DrDeutsche Bahn wants to move away from diesel and therefore plans to switch to an entirely new technology. On Friday, Richard Lutz, president of Deutsche Bahn, completed the maiden flight with a new hydrogen train Mireo Plus H and then tested the new filling process with a mobile hydrogen filling station.
The new train, developed by Deutsche Bahn in cooperation with Siemens, has a range of about 1,000 kilometers, and its top speed, according to the company, can reach 160 kilometers per hour. From January, the Mireo Plus H will start its driving test in Baden-Württemberg, and after one year it will travel regularly between Tübingen, Horp and Würzheim.
By 2040, we will be Deutsche Bahn climate neutral. “One of the most important factors here is to say goodbye to diesel,” Lutz said. A single train saves up to 45,000 tons of CO2 over its 30-year service life2 Compared to car trips, Siemens president Roland Bosch added at the premiere of driving on Friday. Hydrogen technology replaces multiple diesel units in regional transportation in the future and thus makes a significant contribution to the phase-out of diesel.
General renewal from 2024 onwards
Deutsche Bahn praises hydrogen trains as a particularly climate-friendly driving technology, because, according to their statements, the trains run on “green hydrogen” without emissions – only water vapor is emitted. The federal government also has high hopes for this technology. The project is funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport for a total of 13.74 million euros.
While Lutz, the head of Bahn, was able to test the future of rail transport in southern Germany on Friday, his employees are grappling with the myriad construction sites the state-owned company has to contend with on the way there. The dilapidated rail network has caused significant train delays for several months, some of which may reach several hours. The condition of the railways is so bad that Federal Transport Minister Volker Wessing (FDP) and the railways have planned a general renovation starting in 2024. Then a number of lanes, which are also heavily used, will then be renovated so extensively that there will be complete closure on some roads. .
In addition, there are always weather-related failures, as happened in the last few days in Cologne. There, railway staff are struggling to repair damage caused by the massive influx of water that has disrupted train traffic in North Rhine-Westphalia since Thursday. Tens of thousands of liters of water must be pumped out of a signal box. The ingress of water has irreparably destroyed large parts of the signal box technology, the railways announced after assessing the damage.
Therefore, a number of cables and terminal strips have to be painstakingly replaced. Because of the extensive damage, Deutsche Bahn assumes that restrictions on train movement around Cologne will remain in place until at least Saturday. Regional and remote traffic via Cologne Messe/Deutz or Südbrücke will be diverted or partially cancelled.
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