Diesel

VINCE FUMO was taken on a nearly two-week journey from federal prison, in Ashland, Ky., to the Federal Detention Center in Center City as he awaits resentencing Wednesday. He shared some of his thoughts from the "diesel therapy" - his bus and plane trips - in emails to fiancée Carolyn Zinni. OCT. 27: * It was a very interesting experience but the guys were really good, and since I am the oldest in here, 2 guys offered me their seats. :-) One was a drug dealer and the other was a counterfeiter.

Exhaust from diesel trucks and buses is so unhealthy - it has been linked to heart attacks, cancer and breathing problems - that 21 state, county and city governments have restricted how long engines may be left idling. The problem is, most of them do almost nothing to enforce the rules. An Inquirer survey has found that 13 of the 21 agencies issued 10 or fewer citations for the most recent year of data available, in most cases 2003. Eight wrote no tickets at all. Philadelphia has issued 17 $300 tickets so far this year, after years of little or no enforcement.

2012 Volkswagen Touareg TDI Lux: A mileage boost, but a particulate boost, too. Price: $53,225 (No options. A sport version with gasoline engine can be had starting at $43,375, and a sport TDI starts at $46,875.) Marketer's pitch: The premium diesel SUV with the soul of a Volkswagen. Conventional wisdom: Diesel means smelly, dirty, and underpowered, right? Reality: The engine works great and is definitely not smelly, dirty, or underpowered.

The rebound in the nation's economy is continuing to cause at least two problems for Union Pacific Corp., the nation's biggest railroad. The first involves its workforce and resulting shipping delays. The Omaha, Neb., company has been struggling with a crew shortage and rail congestion since last fall, when the economy began picking up. The railroad also was surprised by the number of engineers and conductors taking retirement under new federal rules. At a meeting May 17 in San Francisco, Union Pacific customers complained about delays that in some cases almost doubled shipping time.

SEPTA will spend $171 million on 245 new buses, under a plan sent to the SEPTA board Thursday. Most of the buses are to be built with hybrid electric-diesel engines, though 85 are set to be cheaper diesel-powered buses. Hybrid buses are more fuel-efficient and less polluting but cost about 34 percent more than diesel buses. If the SEPTA board approves next Thursday, the contract will be awarded to NOVA Bus, a Canadian subsidiary of Swedish manufacturer Volvo Bus Corp. The buses are to be built in NOVA's Plattsburgh, N.Y., plant.

SEPTA will get $15 million for new hybrid buses, the Federal Transit Administration said Monday. The money will be added to existing state and local funds to provide $78 million for 55 articulated 60-foot diesel-electric hybrid buses, SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch said. The new buses, to be delivered next year, will bring to 527 the number of hybrid buses in SEPTA's 1,400-bus fleet.      - Paul Nussbaum  

The company that oversees developer Willard G. Rouse 3d's Liberty Place project was chosen yesterday by the authority Rouse heads to be construction consultant for the Center City convention center. Rouse, chairman of the Pennsylvania Convention Center Authority, abstained as the authority dismissed conflict-of-interest objections and voted 6-1 to select Morse/Diesel Inc. of New York over three other firms for a consulting contract that is expected to cost the city between $2 million and $3 million.

Working without the clatter and smoke of diesel equipment, farmers use a team of six mules and old-fashioned elbow grease to harvest corn from this field on Highland Road in Atglen. Harvest season is upon the area, even though the temperatures say it's summer.

"One of the greatest losses in not expanding Medicaid [is the loss of] opportunity to put together all the various pieces of the system. " - Al Black, COO, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. " . . . We cannot ignore the $4.1 billion in state-only taxpayer costs over the next eight years that could occur as a result of expanding Medicaid in Pennsylvania. " - Carey Miller, spokeswoman, Pennsylvania Department of Welfare. "It's confirmation of a trend.

THE DRIVER OF a bakery truck that sat in a Southwest Philly Wawa parking lot for nearly 40 minutes wasn't delivering bread - but police say he had dough in mind. Police on Monday arrested Keith Jones, 55, of Kingsessing, on charges that he stole 513 gallons of diesel fuel worth about $2,000 from the Wawa at Bartram and Island avenues on Feb. 4. Jones, operating a Stroehmann bread-delivery truck he'd purchased at an auction about two weeks earlier, siphoned the gas from a station ground pump into a large storage tank, police said.

