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TRAIN Your Produce to Go Green
 Last week the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council hosted a "brown bag" lunch presentation featuring Railex the newly formed closed loop track, 55 refrigerated car train line. Railex runs from Wallawalla Washington to Upstate New York in 5 days, hauling a mile long produce train of 55 refrigerated cars, each car containing 4 truckloads- roughly 190,000 pounds of produce per car - for a total of 200 truckloads per train. With the ever growing interest in local foods, Railex may not, at first, seem like a sustainable solution to our current food system. However as consumers continue to demand out of season lettuce and strawberries, a cost effective, diesel truck alternative to meet these demands is an environmental asset. Each train saves 100,000 gallons of diesel fuel and avoids the release of 85,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalents. And that is just the first train route! Railex has plans to expand its territory, beginning in September they will run a similar train from California to New York, with plans to add facilities and acquire track in Tennessee and Florida, connecting all 4 corners of the US. Each route removing diesel trucks from the roadways and avoiding significant CO2 emissions from the air. Railex operates cost effectively on routes greater that 150 miles, and has therefor not pursued regional distribution from its facilities, ie. upstate NY to Hunt's Point in the South Bronx. However they are committed to building relationships and collaborating with Amtrak. Through such collaboration a distribution line from Selkirk, NY. to Oak Point and Hunt's Point may be possible....Cleaner Air for South Bronx!  COMMENTS
Follow That French Fry: Food Miles and Roadway Damage
Gretchen Stoeltje http://www.dot.state.tx.us/publications/government_and_public_affairs/french_fry.pdf # posted by
 : 8:43 PM Railex is a great greenwasher:
Post a Comment http://www.railexusa.com/greencomparechart.php A Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT) case study: Railex and the New Jersey apple farmer Higher fuel prices correlate with higher food prices. Regardless of transportation mode, lower VMT correlate with lower fuel expenditures. Railex and the New Jersey apple farmer should thus be compared in the context of fuel demand to deliver apples to New York City. Railex’s website states that rail is three times more efficient than traditional trucking. A truck delivery from sixty-seven miles outside New York City would consume roughly 92% less fuel than the Railex train would use on a 2,700 mile, five-day trip. (Math: 1- [(67 mi * 1) / (2700 mi * .33)] Additionally, Wallula, Washington is the location of the apple orchard, and Rotterdam, New York (terminus of Railex) is a 162-mile trek to Hunt’s Point in the Bronx. (Nearly 80 percent of the New York Hunts Point Market. http://nymtc.org/files/HuntsPoint.pdf ) So, before even accounting for the efficiencies of rail, the truck VMT of apples from Washington State are significantly greater than the total VMT of apples from New Jersey. # posted by
: 9:24 PMArchives October 2006 | November 2006 | December 2006 | February 2007 | March 2007 | May 2007 | June 2007 | November 2007 | January 2008 | March 2008 | April 2008 | June 2008 |
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