Wherever electrification is difficult or too expensive in the world, efforts are made to replace diesel-powered railway locomotives with hydrogen as it provides an emission-free quieter alternative that can be economically feasible.
Taking a cue from this, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav, on Tuesday, said the Indian Railways will run hydrogen trains on its narrow gauge heritage routes by December 2023.
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These trains will be introduced on the lines of trains running in China and Germany.
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Once the hydrogen-powered trains introduced, the heritage routes will go completely eco-friendly.
Germany’s Coradia iLint is the world’s first passenger train powered by a hydrogen fuel cell, which produces electrical power for traction. This zero-emission train emits a low level of noise, with the only exhaust being steam and condensed water. The train can run 1000 km at a speed of 140 km per hour. This train was being tested in Germany since 2018.
China has also recently introduced Asia’s first hydrogen-powered train for urban railways. As per reports, it gets a range of 600 km on a single tank, with a top speed of 160 kmph.
The heritage routes of the Indian Railways, which run mainly on diesel – Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, Nilgiri Mountain Railway, Kalka Shimla Railway, Matheran Hill Railway, Kangra Valley, Bilmora Waghai and Marwar-Deogarh Madaria – all run on narrow gauge.
As a pilot project, the Railways is manufacturing a hydrogen-fueled train at its Golden Rock Workshop in Tamil Nadu. It will be tested on the Sonipat-Jind section of Haryana.
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