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World’s first diesel shunting locomotive converted to hydrogen completes test run
1/10/2025
News
Rail manufacturer Alstom has successfully completed the world’s first conversion of a diesel shunting locomotive to hydrogen propulsion, in Salzgitter, Germany.
The locomotive’s diesel engine has been converted to be fuelled by hydrogen, which does not produce CO2.
The trial aims to demonstrate how the technology performs in daily operations and whether it could serve as a scalable upgrade for existing fleets. Industrial testing at Salzgitter Group’s steel plants will continue through October 2025.
This project is part of a collaboration with railway service company VPS Verkehrsbetriebe Peine-Salzgitter, R&D institute WTZ Roßlau, university TU Braunschweig, and the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films.
The city of Salzgitter is contributing €1.5mn ($1.7mn) provided by the state of Lower Saxony to support the project.
Across Germany, around 1,000 diesel shunting locomotives are in service, with some 4,000 operating Europe-wide. Each machine has a life expectancy of 50–70 years and emits an estimated 150 t/y of CO₂. Project partners estimate that switching to hydrogen could cut emissions by as much as 3,000 tonnes per locomotive over 20 years.
François Muller, Vice President Services for Central and Northern Europe at Alstom, comments: ‘We are expanding the spectrum of vehicle modernisation with a doubly sustainable approach – thanks to this solution, our customers can switch to emission-free operation without having to replace their existing fleet. This is a particularly worthwhile option in shunting traffic due to the long service life of the vehicles.’
Professor Dr Peter Eilts, Head of the Institute for Internal Combustion Engines and Fuel Cells at TU Braunschweig, adds: ‘The special feature of hydrogen is that it can be burnt with a high excess of air. For the conversion of the shunting locomotives, we are making targeted use of this property to stabilise combustion, increase efficiency and at the same time minimise the formation of nitrogen oxide. We have worked intensively on the design of the exhaust gas turbocharging, as the high excess air poses a particular challenge here. With success!’
