Chemistry Commons^™

In-Use Measurement Of Locomotive Emissions, Matt Breuer

Summer Research

The Environmental Protection Agency’s newest emissions standards set into law in 2004, which took effect in 2010, limited the level of emissions that locomotives are allowed to produce. For the most part, these standards have been verified in the laboratory and not while the locomotives were in actual use. My research looked at the emissions from these locomotives in-use, under normal operating conditions. The measurements took place on two Pierce County bridges that are above operating train tracks. A remote sensing device (the FEAT) was used to look at locomotive emissions of CO, HC, NO, NO_2, SO₂, …