Energy and Environment
American ingenuity and innovation can be put to work to protect our environment — and that’s what AAR member railroads have done by boosting fuel efficiency and decreasing harmful emissions.
Their efforts have paid off. Railroads are the “greenest,” most fuel-efficient form of ground transportation and we have the numbers to prove it:
- A freight train can move a ton of freight an average of 484 miles on a single gallon of fuel. That’s close to four times as far as it could move by truck.
- A train can take the load of 280 or more trucks off the road. That’s like removing 1,100 cars from the road for every freight train.
- On average, each ton-mile of freight moved by rail rather than highway reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent.
- On average, freight trains are four times more fuel-efficient than trucks.
- If only 10 percent of the long-haul freight currently moved by highway switched to rail, national fuel savings would exceed one billion gallons a year and greenhouse gas emissions would fall by 12 million tons.
- In 2010 alone, U.S. freight railroads consumed 3.7 billion fewer gallons of fuel and emitted 41 million fewer tons of carbon dioxide than they would have if their fuel efficiency had remained constant since 1980.
As the Congress considers legislation to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, it should take into account the environmental friendliness of freight railroading. Climate change legislation offers an opportunity for policymakers to encourage the movement of more freight by environmentally-friendly rail and to spur the development of carbon capture and storage technology.
More Information:
AAR Background Paper: Freight Railroads Help Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions (PDF)
AAR Background Paper: The Environmental Benefits of Moving Freight by Rail (PDF)