The UE Research and Education Fund, a non-profit that supports UE’s work in a variety of areas, received a generous grant in November from the Preston-Werner foundation. This grant will allow UEREF to greatly expand the support it provides to UE’s Green Locomotive Project — a campaign to create good union jobs, address climate change, and clean up pollution in communities near rail yards.

The project originated with UE Local 506 members who build locomotive engines in Erie, PA. While their jobs are currently tied to fossil fuels — most of the locomotives they are building now run on diesel — the local understands the threat of climate change, and sees opportunities for a different path in the future, one that creates good union jobs and improves air quality, particularly in and around rail yards where idling locomotive engines pollute the air.

For more than two decades, the Environmental Protection Agency has regulated emissions from diesel locomotives through a system of “tiers.” Local 506 members make locomotives that meet the highest current standard, “Tier 4.” Tier 4 locomotives still burn diesel fuel, but they are both much more efficient than older models and include additional technologies to reduce emissions. This makes them much less polluting and gives them a lower carbon footprint. Zero-emissions, battery-powered “flex drives” locomotives for use in rail yards are also in production, and Local 506 members are making them.

Unfortunately, of the nearly 25,000 heavy haul freight locomotives operated by Class 1 railroads, a vast majority of them are older, polluting diesel engines (many do not even meet the Tier 1 standards implemented in 1996). Since implementation of Tier 4 in 2015, less than 2,000 locomotives of that tier have been purchased, and virtually no effort has been made to adopt zero-emissions technologies.

The people who bear the brunt of the pollution emitted by these older locomotives are those who work in rail yards — including the approximately 2,000 UE members who work as rail crew drivers — and those who live in the neighborhoods located near rail yards, who are primarily working-class people and people of color.

The goal of the Green Locomotive Project is to force the railroads to upgrade all of their locomotive stock to modern “Tier 4” standards for long-haul routes and to zero-emissions technologies in rail yards. This will bring work to UE members who work for Wabtec — Local 506 and 618 members in Erie, and Local 610 members in Wilmerding and Greensburg, PA. It will also improve the quality of life for rail yard workers and communities, and make a significant contribution to addressing climate change by lowering the carbon footprint of the rail industry.

The Preston-Werner grant will allow UEREF to expand the educational outreach of the Green Locomotive Project and bring together workers who build locomotives with those who work in and live near rail yards, to build the worker and political power to compel the railroads to do the right thing.