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(CNN) — The future of eco-friendly travel may just be here — and Germany is leading the charge, with its first rail line running entirely on hydrogen-powered trains starting Wednesday.
14 hydrogen trains powered by fuel cell propulsion operate exclusively in Bremervoorde, Lower Saxony. The €93 million ($92.3 million) deal was made by state subsidiary Landsnaverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen (LVNG), the railway’s owner, and Alstom, the developer of the Coradia iLint trains. The Elbe-Weser Railway and Transport Company (EVB), which operates the trains, and the gas and engineering company Linde are part of the project.
The five trains started on Wednesday and will gradually replace the 15 diesel trains currently on the route, and all 14 trains will be in service by the end of the year. 1 kg of hydrogen fuel can do about the same as 4.5 kg of diesel.
The trains are emission-free and low-noise, with only steam and compressed water coming out of the exhaust. They have a range of 1,000 kilometers (621 miles), meaning they can run on the grid for a full day on a single tank of hydrogen. A hydrogen filling station has already been set up on the road. The trains can go at a maximum of 140 km/h or 87 mph, although the normal speed on the line is much lower, between 80-120 km/h.
Only steam and compressed water comes out of the train exhaust.
Alstom
“Free mobility is one of the most important goals to ensure a sustainable future,” Alstom CEO Henri Popupart Lafarge said in a statement.
Ten years have passed since the agreement was made. LVNG has been looking for diesel alternatives since 2012, according to a press release, and in 2018, Alstom conducted a two-year trial of the trains. Germany currently has around 4,000 diesel trains on its non-electric routes. Coradia Elint has been tested in Austria, Poland, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The refueling station operated by Linde has 64 high pressure storage tanks, six hydrogen compressors and two fuel pumps.
The president of Lower Saxony, Stefan Weil, called the news “a model for the rest of the world” and “an important milestone on the road to climate neutrality in the transport sector”.
The next destination of the trains is Frankfurt, of which 27 have been ordered for the metropolitan region. In Italy and France, 12 trains are shared across four regions, with six trains operating in the northern Lombardy region.
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