UK: The project has been implemented by Vanguard STS, a spin out company from the University of Birmingham, at the Severn Valley Railway depot in Kidderminster.
The new vehicle is built on the tree-axle Class 08 shunting locomotive, produced by British Rail at its Derby plant in 1959 and decommissioned in 2007.
The upgraded locomotive, named the HydroShunter, has its former diesel engine replaced with an 80 kW hydrogen fuel cell from Toyota, Japan, and lead-acid batteries with a capacity of 230 kWh. The vehicle is thus provided with a traction power of 250 kW and an estimated range of 20 hours when operating at a speed of up to 24 km/h. The hydrogen storage has a capacity of 60 kg.
This is for the second time that Vanguard STS is converting UK’s rolling stock to hydrogen traction. Since 2020, two HydroFlex EMUs, likewise retrofitted by the company, have been undergoing tests. In comparison with the HydroShunter, the trains use fuel cells from Ballard, USA.
