About Us

Operations

Union Pacific strives to be a leader in developing technology and conscientiously using resources to reduce our environmental impact. Railroads are the most environmentally responsible way to transport ground freight, and Union Pacific operates North America’s cleanest and most modern locomotive fleet. We’ve achieved this by making sustainability a priority, developing new technologies and methods to improve fuel efficiency, reducing emissions and working smarter to minimize our environmental impact.

Fuel Conservation

Union Pacific improves its fuel efficiency through improvements in locomotive technology, engineer training and employee involvement. The result: From 2000 to 2011, Union Pacific achieved a 19 percent improvement in fuel efficiency. See our Fuel Conservation Facts Sheet (PDF File) to learn more about specific initiatives. In 2011, the railroad reduced its fuel consumption rate by 2 percent, compared with 2009.  That allowed Union Pacific to save 25 million gallons of diesel fuel.

Our locomotive fuel efficiency declined slightly in 2011, just under its highest level ever.  Severe weather, including the excessive Texas drought and record Midwestern flooding, forced us to send many trains on indirect routes to their destinations, resulting in greater fuel consumption. The combination of these weather-related issues, along with an improving economy that drove higher freight volumes, required us to pull older, less fuel-efficient locomotives out of storage in order to meet customer demand.

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Greenhouse Gas Emissions

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), freight railroads account for just 2.1 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from transportation. Cars, light trucks and motorcycles combined produce nearly 66 percent, while trucking generates more than 20 percent. Union Pacific produced a total of 11,560,004 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions in 2010.

Locomotives account for nearly all of our greenhouse gas emissions, and during the past 12 years we have reduced those emissions by investing in more fuel-efficient locomotives, retrofitting older locomotives to be more environmentally friendly and adopting more efficient operating practices. Our locomotive greenhouse gas emissions rate is at its lowest level ever.

In 2011, Union Pacific announced a goal to reduce our fuel consumption rate by 1 percent annually from 2011 to 2015, as measured on a gross-ton mile basis. Attaining this goal would represent a 23 percent fuel-efficiency improvement since 2000.

See page 24 of our Sustainability & Citizenship Report for more on Union Pacific’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

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Locomotives

We operate two primary types of locomotives – high-horsepower locomotives that pull freight over long distances and low-horsepower switch locomotives that work in train yards, sorting and delivering cars. We are committed to emissions reductions and are constantly conducting research to further reduce emissions.

Union Pacific works with locomotive manufacturers to develop technologies that meet or exceed EPA standards. Since 2000, Union Pacific has spent approximately $6 billion to purchase new, more fuel-efficient locomotives. Since that time, more than 3,500 of these locomotives have been added to Union Pacific's fleet, more than 2,650 older locomotives were retired and almost 4,150 locomotive diesel engines were overhauled or rebuilt with emissions control upgrades. See our Technology section to learn about Union Pacific’s pioneering locomotive initiatives.

There are five tiers of locomotive emission standards set by the EPA, which are progressively more stringent. These standards require continuing reductions in locomotive exhaust emissions of nitrogen oxide (NOx), particulate matter (PM) and other pollutants.  The highest standards, called Tier 4, take effect in 2015 for newly-built locomotives that reflect the application of high-efficiency aftertreatment technology; EPA estimates this technology, when available, will result in PM reductions of about 90 percent and NOx reductions of about 80 percent compared to older switch locomotives.

Locomotive Idling & Operating Practices

Our employees commit to using techniques that eliminate unnecessary fuel consumption.

In a railroad operating environment, locomotive engines may be kept idling for several reasons:

• In a yard, they idle between work events;
• On the main line, they idle while meeting or passing other trains and to maintain air brake pressure;
• In cold temperatures, they idle to keep their fuel and water lines from freezing.

Union Pacific has a comprehensive plan to reduce the amount of time locomotive engines idle. Part of the plan involves using automatic stop-start equipment on newer locomotives to eliminate unnecessary idling. Older locomotives are being retrofitted with similar technology. More than 70 percent of Union Pacific's locomotive fleet is now equipped with this technology. Locomotive shutdowns can save 15-24 gallons of fuel per locomotive, per day.

