The first passenger train fully powered by hydrogen fuel cells is now up and running in Lower Saxony, Germany, built by Alstom. The trains, called Coradia iLint trains, operates with less noise than any other trains and only emit steam and condensed water. The first five are currently in use, with another nine expected to replace the fleet of diesel-powered trains on the route within the next couple of months.
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Alstom says the Coradia iLint has a range of 1,000 kilometers, meaning that it can run all day on the line using a single tank of hydrogen. A hydrogen filling station has been set up on the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude.
The Coradia iLint trains started track tests back in 2018, and will be rolled out to several German lines soon. Alstom have said that its other agreements include 27 trains in the Frankfurt metropolitan area, with the two other contracts are for regions in Italy and France.
According to research done by Alstom, there are currently more than 4,000 diesel-powered trains in Germany alone. It believes that the rollout to electrified train cars have been too slow and that has left a gap for hydrogen to step in and take over the transition to more sustainable fuelled railways.
“It’s less noisy,” says Bruno Marguet from Alstom, the France-based company that designed and made the trains for LNVG, the German regional rail company that operates the trains. “You don’t smell the diesel smoke when you’re in the station . . . there aren’t diesel emissions from [nitrogen oxides], which are harmful for health.”
The company plans to transition completely away from diesel. “We will not buy any more diesel trains, in order to do even more to combat climate change,” Carmen Schwable, a spokesperson for LNVG, told Deutsche Welle (DW), Germany’s international broadcaster. “We [also] are convinced that diesel trains will no longer be economically viable in future.” Trains are already a lower-carbon choice for travel than flying, but like every other industry, train companies will have to move away from fossil fuels to meet global climate goals. Since trains can last for 30 years, new diesel trains arguably need to be phased out now.
