NEW DELHI (Metro Rail News): Ashwini Vaishnaw the Union Minister for Railways stated that India is developing hydrogen-powered trains, and they will be ready by 2023. The numbers of advantages come with the use of hydrogen and in particular, green hydrogen as a rail fuel, including supporting zero carbon goals as a clean energy source.
Only Germany has so far created hydrogen-powered trains. Germany introduced the first fleet of hydrogen-powered passenger trains this year. At a cost of about $92 million, the French company Alstom developed 14 trains with hydrogen fuel cell drive.
India received its first indigenously made hydrogen fuel cell bus last month, which was developed by KPIT-CSIR in Pune.
The Vaishnaw also stated that work on the Gati Shakti terminals policy is moving quickly and Indian Railways is attempting to connect the remote and unconnected areas of the nation with the railway network.
The Vande Bharat Express, a semi-high-speed train that is among the fastest, was developed domestically in India using in-house technology and the train has been running smoothly without any major breakdown for the last years,” the minister said, adding that more such Vande Bharat Express trains are being manufactured at ICF and will be put into service. The train has been operating smoothly for the past two years without experiencing any major breakdowns. Recently, the Railway Safety Commissioner gave the green signal for Vande Bharat.
When discussing train and track management earlier, the minister had said, “In order to operate semi-high- or high-speed trains, we are also making significant progress on a track management system. In a Vande Bharat test run, we’ve already demonstrated that a fully loaded water glass didn’t shake at 180 kph, but it did shake the entire world.”
Vaishnaw also stated that after the successful completion of Vande Bharat’s trial run, the serial production of the remaining 72 trains will soon begin.
“It is noteworthy that the third Vande Bharat train can travel at a top speed of 180 km/h. It took 52 seconds to go from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour as opposed to the bullet train’s 55 seconds. Vande Bharat trains of the first generation have a top speed of 160 kmph and can accelerate from 0 to 100 kmph in 54.6 seconds ” he added.
