The use of hydrogen as part of fuel cell technology in public transport vehicles has been in practical use for several years – so far most widely in the bus sector. The first concepts for use in trams are now also in the realisation phase: at Innotrans 2024, Korean manufacturer Hyundai Rotem presented the first vehicle for a new tram system in the South Korean city of Daejeon, which is already under construction and is scheduled to go into operation by 2028/9. There are now various hydrogen railcars for regional trains in different countries, although not all of them have yet been able to fully prove their practical suitability.
However, the first ideas for a hydrogen railcar with fuel cells already existed almost 20 years ago. The former Spanish state-owned narrow-gauge railway company FEVE, which was merged into the state railway RENFE and the railway infrastructure organisation ADIF at the end of 2012, operated a metre-gauge network of more than 1,200 km, primarily in the regions along the north coast of Spain. Parts of the network are electrified, while longer sections through sparsely populated areas are served by diesel railcars.
In 2007/8, the FEVE main workshop began planning the construction of a hydrogen railcar to serve as a test vehicle for an initial practical trial. An older four-axle electric railcar was used for this purpose, many of which had been purchased in the 1960s for use on suburban lines in Valencia and the Gijón area by the Belgian interurban tramway company SNCV. In Spain, they were nicknamed ‘Fabiolos’ in reference to the Belgian queen at the time.
With the help of funding from the EU and government agencies in Spain, FEVE extensively rebuilt this ‘Fabiolo’, which had been taken out of service a few years previously, from 2009 and presented it to the astonished public in 2010 as the world’s first hydrogen railcar. It is no. 3411, which had been preserved by a collector for a number of years and previously ran as a electric railcar on the current metro lines in Valencia. It was converted out of former trailer 6402 in1977, after having been sold by SNCV (no. SNCV 9665) in Belgium to Spain in the 1960s. The fact that it was only a test car was evident from the specified maximum speed of 25 km/h alone, but also from the small usable area for passengers, as some of the components required for operation could only be placed in the interior.
Some technical data:
Length: 14.3 m
Width: 2.50 m
Total weight: 20 tonnes
Passenger capacity: 30, including 18 seats
2 fuel cells, capacity: 12 kW, manufacturer: Hydrogenics
3 supercapacitors, manufacturer: Maxwell
4 asynchronous traction motors, capacity: 30 kW, manufacturer: Siemens
Battery capacity (Li): 95 kWh
In the end, the vehicle did not get beyond test drives and did not find any direct successors in its form. The lack of practical suitability and the high investment costs were heavily criticised at the time and were even used as one of the various arguments for the dissolution of the highly deficient FEVE. The vehicle remained stored for several years without further use and finally ended up in the Asturian Railway Museum in Gijón, where it is now presented to visitors in good condition. The well-maintained museum, with its numerous exhibits and the trains running on certain days, is a worthwhile detour on any journey through northern Spain.
