Andrew Holland
Member
- Joined
- 7 Jun 2018
- Messages
- 62
The class 799 prototype was however featured on BBC Breakfast this morning though.
-
Our booking engine at tickets.railforums.co.uk (powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
Class 799 hydrogen flex trains...
- Thread starter Metal_gee_man
- Start date
- Status
The class 799 prototype was however featured on BBC Breakfast this morning though.
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
superkev
Established Member
Ian Warmsley of modern railways mag soundly rubbished hydrogen power a couple of issues ago. Production cost and inefficencys plus transportation costs see only about 10% of what you started with available at the wheel. Electricity is around 70%.
I think that until someone finds a green way of making it without consuming vast amount of energy and fossil fuels it's totally uneconomic and a waste of resources.
K
I think that until someone finds a green way of making it without consuming vast amount of energy and fossil fuels it's totally uneconomic and a waste of resources.
K
Shaw S Hunter
Established Member
During coverage of last weekend's Le Mans 24 Hours there was a discussion about hydrogen powered road vehicles. By all accounts development is moving so quickly that Le Mans is "all in" and expects hydrogen powered vehicles to be in the race and genuinely competitive within 2 or 3 years. The discussion also referred to a recent press event around the opening of a hydrogen fuelling station at Beaconsfield services on the M40, significant as it is able to produce hydrogen on-site thereby eliminating transport costs. Seemingly the economics of this depend on the availability of cheap overnight electricity. However since this would be necessary to encourage predominantly overnight charging of battery cars it's reasonable to suppose that suitable pricing will be available. It's also the case that H-cars have more range than battery-powered ones.
Evidently the oil companies are very much behind hydrogen power rather than battery, not surprising when you consider how much of the petrol retail sector remains under their control. Posters have rightly mentioned the relative overall inefficiency of hydrogen power but that needs to be set against the cost, including environmental, of producing a huge volume of vehicle propulsion batteries as well as a potentially vast charging infrastructure. I suspect that for road vehicles hydrogen power may very well catch on: the question is whether the same arguments translate to the rail sector. I also note that progress continues to be made with the development of hydrogen powered trains and there seems to be growing political enthusiasm for the concept: I'm not sure the same can be said for battery power.
Evidently the oil companies are very much behind hydrogen power rather than battery, not surprising when you consider how much of the petrol retail sector remains under their control. Posters have rightly mentioned the relative overall inefficiency of hydrogen power but that needs to be set against the cost, including environmental, of producing a huge volume of vehicle propulsion batteries as well as a potentially vast charging infrastructure. I suspect that for road vehicles hydrogen power may very well catch on: the question is whether the same arguments translate to the rail sector. I also note that progress continues to be made with the development of hydrogen powered trains and there seems to be growing political enthusiasm for the concept: I'm not sure the same can be said for battery power.
squizzler
Established Member
I have pondered once before whether the current environment has made the rail industry able to evolve much faster than the motor trade. All those spare units lying around, and the leasing model encouraging such experimentation. In other words, an inversion of the bad old days when the motor trade was considered more dynamic and innovative than rail.
The motor business cannot on the other hand get semi-experimental stuff in public service like the rail industry can. Consumers don't modify their cars like what they used to and that source of innovation - that can feed into the mainstream - is foreclosed due to regulations. Hydrogen cars are too expensive for the
When I lived in Llandrindod Wells I knew people from hydrogen motor firm Riversimple. who intend to move motoring from ownership to a leasing model (like trains!) as continuing to own the machines would allow continuous improvements to be rolled out as vehicles came in and were re-allocated. They considered the traditional ownership model incompatible with their vision of low impact motoring for tomorrow.
The motor business cannot on the other hand get semi-experimental stuff in public service like the rail industry can. Consumers don't modify their cars like what they used to and that source of innovation - that can feed into the mainstream - is foreclosed due to regulations. Hydrogen cars are too expensive for the
When I lived in Llandrindod Wells I knew people from hydrogen motor firm Riversimple. who intend to move motoring from ownership to a leasing model (like trains!) as continuing to own the machines would allow continuous improvements to be rolled out as vehicles came in and were re-allocated. They considered the traditional ownership model incompatible with their vision of low impact motoring for tomorrow.
