'This is a significant order': Wabtec sells 4 more Erie-built electric locomotives
Wabtec Corp., the owner of the former GE Transportation plant in Erie, has picked up another order for its newest product, the FLXdrive battery-electric locomotive.
The company's last order, placed in November by Canadian National, was for a locomotive that will operate on CN's Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad, which runs from the Pittsburgh suburb of Penn Hills, Allegheny County, to Conneaut, Ohio.
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An order announced this week is for four locomotives that will be placed into service next year, about 10,000 miles away in Australia. The order comes from Rio Tinto, a global mining company that plans to use the battery-electric locomotives to support its rail network in the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
The FLXdrives, which are paired with diesel locomotives to create a hybrid train, are expected to help the mining company achieve a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030.
No price was announced for the transaction. But the significance of the sale seems to exceed what the number of units would suggest at a company that was building 800 to 900 locomotives a year in Erie as recently as 2008.
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The order, coupled with two previously announced sales, suggests some willingness by the freight railroad industry to adopt, at least on a limited basis, a completely different technology. This order comes just a little over a year after testing on the FLXdrive began in California.
The FLXdrive, which generates 4,400 horsepower — about the same as a traditional diesel-electric locomotive — shared pulling duties in those tests with diesel locomotives, reducing overall fuel consumption by 11%.
The FLXdrive, which was used to haul freight for 13,000 miles worth of trips between Stockton and Barstow, California, can be charged at a rail station and then recharged along the way, using power created by regenerative braking.
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There is reason to believe that Wabtec sees the FLXdrive as something more than a fringe product. The company has announced that it has a vision for a zero-emission future.
The FLXdrives ordered by CN and RIO Tinto represent an upgrade from the model that was tested in California, which generated 2.4 megawatt-hours of power. Rio Tinto ordered the newest version of the FLXdrive, which offers a capacity of 7 megawatt-hours.
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Tim Bader, a spokesman for Pittsburgh-based Wabtec, said the order is an important one.
"This is a significant order," he said. "It shows that the market understands the benefits of battery power and alternative energies and that this locomotive is an ideal solution to reducing fuel consumption and emissions."
Bader notes that this is the second order to come from a mining company. The first, announced in September, came from Roy Hill, an iron ore mining company that also operates in Western Australia.
"This is the third order," Bader said. "We just started testing at the beginning of last year. I would say the market has embraced this product fairly quickly."
Contact Jim Martin at 814-870-1668 or jmartin@timesnews.com. Follow him on Twitter @ETNMartin.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Erie's Wabtec plant will build electric locomotives for Australian company
