SUSTAINABILITY

Though freight rail represents 40% of the long-distance shipping industry, rail shipping is only responsible for 1.9% of greenhouse gas emissions. It’s estimated that when a shipper moves their freight from trucking to rail, they reduce their emissions by 75%.

A single railcar can replace the load of three to four over-the-road trailers while operating on a fraction of the fuel. Put numerically, rail shipping can move 1 ton of freight over 480 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. That’s a level of fuel efficiency and asset utilization that other shipping modes can’t match.

Freight railcars are highly recyclable (up to 95%!). Efforts like TrinityRail’s Sustainable Railcar Conversion Program reuse and repurpose a railcar’s components in order to maximize their utility while minimizing waste and helping to reduce overall emissions.

Railcars are more resilient, fail less often, and are more easily maintained than other modes of transportation. For all of these reasons, freight rail is more sustainable due to the lifespan of each railcar. While trucks used for long-distance freight average a life of 12-15 years, a freight railcar can last for 35-50 years when properly maintained, and has parts that can be recycled and repurposed.

Transforming U.S. painting facilities to EPA-defined Minor Source emission levels.

Improving energy efficiency of operations. TrinityRail sets goals to reduce energy consumption and conducts regular audits to identify proactive repairs and other opportunities to improve energy efficiency.

Innovative robotic railcar cleaning technology TERSUS reduces water use through superior force and precision and by treating and reusing water. The system also improves worker safety by eliminating human entry to clean tank cars for many commodity types.

TrinityRail’s waste-to-landfill reduction program continues to meet our goals, and we are committed to growing this program in order to further reduce our environmental footprint.

TrinityRail has reported on Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions for the past four years and has shown intensity reductions over that time. We are committed to continuing our energy consumption reduction efforts, as well as exploring renewable energy options.