Remember that although Hydrogen is far less efficient than OLE, it does have the distinct advantage over battery power than the fuel occupies a far smaller and lighter volume. The economics don't stack up against OLE on major routes, but for more remote locations the efficiency has to be compared with Diesel and Battery where ti stacks up much better.
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
The BBC article yesterday has, whether intentional or not, rather "greenwashed" the railway. There was little mention of the high production cost (both £ and energy) of usable hydrogen, yet footage of a 1980s EMU crawling along a siding at walking pace has convinced the casual non-enthusiast viewer that there'll by hydrogen powered trains coming to their local line any minute now. Between rounds in yesterday's pub quiz, I heard several folk saying things along the lines of "why bother with electric trains on HS2 then?" and "oh, so there'll be no need to upgrade the line through Huddersfield then".
InTheEastMids
Member
- Joined
- 31 Jan 2016
- Messages
- 726
Exactly, with hydrogen you're trading the low end-end efficiency of hydrogen (operational cost) against the avoided capital costs of electrifying
If you're the Treasury you're also moving investment from public sector (electrification) into private (fuel cells and H2 infrastructure). You like this idea very much.
The initial focus for hydrogen is to use gas that is otherwise flared, then to use "blue" hydrogen made by reformation of natural gas (with the arising CO2 captured in CCS schemes), and eventually "green" hydrogen made by power-to-gas using renewable electricity.
I don't agree. Shell bought First Utility to get into electricity retail, and both BP and Shell are getting into EV in a big way - BP bought Chargemaster. They are doing both and the mainstream thinking is batteries for the majority cars, hydrogens for heavy duty vehicles.
I very much doubt it. The level of R&D spending is tiny compared to the automotive sector, and there's a lot of barriers to innovation, such as the fragmented industry structure, DfT micro-management, ORR regulation, unionisation/working practices, operational focus, and an extensive, ageing asset base of bespoke/UK specific system. It's actually hard to think of a sector that's worse-equipped to innovate.
The fact that the Director of the Hydroflex 799 Project is a university academic tells me most of what I need to know about the maturity of the solution within the UK loading gauge.
reddragon
Established Member
Still plenty of train spotters there taking photos & writing numbers down!
Grannyjoans
Member
- Joined
- 29 Mar 2017
- Messages
- 403
So Northern's new Class 195's are only going to last 20 years then ?!
About half the predicted lifespan of the 150's, which were very much a budget DMU ?!
--------------------------------------------------------------
This could also mean the end of the Clagtastic old diesels such as 37s, 47s and 56s!
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
Staff within the industry with a personal interest and journalists, I suspect...?
hexagon789
Veteran Member
JamesRowden
Established Member
Laws made by today's parliament can be overturned in the future. The government's 'plans' for 2040 is just stated to score political points today from naive people, and doesn't determine the situation in 2040 (unless they do something significant now, for example moving the implementation their plan to remove sources of pollution from urban areas to the next few years rather than 20 years in the future).
61653 HTAFC
Veteran Member
Plus of course there aren't any "laws" about getting rid of diesel trains... just a vague pledge from a government with an even poorer environmental record than its predecessor. I'd put a pint on this website being one of the only ones taking that pledge seriously, if not the only one that even remembers the pledge being made in the first place.
LOL The Irony
On Moderation
I know of 2 people who don't fit that description.
Peter Mugridge
Veteran Member
Then they probably had direct invitations from the organisers? Attendees had to register with a recognised railway industry e-address and I suspect it would have been rather difficult to "bunk" the event.
squizzler
Established Member
You say all this but your received wisdom that the motor trade is always somehow more competent than the railway industry is perhaps analogue age thinking. Since the information age dawned in the mid 1990's rail travel has doubled and innovation has been needed to meet demand. The rail industry is currently enjoying a flowering of new technology of which the hydra is but one thing. Volkswagen with its disease-als and Boeing with it Max jets by comparison symptomatic of industries that might command lots of resources but have no longer have their mojo.
