Federal regulations pertaining to railroad locomotive emissions are based upon the years the locomotives were manufactured.  The older locomotives, those manufactured before 2001, are allowed to the pollute the most, while the newest locomotives, those manufactured from 2015 forward, must […]

In January of 2010, the Chicago Reporter first reported that commuters who ride passenger trains in Chicago are exposed to “really extreme levels” of cancer-causing diesel exhaust.  Testing performed in 2009 by the Clean Air Task Force and commissioned by […]

Diesel exhaust is a known carcinogen.  Every day, over 100,000 people come and go from Chicago Union Station.  And every day, those passengers and all the railroad workers who serve them are exposed to “huge levels” of diesel exhaust.  Here […]

In 1914, the poet Carl Sandburg published his great poem, “Chicago”, which included the following: Hog Butcher for the World, Tool maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler; Stormy, husky, brawling, City of the Big […]

It was an important moment in 2012 when the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer declared that diesel fumes are “carcinogenic to humans.” For workers everywhere, this finding confirmed that their long-term exposures to diesel exhaust likely […]