Rail drives in transition
Considerations on alternative drive concepts for multiple units
The age of fossil fuels is drawing to a close. The future belongs to energy sources that are generated in a CO2-neutral manner, ideally on a renewable basis. Rail transport must also adapt to new drive concepts. In principle, three alternatives seem to offer useful approaches: Fuel cells, batteries, and combustion engines with sustainably produced fuels.
Rail vehicles with drive concepts that are based on fossil fuels are getting shelved! In most relevant markets, there are already legal regulations that leave no doubt about this outcome. The roadmaps for the decarbonization – in other words, saying goodbye to fossil fuels such as diesel – were already finalized some time ago. In the second half of the 21st century, large parts of the international community will mostly set emissions of harmful greenhouse gases to zero. A fundamental shift in transportation is key to implementing these plans.?
Of course, this also affects rail transport. Of the 1.3 million kilometers of routes worldwide, only around 375,000 kilometers are electrified – which is barely 30 percent. This is why locomotives and multiple units with combustion engines – usually powered with fossil diesel – still tend to be the rule rather than the exception in many parts of the world. At least coal-fired steam locomotives are used almost only as nostalgic relics for tourism at this point.
The degree to which the rail networks are electrified varies considerably. In North America, it’s about one percent. In Asia, it increased from 34 percent in 2013 to just over 55 percent today. And in Europe, about 46 percent of the entire rail network is used by diesel vehicles.
Despite many efforts to bring more electricity to the railways, an electrification rate of 100 percent even by the beginning of the second half of the century is utopian, if only because of the enormously high expenditures that rail network operators would have to invest in the expansion in a relatively short period. Furthermore, from an economic perspective, electrification only tends to be worthwhile in cases of medium to high traffic densities.
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Therefore, operators of rail vehicles must already take a closer look at the innovative drive concepts of a post-diesel generation. After all, it isn’t rare for rail vehicles to be used for 30 years or more.
So, if anyone is putting a new vehicle into operation in 2022, they must pay some attention to the emission rules for the year 2050.
In principle, there are three concepts to consider for sustainable propulsion:
All these systems fundamentally require the climate-neutral production of energy, for example with photovoltaics, wind or hydropower. Otherwise, nothing will be gained in terms of climate protection.