During a long-distance journey, an unmodified serially-produced Coradia iLint train covered 1,175 kilometers without refueling the hydrogen tank, only emitting water and operating with very low levels of noise. The vehicle used for this journey comes from the fleet belonging to LNVG (Landesnahverkehrsgesellschaft Niedersachsen), the transport authority of Lower Saxony, and has been in regular passenger operation on the network of evb (Eisenbahnen und Verkehrsbetriebe Elbe-Weser GmbH) since mid-August. For the project, Alstom also partnered with the gas and engineering company Linde.
“We are pleased to be leading innovation in this area as the first railway manufacturer in the world to offer a passenger train based on hydrogen technology. With this journey, we have provided further proof that our hydrogen trains have all the prerequisites to replace diesel vehicles,” said Henri Poupart-Lafarge, CEO and Chairman of the Board at Alstom. “We are immensely proud of the pioneering work we have done in introducing hydrogen to rail transport.”
Starting in Bremervörde, the route took the Coradia iLint across Germany. From Lower Saxony, where the hydrogen train was built and developed by Alstom, it traveled through Hesse to Bavaria, all the way to Burghausen near the German-Austrian border before coming to a stop in Munich. Following this journey, the train now heads for the German capital. Several trips through Berlin are on the agenda as part of InnoTrans 2022 to be held from 20 to 23 September.
In addition to the contract with LNVG for 14 Coradia iLint trains for operation in Lower Saxony, Alstom has been commissioned to supply 27 Coradia iLint trains for use in the Frankfurt metropolitan area. Outside Germany, Alstom is building 6 Coradia Stream hydrogen trains in the Italian region of Lombardy, with an additional option agreed for eight more vehicles.
