Freight trains in the US are often powered by two or more diesel units, each about 4400 horsepower. Those units are each supposed to burn around 210 US gallons per hour when they're producing full power.
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How many gallons of gas does a train hold? An SD40–2 locomotive - a 3,000 HP standard line-haul workhouse of the past used by most North American RR holds 3,200 to 4,000 gallons of fuel. A typical switching locomotice - EMD MP 1500 - a 1,500 HP standard switching locomotive will hold 1,100 to 14,00 gallons of fuel.
Thanks in part to these technologies, U.S. freight railroads can, on average, move one ton of freight nearly 500 miles per gallon of fuel, making rail the most fuel-efficient way to move freight over land.
For a fuel cost of $0.84 per liter of diesel ($3.17 per gallon) (AAR (2012b)), this results in an average running fuel cost of $185 per locomotive-hour. If actual train and operation data are available, energy models or rail simulators may provide more accurate fuel use values for specific conditions.
BNSF Locomotives. We have one of the newest locomotive fleets in the industry. A typical BNSF locomotive will travel up to 4.8 million miles in its lifetime - equal to about 20 trips from the earth to the moon.
Another reason why railroad transport is better than road travel is the fuel efficiency they offer compared to hiring vehicles. Railways can consume up to nine times less fuel for every ton they carry for a kilometer, making trucks fuel inefficient compared to railroad transport.
Federal regulators limit the speed of trains with respect to the signaling method used. Passenger trains are limited to 59 mph and freight trains to 49 mph on track without block signal systems. (See dark territory.)
Railroads are roughly four times more fuel efficient than trucks. Shipping freight via rail limits greenhouse gas emissions and increases fuel efficiency, reducing the transportation carbon footprint. In fact, moving freight by rail instead of truck lowers greenhouse gas emissions by 75%.
1000 miles between refuellings would not be unreasonable for a road locomotive with a 4000 gallon tank averaging 40 mph on a line with a maximum grade of 1%. However I would want refuel before I am running on the bottom third of the tank, so perhaps 700 miles is more realistic.
The 2022 CSX system-wide train efficiency metric, as shown above, equals approximately 520 ton-miles per gallon. In other words, CSX trains, on average, can move a ton of freight nearly 520 miles on a gallon of fuel, based on our 2022 revenue ton miles and 2022 fuel use.
Loading of coal and water and incidental maintenance takes a steam locomotive about 1 hour. A diesel engine can be fueled from a pump in 10 minutes or so.
If we take an overall view of the transport sector, 71% of transportation related carbon emissions come from road users, whereas only 1.8% of emissions stem from rail travel. So in absolute terms, trains are responsible for a lot less emissions than cars.
Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are directly related to fuel consumption. According to EPA data, freight railroads account for just 0.5% of total U.S. GHG emissions and just 1.7% of transportation-related GHG emissions. Moving freight by rail instead of truck lowers GHG emissions by up to 75%, on average.
Trains are powered either by diesel or electricity. Electric traction is currently responsible for around two-thirds of the freight and more than half the passengers on railways. But, electric traction is just 37% of Railways' overall energy efficiency costs.
Even when switchyard locomotives are not moving trains, their diesel engines are usually kept running. This is done to charge batteries, warm engine fluids and meet other operational needs. This can amount to several thousand hours of idling per locomotive each year.
Engines may be left idling to maintain important safety related functions such as maintaining engine temperature, air pressure for the brake system, the integrity of the starting systems, the electrical system and providing heating or cooling to a train's crew and/or passengers.