Florida Rail Service to Run on Biodiesel

October 31, 2008

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
A Florida commuter rail service will move passengers using palm and soy oil-based biodiesel.
Biodiesel is making commuter rail traffic in south Florida a little greener.
Tri-Rail, the commuter rail service connecting Miami with Fort Lauderdale and Palm Beach, announced this week that it was beginning to power most of its trains with biodiesel made from palm and soy oil, depending on the availability of each feedstock.
According to the Palm Beach Post, it is one of the first systems in the nation to do so.
Tri-Rail said the new fuel will cost no more than regular diesel because while it runs about 7 percent less efficiently it costs between 10 and 30 cents less a gallon.
James Simpson, head of the Federal Transit Administration, attended a ceremony celebrating the switch and praised the change in one of the nation's fastest growing commuter lines.
"We are about to transfer a trillion dollars out of this country," he was quoted as saying in The Post, "It's going up in the smoke of diesel fuel, and its going to foreign countries."