That is why I mention Riversimple in my last post. A start-up hydrogen car developer in mid Wales working on a shoestring is poised to make an end run round the complacent big businesses of the motor trade.
Also contrast the electrification efforts of 'big car' that with the bicycle sector (rarely the poster child of government technical strategy) which is churning out dozens of e-bikes for each electric motorcar that gets registered.
thenorthern
Established Member
- Joined
- 27 May 2013
- Messages
- 4,114
I saw the BBC News Report on the train, the amount of space taken up by the Hydrogen Tanks I think will be a major drawback, one of the benefits of multiple units it of course the motive power and fuel tanks are under the coaches meaning more space for passengers on board, this is not the case here. Hydrogen is of course much lighter than diesel however in terms of energy by volume Hydrogen produces much less energy than Diesel fuel does.
It would be nice if Hydrogen did work however given that its been spoken about as the "fuel of the future" for about 15 years but little progress has been made I do wonder if it will ever work.
It would be nice if Hydrogen did work however given that its been spoken about as the "fuel of the future" for about 15 years but little progress has been made I do wonder if it will ever work.
anamyd
On Moderation
- Joined
- 17 Aug 2018
- Messages
- 3,011
@TT-ONR-NRN how did you get in...?
Mikey C
Established Member
- Joined
- 11 Feb 2013
- Messages
- 6,844
But then hydrogen powered trains will only be used on the more lightly used routes anyway, where seating capacity is less of an issue. If the route is heavily used and running long MUs then it should be electrified!
edwin_m
Veteran Member
But if you're running a 4-car on a route that only needs 2 cars worth of seating, then you've doubled all the costs except staffing, even if the unit costs of hydrogen power are the same as diesel. All the platforms need to be twice as long as well, unless it can be arranged for the train to stop with ony the middle part platformed (difficult when there are nearby signals or level crossings).
Chris125
Established Member
- Joined
- 12 Nov 2009
- Messages
- 3,076
To be fair loco's, driving van trailers and power cars don't carry passengers either - if they are acceptable on some routes/services there must be a niche for this too.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Indeed so. But locos, DVTs and power cars tend to operate on full-length trains where the non-passenger space is proportionately less significant than half the length of the train as the 799 would be. There are exceptions such as 37 top-and-tails but these are short-term expedients to cover stock shortages, not long-term service propositions that have had a lot of money spent to produce them! The push-pulls on Transpennine are short-term in a different sense, because suppliers couldn't deliver suitable DMUs within timescale, and the locos were already built and probably not doing very much. With these explainable exceptions the UK is moving strongly towards maximising the proportion of train length that is useable by passengers.
Chris125
Established Member
- Joined
- 12 Nov 2009
- Messages
- 3,076
That's not entirely true - GWR and Scotrail are spending significant sums on short-formation HSTs and TfW are continuing with short-formation LHCS despite all having non-passenger vehicles at both ends. The 3-car FLIRTs are not the most efficient design either with regards to usable length.
edwin_m
Veteran Member
Fair enough. Platform length clearly isn't an issue on those routes and the unwillingness of ROSCOs to finance a new Intercity DMU that might have a limited life may be another reason why these solutions were chosen. But on deep rural branch lines many of the platforms might be quite short, and on busier lines the passenger load may be more than two cars worth. I'm not saying this factor rules out using this design anywhere, but it makes it more of a niche product.
DGH 1
Member
Does anyone know if they're still going to run hydrogen or hydroflex traiins along the tees valley?, i know there were item's on local tv and in the newspapers about a 1.3 million pound grant from government last year, but i've heard nothing since.
DGH 1
Member
"trains"
D365
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 29 Jun 2012
- Messages
- 11,449
That's a question that I still want to know the answer to.
You can edit your original post pal.
DGH 1
Member
I'm new at this, thanks for telling me.
TT-ONR-NRN
Established Member
I’ve answered via DM to you D365, and so that should make sense haha, but to anyone else - I am not railway personnel of course, but I was legitimately allowed to be there. I have photo proof of me there ahaha.
- Status