Adoption of hydrogen in railway traction: Opportunities and limits in the case of non-electrified railway lines

Although rail transport is generally considered a sustainable transport system, and numerous research and design methods are based on considering rail transport as the backbone of public transport and/or sustainable mobility, it is necessary to highlight that in some cases railway lines are still based on the use of diesel-powered trains, since these railway lines are still non-electrified. Indeed, for instance, in Italy, compared to approximately 25,000 km of railway network, almost 19% consists of non-electrified railway lines. Moreover, the Italian National Recovery and Resilience Plan (included in the European Next Generation EU Programme) provides for the allocation of about €300M for the testing of hydrogen in rail transport. In this context, the objective of this paper is to provide an analysis of the opportunities and limits associated with the use of hydrogen-powered trains on non-electrified railway lines.