NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways has developed the design of the Hydrogen-powered passenger train. And, if everything goes as per plan, the Indian Railways will conduct its ‘trial run’ by the end of 2023.
Confirming this to this newspaper, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Saturday said: “The Indian Railways has developed the design of Hydrogen-powered passenger train, which will be first of its kind in India with indigenous technology”.
In 2018, Germany introduced the world’s first commercial Hydrogen-powered passenger train. He said that a lot of work required to develop the Hydrogen–powered train has been done. This will be in addition to India’s indigenously developed high-speed Vande Bharat and the upcoming bullet train services in the country.
In reply to a specific query, the Railway Minister said that there would not be any requirement to have additional separate tracks to run the Hyperogen-powered trains.“The Indian Railways has enough tracks and technical capability to run such train with our own technology,” he said.
He said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to have world-class train services and a lot of work is being done in the country. He also said that India will soon become the fourth country after Germany and the other two to have the technology to run the Hydrogen-powered train.
“Our focus is not only making new trains. But also working hard track management, technology advancements in rail transportation and bringing new innovation in services to emerge as world’s one of the most developed and technology-driven train services,” he claimed, adding that PM Modi has envisioned the new concept for Indian Railway.
He said that the Vande Bharat train technology has attracted a lot of global attention as it has a proven record of extreme efficiency, accuracy, and safe and swift train services. The Railway Minister said that the Hydrogen-powered passenger train will be a small train having 6 to 8 coaches, but its technology will be extremely brilliant and indigenous as Indian engineers have designed it meticulously.