Gensets, engines that can reduce emissions by 80 percent and possibly fuel consumption by 20 percent, meeting the stringent Tier 3 non-road emission standard set by the EPA for locomotives.

Engineer Tim Holbrook, 58, of Corning, said the award was given to the company primarily because of the work done by former manager Don Seil.

"Don has moved on," said Holbrook. "But the award really was a result of the research he put into this."

Part of the work done by Seil was applying for grant money for the costly engines.

One locomotive purchased in 2009, according to RailAmerica Inc., which manages CFNR, cost $1.6 million. The company received help in covering the costs through grants supplied by the California Air Resources Board and local air districts throughout the state.

"It's good to do our part in helping the environment," conductor Daniel Patenaude said Monday.

Patenaude, 25, who lives in the Sacramento area, helps run cars along the whole line.

"These engines definitely put out a lot less emissions," he said. "And this effects us directly, especially on days where we have the windows down and we're backing up," said Holbrook.

The company has six converted engines in its fleet, and have kept just two of the older models as reserves.

Together, Holbrook and Patenaude run the longest branch of the freight service between a connection with Union Pacific at Davis, running north along Arbuckle, Williams, Maxwell and Willows to Wyo (formerly Stony Creek) — just north of Orland — and onto Richfield, north of Corning, for a total of 110.7 miles.

The remainder of the track's interchange points with Union Pacific are in the opposite direction at Suisun and Tracy, where the railroad meets up with Napa Valley and Northwestern Pacific railroads.

The two men work Monday through Friday. Each work day begins and ends with checking their phone calls and filling out paperwork in a little office recently relocated to Fourth Avenue in Corning.

"We have three big customers, Bell Carter, Sierra Pacific and CoShell. Today (Monday), we are hauling five cars of olives from Bell Carter down to Davis," said Holbrook.

Short-line railroads like CFNR already played an important role in connecting customers to the larger national railroad highways, especially when it comes to carrying bulk items. Becoming fuel-efficient will only help to secure that position in the long haul.

"Most people don't understand our role as short lines, and how we're independent of the larger railroad companies," said Holbrook.

"We're kind of like the small brown UPS trucks that run around instead of the large big brown trucks," he said. "However, running just one train car is basically the equivalent of running three semis."

According to RailAmerica Inc., along with olives, other major commodities shipped along the line are tomato products, rice, cheese, frozen foods, beer, wine and wheat.

Some stone, chemicals and petroleum products are also transported.

Between 2008-2010, the line was also instrumental in shipping oversized loads such as turbine generators during the construction of PG&E's Colusa Generating Station near Maxwell, which fittingly was designed to produce the cleanest energy available from natural gas.

CFNR was responsible for the repair done on Thomes Creek Bridge in Richfield as part of the deal to make the connection in Tehama with Union Pacific.

The last 4 miles of the northern line, just past Thomes Creek in Tehama County, is used to store 200 lumber cars. Another branch leading toward Hamilton City is also strictly used to house cars.

RailAmerica, Inc. oversees 43 individual railroads, covering approximately 7,400 miles of track.