ECONOMICALLY FEASIBLE ALTERNATIVES TO OPEN BURNING IN RAILROAD FREIGHT CAR DISMANTLING

Open burning of retired railroad freight cars has been the accepted practice for removing the wood to prepare metal components for scrap and salvage operations. New legislation and enforcement zeal threaten the survival of the dismantling industry unless economical alternative methods involving acceptable emission levels are employed. A search for technologically feasible alternatives produced a listing of 39 methods, ranging from simple modifications of existing practice to complex automated, fully mechanized systems. All of the alternative methods satisfied the requirement that pollutant emission be at legally acceptable levels or entirely eliminated. A second requirement of short lead time for implementation led to the rejection of experimental processes and fully mechanized, automatic systems at this time. On the basis of eight other cost-effectiveness criteria, a qualitative screening resulted in the rejection of all but eleven methods. These final, candidate methods were evaluated by application of a forced decision model often used in value engineering. The eight criteria and eleven candidate methods were the arguments of a two-dimensional distribution matrix in which the scores were determined from the decision model exercise. The two highest scoring methods were emission-controlled wood incineration within the confines of each car by means of a special stack or hood configuration; and the use of high-pressure water jets to out away the wood. These methods have been demonstrated in principle by actual field tests performed on box cars in scrap yards. (Authors' Abstract)

• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was presented at the 61st Annual Meeting of the Air Pollution Control Association in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 23-27, 1968.
• Corporate Authors:

  Booz-Allen Applied Research, Incorporated

  4733 Bethesda Avenue
  Bethesda, MD  United States  20014
• Authors:
  • Hamburg, F C
  • Bierman, G R
  • Butler, D M
  • Graham, W M
  • Truett, J B
• Publication Date: 1968-4-1

Media Info

• Features: References;
• Pagination: 25 p.

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Air pollution; Environmental impacts; Freight cars; Solid waste disposal; Waste disposal
• Old TRIS Terms: Freight car disposal
• Subject Areas: Environment; Railroads;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 00041758
• Record Type: Publication
• Source Agency: Air Pollution Technical Information Center
• Report/Paper Numbers: Paper 68-179 Preprint
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: May 4 1973 12:00AM