N Scale Powered Truck

Isuzu Commercial Trucks Now Powered by B20 Biodiesel Blends

According to Isuzu Commercial Truck's Retail Marketing Manager , and improved biodiesel fuel quality and industry support in the U.S. under the assurances of ASTM D7467, the American Society of Testing and Materials specifications for B6-B20 biodiesel blends.  

"Our customers at Isuzu Commercial Truck of America have been asking for approval to use B20 in our products in the U.S. for many years," Tabel said.  "We are really happy to now turn that request into a reality and bring B20 biodiesel capability to the U.S. market."

Isuzu's announcement is indeed timely as the U.S. biodiesel industry ramps up for its biggest year yet, with expected production volumes of at least 800 million gallons of biodiesel in 2011 to meet requirements under EPA's Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS-2) program.  Made from an increasingly diverse mix of feedstocks, biodiesel is the only fuel produced in commercial scale volumes in the U.S. that qualifies as an Advanced Biofuel under EPA definitions.

Biodiesel's sustainability and cost-effectiveness as a domestically produced, renewable fuel was another factor that appealed to Isuzu Commercial Truck as they considered different powertrain options for meeting the increasingly stringent U.S. emissions standards.  

"In looking for ways to lessen our environmental footprint while also improving fuel economy, we realized that our customers can much more easily afford a high fuel-efficiency, B20-compatible diesel vehicle running on biodiesel blends than some of the very expensive hybrid vehicles out there," Tabel added.  "Biodiesel just makes sense."

National Biodiesel Board CEO welcomed Isuzu's announcement by saying, "We are extremely pleased to see Isuzu Commercial Truck join the ranks of OEMs openly supporting B20 biodiesel blends.  Now more than 60 percent of manufacturers in the U.S. market approve the use of B20 or higher blends in at least some of their equipment.  With Isuzu setting the pace as a market leader in the medium-duty truck segment, we look forward to more OEM announcements of support for B20 in the near future.

Two Wheel Truck or Three Wheel Truck? - nScale.net

I finally got my track work in some good working order, and I'm about ready to purchase an Atlas loco, either an RS3 or an RSD4/5. Will a truck with more wheels perform better and provide better electrical pickup over one with less? How is the slow performance on either of these locos? I have an Atlas VO1000 which seems to stutter over the switches, and I'm hoping both dual fly-wheels and some extra pickups might help with the performance of the loco. Thanks! I would check the truck pickups on your VO1000 to make sure they are all making good contact. I use DeoxIT D100L to improve and keep the connection clean. I would also make sure the loco wheels and track are clean. Both the RS3 and RSD4/5 will work great and the RSD4/5 being a short loco with short 3 axle truck will not have a problem with sharp curves. Since you have don't have to worry about tight radius curves- you can afford to go prototypical. Railroads typically used 3 axle trucks on branchlines that used lighter rail- the 3 axles distributed the weight more evenly and reduced the load stress on the lighter rail. I don't know what your railroad applications will be- but there is a clue on which engine you should choose. Thanks for the suggestion. I would have thought two wheel trucks would be used on lighter rail, mainly because prototypically, I assumed lighter rail would be used in tighter curves. That makes sense though, that they would use three wheel trucks to distribute the weight. I'm trying to model a late 1950's freelance short line, that provides service to local farms in Southern NJ. The railroad basically picks up produce from the local farms, and shuttles them over to a warehouse for distribution, or onto some of the other larger railroads, like the CNJ, and the New York Central.

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