UK jumps on hydrogen railwagon

(EurActiv, 18 Jun 2020) The UK government will fund the development of hydrogen trains, with researchers zeroing in on the final stages of a project aimed at cleaning up isolated parts of the British railway network.

Under the government’s ‘First of a Kind’ initiative, a team at the University of Birmingham will receive a grant worth £400,000 (€446,000) for completing detailed production designs and testing of a hydrogen train concept.

HydroFLEX is already a mature project, as a working demonstrator was rolled out at an industry event in June 2019. It is the first hydrogen train to run on the UK network and is the world’s first locomotive to have both fuel cells and electric batteries on board.

“To achieve the decarbonisation of the railway, we need to develop hydrogen technology, alongside electrification and batteries, as one of the means to get diesel trains off the network,” said the University of Birmingham’s railway research director, Alex Burrows.

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EurActiv, 18 Jun 2020: UK jumps on hydrogen railwagon