Germany's Lower Saxony government started running 14 hydrogen trains in August 2022

Lets keep this in the bag for when the UK government thinks this is a good idea here.

  • ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.ukEnglish
    1·
    11 months ago

    I had to wonder about the point of this - railways are set up to use electricity, it would seem the simplest thing is just to go all in on that.

    I do wonder about the railways utilising the large surface areas they have to generate electricity. Banging solar panels on sheds and stations is a no-brainer but, with better solar panel technology (printable, flexible, more robust, etc) could you not lay miles of them alongside (or even between?) the tracks? They could end up generating all the electricity they needed.

    • Patch@feddit.ukEnglish
      1·
      11 months ago

      My thoughts exactly. What on earth is the point of hydrogen trains when electric trains have been a thing for about 150 years? I guess it might be marginally cheaper to switch diesel to hydrogen vs installing overhead lines or third rails, but considering the cost of setting up hydrogen infrastructure (not to mention developing the rolling stock) I doubt it’s vastly cheaper.

      Overhead lines supplemented with chemical batteries for short stretches where it’s impractical seems like the solution in almost all cases.