The Severn Valley Railway along with the University of Birmingham and Vanguard Sustainable Transport Solutions have teamed up to work on a ‘ground-breaking’ scheme.
The new project, called The Harrier HydroShunter Project, will see the conversion of a diesel locomotive to run on hydrogen power, a first for the UK.
Work has already started at Kidderminster Diesel Depot, where a number of volunteers are stripping donor vehicle, Class 08 No. 08635, to remove the diesel engine, generators and overhauling other components as well as to prepare the locomotive for the new Hydrogen power system.
The traction system is being designed by Vanguard Sustainable Transport Solutions and will be made of hydrogen cylinders, a hydrogen fuel cell stack and a hybrid battery.
Pressurised hydrogen gas will be stored in the cylinders, which will be fed via a regulator to the fuel cell stack. Here, hydrogen will be combined with oxygen from the air to produce electricity to power the locomotive. The battery will store energy to provide power when it is needed.
All of this equipment will be mounted in a subframe and fitted to the current engine mountings. This will then supply the existing traction motors for the Class 08, which will keep the current controls.
Engineers are currently developing the power pack design at the University of Birmingham and this will be installed in the next few months.
Testing of the hydrogen-powered locomotive will take place at the Severn Valley Railway later this year.
A short film from the Severn Valley Railway can be viewed below:
Mike Ball, the Severn Valley Railway’s vice chairman, has been closely involved with the project from its inception: “We were delighted when the University of Birmingham asked us to get involved in this project. As a heritage railway, we’re actively looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint, and having a hydrogen-powered shunter will play a key part in that plan.
“The current preparation stage for the Harrier shunter is providing an excellent opportunity for some of our younger volunteers to put their skills to good use. The group working on the 08 are all still in their teens, and their ability to plan and implement this task has been nothing short of amazing. They’re the volunteers of the future, working on a locomotive for the future.”
Alexander Burrows, director at the University of Birmingham’s Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE), added: “Our team at the University of Birmingham are pioneering the designs and opportunities to bring hydrogen technology to the UK railway. Following the success of our HydroFLEX project with Porterbrook that delivered the UK’s first mainline approved hydrogen train, we are thrilled to be working with the Severn Valley Railway and Vanguard to roll out the Harrier HydroShunter.
“This is another fantastic project where BCRRE has partnered with a leading heritage railway and an innovative local start-up business to pioneer our research in a real world industrial application.”
Charles Calvert, chief engineer at Vanguard Sustainable Transport Systems, said: ”Vanguard has developed the HydroShunter to enable cost-effective retrofitting of diesel locomotives with clean, modern hydrogen-battery traction systems. The Harrier HydroShunter will provide the Severn Valley Railway with an emissions-free shunting locomotive for their operations.
“Using hydrogen produced from renewable electricity, the Harrier will be a clean and quiet loco that just happens to also be an innovation superstar at work on one of the UK’s leading heritage railways.”
Where Next?
RAILADVENT NEWS
The latest railway news
FREE NEWSLETTERS
Signup to our daily and weekly newsletters
RAILADVENT SHOP
Railway Prints, DVD’s / Blu-Ray’s, books and more
LOCOSTOP COMMUNITY
Come and share your railway pictures
UK STEAM INFO
Upcoming mainline steam tours/loco movements
Severn Valley Railway
Visit their website
Responses
To the naysayer people commenting on this–while H2 might not be useful for a widespread rollout on railways, it fits a niche here.
Non-emitting electricity can be used to make H2 offsite, to be brought by tanker (no worse than a diesel delivery).
This solution is likely to be lower capital cost to create a green shunter than a pure battery version, and also gives practical engineering experience. A fast enough charger for pure battery would require a costly revamp of the power supplies to the depot (as demonstrated by the Waterloo bus depot in London for the all electric fleet based there-£500k on just new power into the site alone, with little opportunity for apprentices to be involved). It also gives practical engineering experience to young people
H2 Refills quicker than a battery recharge, too.
The only other greener alternative would be DME gas for existing diesel prime mover (DME not available in the UK) or some sort of re-engine to LPG/CNG. Both are dead ends.
I admire the ones that are trying but this whole green agenda is not for me I’m afraid.
These people have lost the plot.
So how much energy time and transport is used to make and get the Hydrogen and compress it ???
Oh yes they couldnt make it cost effective in the Bristol River Taxi after spending a fortune !!
But SVR are showing how little they know about Thermodynamics and Electricity in Railway Applications …. Thats going to be the white elephant of 2022
That’ll be A great highlight of the year 2021… especially for the SVR, and Brummy University of Birmingham, along with VSTS, teaming up to hopefully Make History… let alone change how A Diesel Shunter is well worked.
Pressurised hydrogen. That ended well for the ‘Hindenburg’ didn’t it.