Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned rail company, announced on Monday that it would begin trialling a new hydrogen-powered train. The rail company wants to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2050.

Trains for the future

Deutsche Bahn has announced that it will build the new train, developed in partnership with Siemens, and a refuelling station by 2024. The train will be trialled for a year, over a range of 600 kilometres in the Tübingen area of Baden-Württemberg. The new train will save around 330 tonnes of CO2 every year and will have a top speed of 160 kilometres an hour.

The proposed plans are the latest development in Deutsche Bahn’s mission to reduce its carbon emissions to zero by 2050. In order to do this, Deutsche Bahn will have to replace all 1.300 of its diesel trains. Currently, 39 percent of the rail network in Germany has no overhead power lines, so trains operating in these areas have to have their own fuel supply, such as diesel.

The company’s planned refuelling station makes hydrogen-powered trains more of a viable option than ever before; for the first-time hydrogen trains will be refuelled as fast as conventional diesel trains. “The fact that we... will refuel the train as quickly as a diesel train shows that the climate-friendly transport transition is possible,” said Sabina Jeschke, a Deutsche Bahn board member.

Hydrogen power in Germany

A hydrogen-powered train has already been introduced to Germany railways when the French company Alstom presented the world’s first hydrogen-powered train in the state of Lower Saxony in 2018. The high-speed train manufacturer has since received 41 orders for its Coradia iLint train.

The government in Berlin announced it was earmarking 7 billion euros towards the country’s “Hydrogen Strategy” and another 2 billion to fund hydrogen projects in other countries, as part of its coronavirus stimulus package.