Hydrogen Cars, Vehicles and Infrastructure
Features information on hydrail or hydrogen railway trains including hydrolley (hydrogen trolley) and other H2-powered rail vehicles.
By guest blogger Stan Thompson Bill Thunberg and I, two of the three founders of the Mooresville Hydrail Initiative (Google it), are also members of the Mooresville NC, USA, Rotary Club. Imagine our delight when we received this month’s The Rotarian Magazine with its cover page article, “CLIMATE SOLUTIONS WITHIN OUR REACH.” In the […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson Fifteen years ago the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy introduced the public to the hydrail future of the railway industry in an invited article, “The Mooresville Hydrail Initiative” (February 2004: volume 29, issue 4, page 438). One main reason for the IJHE article was to establish […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger, Stan Thompson When Dr. Holger Busche conceived wind turbine powered commuter trains for Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, back in 1998, he probably had a business model in mind, though he is a committed environmentalist. But by the time I presented the passenger hydrail concept to the US DOT in 2003, the environmental angle had become […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson On Sunday, September 16, 2018, at Bremervörde, in the State of Niedersachsen, Germany, I boarded the first intercity hydrail train—my dream since 2003! It was Alstom’s shiny new blue Coradia iLint Hydrogen Multiple Unit light rail train, wireless electric and silent as the wind turbines on the North German horizon […]
Continue ReadingThe Mooresville Hydrail Initiative, begun in August, 2003, as an invited proposal to the US DOT’s Volpe “think tank”, reached its primary goal this morning (17 September 2018) as the first ticketed passengers rode Alstom’s ghostly quiet Coradia iLint trains through Lower Saxony—the world’s first regular intercity hydrail passenger traffic! Stan Thompson (pictured above), the […]
Continue Readinga first step toward bringing hydrail back home by guest blogger, Stan Thompson North Carolina operates its own passenger railway service. The State Department of Transportation has begun plans to modify the locomotives on its line from the State Capital (Raleigh) to the State’s biggest city, (Charlotte) to be powered electrically by hydrogen via fuel […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson (a version of this blog first appeared in my Mooresville Tribune column) Still hanging in the air is the sensationalism smoke (“Oh, the humanity!”) from the 1937 Hindenburg myth. It’s polluted the true hydrogen story for about 80 years too long. Maybe it’s time to clear the air by whistling-up […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson The University of Rome II at Tor Vergata hosted the Thirteenth International Hydrail Conference the week of June 4, 2018, and it was a delightful success! Professor Stefano Cordiner and his colleagues saw that the Conference ran like a well-oiled clock (Tutto era semplicemente perfetto! Grazie!). The IHC’s have come […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson Last Thursday (10 May 2018), Choe San-Hun wrote in the New York Times that, during their recent historic encounter, South Korean President Moon Jae-in handed North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un a “USB drive” containing an infrastructure vision including railway modernization. Mr. Choe does not mention hydrogen fuel cell railways but, […]
Continue Readingby guest blogger Stan Thompson A major milestone in railway history was passed on April 13, 2018, when Alstom Transport’s Coradia iLint hydrail [hydrogen fuel cell rail] train made a “presentation ride” from Wiesbaden to Frankfurt, in the federal state of Hesse, Germany. From my point of view it was a bittersweet occasion for two […]
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