(Bremervörde) – In Bremervörde, Lower Saxony, 14 fuel cell-powered trains have started regular passenger service. Some of these now supply the Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude route every hour. The “Coradia iLint” vehicles were built in the German branch of the French manufacturer Alstom SA in Salzgitter.

The owner is the Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen mbH (LNVG), a company owned by the state. The Elbe-Weser Railways and Transport Company (EVB) and the British industrial gases manufacturer Linde plc are also involved in the project.

From trial operation to regional supply

According to the information, the LNVG had already started looking for alternatives to the diesel trains previously used in 2012. After negotiations with Alstom, there was a two-year trial operation with two hydrogen-powered pre-production trains in northern Germany from September 2018.

Today, this is the first route in the world on which fuel cell trains “can run regularly,” said Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Stephan Weil in Bremervörde. According to Bernd Althusmann, Lower Saxony's Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor, Transport and Digitalization, his ministry has covered the costs of purchasing the 14 vehicles, amounting to over 85 million euros. The Federal Ministry of Transport added a further 8,4 million euros as part of the National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology, bringing the project volume to more than 93 million euros.

Gas station near Bremervörde

Already in August 2020 Linde started building one near the Bremervörde train station hydrogen filling station began. Today the system includes sixty-four 500-bar high-pressure storage tanks with a total capacity of 1.800 kilograms, six hydrogen compressors and two fuel pumps.

Expansion areas were planned during construction. This makes “later hydrogen production on site using electrolysis and renewable electricity” possible. Only then is the business actually ecological. Linde received federal funding of 4,3 million euros for the gas station.

The range of one tank full is 1.000 kilometers. This means that the multiple units can run emission-free on the EVB network at speeds of 80 to 120 for a day. The maximum speed is 140 kilometers per hour.

The regional trains replace 15 diesel trains and are expected to save 1,6 million liters of conventional fuel per year. According to Alstom, one kilogram of hydrogen replaces approximately 4,5 liters of diesel fuel.

Alstom sells, Siemens plans

Alstom has already completed trial operation of its hydrogen trains on the rails or at least several test phases in a number of other countries, including in Austria. The vehicle manufacturer signed a contract with the railway company in November 2020 FNM in the northern Italian region of Lombardy to deliver six Coradia iLint.

The following year, the Spanish energy supplier Iberdrola SA announced that it wanted to contribute to the Italian energy supply through an international consortium Apennine Railway to switch to green hydrogen. The trains will once connect the Italian hinterland between Sansepolcro (Arezzo) and Sulmona (L'Aquila) on a route more than 300 kilometers long.

Meanwhile, Siemens Mobility GmbH and Deutsche Bahn AG are currently trying to develop their own vehicle, called “Mireo Plus H“. This is scheduled to complete test drives in Baden-Württemberg between Tübingen and Pforzheim next year. The plan is to use the train in regular passenger service for one year from 2024.

Digitalization in regional passenger traffic

In June, Alstom also announced “the next phase” of a research project “Automated regional trains in Lower Saxony”. As part of a cooperation, the train manufacturer, LNVG, the TU Berlin and the Institute for Transport Systems Technology of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) want to develop solutions “to gradually digitize rail passenger transport in Germany”. The project is intended to explore the possibilities in regional transport using the European train control system ETCS.

The Lower Saxony State Local Transport Company provides two regional trains. While the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) supports the automation research project, the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economics is financing the equipment of the two test vehicles with 5,5 million euros.

Automation with signal detection

New systems for automated operation are being developed for the tests in Lower Saxony. This includes signal recognition in order to be able to recognize and interpret the railway traffic signs set up along the route, says Alstom.

The train also has to detect obstacles. In the event of a disruption, the train is controlled remotely or guided by the train attendant. It will also be determined whether the existing regulatory framework for automatic operation (ATO) needs to be adjusted.

Alstom is already testing trains in other countries

In a second phase, automated driving must take place under real conditions as far as possible. Alstom says it has “already shown with test trains in other countries that automated driving and remote control of trains can be technically implemented.”

According to Müslüm Yakisan, President of the DACH region at Alstom, the company is also involved in “several other ongoing automation projects for German regional transport”. For example, as part of the lighthouse projects Stuttgart 21 and Digital Hub Stuttgart, S-Bahn and regional trains in the greater Stuttgart area will be converted to ETCS technology.

Photo above
LNVG now owns 14 Coradia iLint, which are powered by hydrogen in the EVB network. © Alstom

Photo middle
Regional train Coradia iLint. © Alstom

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