Battery Trains and Decarbonisation

Presenter: Alice Gillman of Viva-Rail

Virtual Meeting via Zoom

This is an exciting project and Alice (Head of Marketing) delivered her presentation enthusiastically. The 53 of us participating found it very stimulating. The project is to build a suite of emission-free / low emission trains. The opportunity has been taken to utilise redundant LUL D78 stock and rebuild them into Class 230s. A major contribution to the green agenda is the utilisation of rolling stock that has years of life left – the body shells and bogies for instance, so these vehicles are not unnecessarily scrapped and much new building is avoided, thus saving money and carbon. But the main benefit should come from the use of low-carbon energy for running.

Apart from the trains built for the Isle of Wight all units will be battery powered. Most units are 3-car. The strategy is very flexible, utilising a modular approach so that various options are available. The one favoured at the moment has two driving motor cars that also carry the batteries, sandwiching a middle car that has diesel ‘gen-sets’ slung below, the purpose of which are to charge the batteries. Other options include a pure battery train that can re-charge in 10 minutes utilising the firm’s patented automatic rapid charge system. Alternatively various hybrid versions are envisaged to include a 25kV overhead or third rail DC input, so that the train can run as a pure electric and then switch to battery operation on un-electrified routes. So, for example such a train could run down the GW mainline under the wires, to say Twyford, and then proceed under its own power to Henley. Possibilities range from fairly short runs, e.g. branches in Cornwall, to longer routes such as the West Highland line.

Runs of 100 miles between charges are regarded as feasible, but this will depend on the gradients, number of stops, etc. Performance in terms of acceleration at least as good as that of current DMUs is claimed, although maximum speeds are limited to 60 mph. There may seem to be endless possibilities in this country – rebuilding some of the 3 000 older DMUs for example. But abroad prospects are even more exciting. In the USA, Henry Posner, a major shareholder, envisages “pop-up metros”. In this innovative scheme under-utilised freight lines in urban areas (of which there are hundreds) could be utilised at very low cost to run battery or hybrid trains. Planning for Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is in-hand. This first trial will run for a year.

All this has been made possible by developments in battery technology. The packs of ‘pouch-cells’ developed in Germany from those used on submarines, make available 100 kWh of energy to each motor car and are self-cooling. They are easily exchanged on the flat using a forklift truck.

Adrian Shorter and his team are to be congratulated on their enterprise, so we wish them every success. Perhaps the only worry is the availability of lithium in the future.