Operating practices that improve fuel efficiency and reduce fuel consumption include:

• Managing train speeds to maximize miles per gallon;
• Integrating our network and interchange operations with those of other railroads to minimize delays and reduce locomotive emissions;
• Implementing our Tons Per Axle (TPA) process, which uses horsepower more efficiently than before. TPA helps us build longer, more fuel-efficient trains.

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Fuel Masters Unlimited

Fuel Masters Unlimited is an award-winning, employee-driven program that rewards locomotive engineers. More than 7,000 engineers on almost 160 routes participate in the volunteer program, with the best fuel-consumption efforts rewarded with fuel cards for personal use. Our Fuel Masters Unlimited program is so successful that other railroads have implemented versions of it.

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Rail Cars

How we manage rail cars has tremendous environmental value. Actions include:

• Building a transportation plan to optimize performance, with initiatives such as maximizing train tonnage for the route structure and adjusting how we switch rail cars on trains to minimize blocked crossing time, which leads to reduced idle time for drivers in the communities we serve;
• Using proprietary software to route cars with as few miles and handlings as possible;
• Increasing carrying capacity; Average car capacity increased more than 25 percent since 1980;
• Working with other major North American railroads to create national pools that provide high quality boxcars to more customers and travel far fewer empty miles, thus reducing fleet size and increasing availability to customers;
• Upgrading refrigerated boxcars to reduce diesel particulate matter emissions by 50 percent;
• Collaborating with shippers to increase car capabilities, improving integrity and safety;
• Building freight cars out of lighter materials to reduce the amount of fuel required to move the car;
• Extending the life of new rail cars from 40 years to 50+ years by improving design and construction;
• Reusing parts when we scrap rail cars;
• Reducing the wind resistance of intermodal trains by matching the rail car length with container length, and reducing the number of empty slots.

As a result of these and other actions,

Union Pacific increased freight capacity in 2011 by handling five percent more ton-miles of freight while increasing train miles only three percent compared to 2010.

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Resource Use

Union Pacific reduces waste and encourages reusing and recycling materials. Minimizing resource requirements is central to our environmental initiatives.

Union Pacific has a sophisticated system to monitor our railroad tie replacement cycle to ensure ties are replaced only when the limits of their useful life have been reached. Union Pacific reuses railroad ties on our 32,000-mile network. Of the millions of wood railroad ties we replace annually, more than 85 percent are re-used in some manner.

Union Pacific uses concrete ties in high-tonnage, high-traffic areas where wear and tear is much greater. Because concrete ties last much longer than wooden ones, they require fewer materials and generate much less waste. We also use composite ties, made from 100 percent recycled plastic, in areas such as the Gulf Coast where wet weather reduces the lifespan of wood ties.

A primary focus of the company’s environmental stewardship program is providing education to reduce resource consumption. Suggestions from field employees were primary contributors to reducing paper usage in 2011 for the second consecutive year by nearly 20 million sheets. Suggestions also have brought changes to facility lighting, watering practices and other resources.

Employees are at the heart of another initiative to replace incandescent bulbs  with LED bulbs on all locomotives. In addition to reducing fuel consumption, the bulbs’ longer life reduces change-out frequency and waste. The project involves replacing about 90,000 bulbs.

In a typical year, Union Pacific recycles:

• 500,000 pounds of electronic equipment;
• One million pounds of signal batteries;
• More than 250,000 tons of metal - the equivalent Greenhouse Gas emissions to power more than 125,000 homes for a year;
• More than 4 million gallons of oil and diesel fuel, 100% of the oil captured at fueling and servicing facilities;
• More than 3,000 tons of solid waste, the equivalent Greenhouse Gas emissions as burning nearly 14,000 barrels of oil.

Where possible, Union Pacific looks for re-use opportunities in the community for items which have a remaining useful life but Union Pacific no longer needs. For instance, the company has provided used computers and monitors to those who don’t have access to them, including sending laptops to nonprofit organizations for use in developing countries.