"One of the greatest losses in not expanding Medicaid [is the loss of] opportunity to put together all the various pieces of the system. " - Al Black, COO, Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. " . . . We cannot ignore the $4.1 billion in state-only taxpayer costs over the next eight years that could occur as a result of expanding Medicaid in Pennsylvania. " - Carey Miller, spokeswoman, Pennsylvania Department of Welfare. "It's confirmation of a trend.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - High seas and strong winds prevented crews from boarding an oil drilling ship to check for any damage after the large vessel went aground off an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Alaska. A Coast Guard plane and a helicopter flew over the Kulluk on Tuesday, but severe weather did not permit putting marine experts on board the drilling rig, which had grounded on a sand and gravel beach in stormy seas. Federal on-scene response coordinator Capt. Paul Mehler said the Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig is carrying about 143,000 gallons of diesel and about 12,000 gallons of lube oil and hydraulic fluid, and appeared stable.

2013 Volkswagen Jetta TDI (diesel) with Premium and Nav: Fun and practicality. Price: $27,215 as tested. An automatic TDI would start at $24,090. A six-speed manual begins at $22,990. (A gasoline S starts at $16,675, an SE at $18,995.) Conventional wisdom: Diesels remain unpopular in the United States, even after ultra-low-sulfur blends were mandated in 2007. They had been rising in popularity until plateauing at about 2.8 percent of cars sold from 2011 through 2012, according to Edmunds.com.

Scheduled for a September showroom debut, the extensively redesigned 2013 Mercedes-Benz GL turns out to be more than a superb sport ute. In the name of safety, comfort, saving petrol, on and off-road traction, and fording streams up to two feet deep, this largest and most costly of the Benz SUVs also proves a technological treasure trove. There's enough standard and optional hardware and software here to cause an UberGeek to OD. If the GL could stage an orgy attended by algorithms and artificial intelligence instead of decadent Romans, it would easily outdraw one of Caligula's mixers.

2012 Volkswagen Touareg TDI Lux: A mileage boost, but a particulate boost, too. Price: $53,225 (No options. A sport version with gasoline engine can be had starting at $43,375, and a sport TDI starts at $46,875.) Marketer's pitch: The premium diesel SUV with the soul of a Volkswagen. Conventional wisdom: Diesel means smelly, dirty, and underpowered, right? Reality: The engine works great and is definitely not smelly, dirty, or underpowered.

Grenloch Lake in Washington Township, which was contaminated by 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel in January, is set to reopen for fishing on Saturday. More than 9,000 gallons of fuel were pulled from the Gloucester County lake during a four-month cleanup, and additional fuel was removed from the surrounding soil or evaporated, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said. "There would be some slight residual trace, but as time goes by, that will completely disappear," said spokesman Larry Ragonese.

SEPTA will spend $171 million on 245 new buses, under a plan sent to the SEPTA board Thursday. Most of the buses are to be built with hybrid electric-diesel engines, though 85 are set to be cheaper diesel-powered buses. Hybrid buses are more fuel-efficient and less polluting but cost about 34 percent more than diesel buses. If the SEPTA board approves next Thursday, the contract will be awarded to NOVA Bus, a Canadian subsidiary of Swedish manufacturer Volvo Bus Corp. The buses are to be built in NOVA's Plattsburgh, N.Y., plant.

Diesel fuel from an underground supply line at a NJ Transit bus depot tainted about four miles of waterway in Washington and Gloucester Townships before emergency crews contained it Thursday. Roughly 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel from the ruptured underground line seeped into a storm drain and a stream leading to Grenloch Lake, which is in Washington Township and Gloucester Township, and into Blackwood Lake in Gloucester Township, said Larry Hajna, a spokesman with the state Department of Environmental Protection.

For the first time, the top export of the United States, the biggest gas guzzler in the world, is - wait for it - fuel. Measured in dollars, the country is on pace this year to ship more gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel than any other single export, according to U.S. census data going back to 1990. It will also be the first year in more than 60 that America has been a net exporter of these fuels. A decade ago, fuel was not even among the top 25 exports. And for the last five years, America's top export was aircraft.