Indian Railways is taking an important initiative for the National Hydrogen Mission, to launch its first ever hydrogen train this year. In addition to positioning India as a global green energy powerhouse. In contribution to this hydrogen train it is expected that it would decrease the level of carbon emissions and boost the sustainability and efficiency of national transporter.
Anil Kumar Khandelwal, Member of the Railway Board made an announcement in the FICCI Future Rail India 2024 conference that
“Our first hydrogen train will be coming this year, and we are planning to launch about 50 by 2047.” This initiative by the government is to promote clean energy resources and bring net carbon emissions to zero. Additionally, Khandelwal confirmed that the anticipated high-speed rail project is on the list and India’s first bullet train is expected to run by 2027.
Khandelwal explained more about development in Railway safety and infrastructure and highlighted the plans of indigenous train protection system, Kavach. The final specifications for Kavach Version IV were confirmed on July 16th. Currently operational on 1,400 kilometers, Kavach is being installed on 3,000 kilometers of the Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah routes.
The GatiShakti Directorate, a major part of Indian Railways, has significantly smoothed the project planning and execution.Last year alone, over 5,000 kilometres of new track were added to the network. These developments are important to Indian Railways’ ambition of a larger share of the country’s freight market. With a total logistics market of 5,000 million tonnes, the Indian railways aims to increase its share from 1,600 million tonnes last year to 3,000 million tonnes by 2030-31.
Launching hydrogen trains and the development of high speed railways are expected to increase the efficiency and sustainability of Indian Railways and aim towards global environment targets and setting up new goals for railways.
