Regional and rural railways poses a huge problem for the railway to decarbonise. LORNA MCDONALD of Hitachi Rail and JAY MEHTA of Hitachi ABB Power Grids tell ANDY RODEN why they believe they have the answer.
‘Electrification is the utopian position everyone wants to achieve’ says Lorna McDonald, Hitachi Rail Head of Commuter UK. But achieving that happy state will take many years. For some rural routes, it is unlikely ever to be viable.
Transport is desperately seeking decarbonisation solutions across all modes. Huge strides have been made in automotive batteries for cars in terms of range and capability, but the picture is a little different for more demanding sectors such as rail. Therefore, collaborative thinking and combining technologies may be necessary.
Battery-powered vehicles are part of the solution. However, in rail a battery-only solution can only undertake a full duty cycle on the very shortest routes without recharging. Although on some branch lines it is eminently feasible to recharge trains at termini, on other routes the prospect of extending dwell times at intermediate stations for a top-up could be unpalatable.
Hybrid hydrogen fuel cells can potentially solve the range problem, but a…
