HolyCoast: Mommy, Why Does The Train Smell Like French Fries?
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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Mommy, Why Does The Train Smell Like French Fries?

If you smell french fries during your visit to Disneyland, the smell might not be coming from one of the restaurants:
The trains that fueled the dream for Walt Disney and his empire are being fed a steady diet of cleaner-burning, more environmentally friendly biodiesel.

The magic ingredient: soybean oil.

Since January, the four operable trains that run along the Disneyland Railroad have been injected with the orangey-yellow liquid (resembling apple juice), with workers slowly weaning the steam locomotives off of ultra low sulfur diesel. The trains are now a mix of 2 percent diesel and 98 percent soybean oil, known as B98....

While biodiesel is known to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the state Air Resources Board classifies the fuel source under diesel because tests have shown it releases nitrogen oxide into the air, said spokeswoman Karen Caesar.

But for Disneyland, the conversion has also been cost-effective – while the regular diesel rate is $2.96 per gallon, the B98 biodiesel runs $2.42 per gallon.
I'm not sure Disneyland would have been so eager to change had the cost been 50 cents MORE a gallon.

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