Hydrail versus the Tower of Babel

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Thank you, Bill Vantuono, for your Railway Age, November 15, 2019, introduction to a long overdue American first:  San Bernardino’s history-making, Stadler-built hydrogen multiple unit or “HMU”.  It’s a bittersweet debut for those of us who worked for years—beginning in 2003—to add hydrail to Kitty Hawk as a North Carolina transportation […]

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Germany Premiers Intercity Hydrail

  The 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 […]

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Yes, Google, there is a hydrail

by guest blogger Stan Thompson Dear Google: “hydrail” is really a word, and has been since at least February of 2004 when it appeared in an invited article in the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (volume 29, issue 4, page 438). It was used as early as 2003 in an invited presentation at the US DOT’s […]

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United Hydrail Nations

by guest blogger Stan Thompson This update follows much farther behind the wonderfully successful 9th International Hydrail Conference in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany (June 2014) than I had intended.  The reason is one I can’t regret: the cast of international players on the hydrail stage has grown so large, and there are so many  intertwining plots, that I can hardly keep up […]

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UK Hydrail Conference Date Change Now July 3 – 4, 2012

by guest blogger Stan Thompson The 7th International Hydrail Conference (“7IHC”) will be held one week later than originally planned so that conferees at an important German rail conference can attend both events. During the 20th century, coal-fired steam locomotives gave way to diesel and external electric traction power. Now, in the 21st, diesel and […]

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