by guest blogger Stan Thompson Thank you, Bill Vantuono, for your Railway Age, November 15, 2019, introduction to a long overdue American first: San Bernardino’s history-making, Stadler-built hydrogen multiple unit or “HMU”. It’s a bittersweet debut for those of us who worked for years—beginning in 2003—to add hydrail to Kitty Hawk as a North Carolina transportation • Read More »
Archives: “Mooresville Hydrail Initiative”
From Russia to Charlotte and back: a hydrail odyssey
November 15, 2019 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on From Russia to Charlotte and back: a hydrail odyssey | Filed in: Conferences, Fuel Cells, History, Hydrail, Hyrail.by guest blogger Stan Thompson Everything seems to have a Ukraine connection these days. Why not hydrail (H2 fuel cell rail traction)? Per Wikipedia, in 1880, several years before Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee, a Ukrainian engineer named Pyotr Pirotsky introduced the world’s first electric “tram” (European for “streetcar”) in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Soon Pirotsky connected • Read More »
Business Gets Down to Hydrail
December 3, 2018 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Business Gets Down to Hydrail | Filed in: Competition, Conferences, Hydrail, Hydrogen Economy, Hyrail.by guest blogger, Stan Thompson When Dr. Holger Busche conceived wind turbine powered commuter trains for Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, back in 1998, he probably had a business model in mind, though he is a committed environmentalist. But by the time I presented the passenger hydrail concept to the US DOT in 2003, the environmental angle had become • Read More »
12th International Hydrail Conference: 27-28 June, 2017
May 17, 2017 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on 12th International Hydrail Conference: 27-28 June, 2017 | Filed in: Conferences, Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Economy, Hyrail, Infrastructure, News.Graz, Austria — 27-28 June, 2017 by guest blogger, Stan Thompson It’s been a dozen years since former Mooresville, NC, USA, Mayor Bill Thunberg, Appalachian State University Research Anaylst, Jason W. Hoyle and I first undertook to midwife hydrogen fuel cell based railway traction into being. Our goal was mostly environmental but we also had a • Read More »
The origin of hydrail and the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy
December 7, 2016 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on The origin of hydrail and the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy | Filed in: Conferences, History, Hydrail.by guest blogger Stan Thompson Most profound thanks from the Mooresville Hydrail Initiative to the editors of the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy for the cover story on the 2003 American* origin of hydrogen fuel cell passenger railways in the December, 2016, issue! We don’t know of another instance where major elements of the world’s infrastructure (diesel and catenary railway electrification) have • Read More »
Hydrail’s “Golden Spike” moment: Berlin, 2016
October 12, 2016 | By Stan Thompson | Comments Off on Hydrail’s “Golden Spike” moment: Berlin, 2016 | Filed in: Conferences, Fuel Cells, Hydrail, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Jobs, Hydrogen Economy, Infrastructure, Political Issues.by guest blogger, Stan Thompson Hydrail is the term of art for electrifying railways wirelessly by storing electrical energy onboard as hydrogen and reconverting it, via fuel cells, as needed to power electric traction motors. In Berlin, Germany, around noon on September 20, 2016, hydrail had its moment in history, reminiscent of May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point, • Read More »