The first of its kind, a new hydrogen-powered passenger train is being developed by a French company and slated to be used in Germany starting next year. The ultra-quiet “hydrail” transit system is powered by hydrogen fuel cells that give off steam and water. The train pulls from a hydrogen fuel tank stored on the roof that generates electrical energy.

The aim is to start replacing some of Europe’s diesel-burning trains, many of which still run across the continent. Alstom unveiled the new train at InnoTrans, an annual trade show in Berlin this week. The initial test set will include 14 trains of this design, with testing and approval starting later this year.

Starting at the end of 2017, the train will run on the Buxtehude-Bremervörde-Bremerhaven-Cuxhaven line in the northwestern German state of Lower Saxony. Lower Saxony’s local transportation authority has meanwhile ordered 14 trains of the type. Testing and approval by the German Federal Railway Authority Eisenbahn-Bundesamt will commence in fall 2016 and is expected to be completed by end of 2017.

The Coradia iLint may be the world’s first hydrogen-powered passenger train, but it’s certainly not the first vehicle to run on hydrogen fuel cells. Stan Thompson, former strategic planner at AT&T and long-term advocate of the use of hydrogen for rail transportation, coined the term “hydrail” in 2004 to describe any type of rail vehicle that uses hydrogen fuel cells. There have been prototypes and hybrid trains in the meantime, most notably in Japan.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bahn, the largest railway operator in Europe, is working Hyperloop Transportation Technologies to bring its futuristic technologies to its train fleet. As green energy initiatives go, Germany continues to lead the pack, seeking out and testing sustainable tech for mass transportation systems and otherwise.

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The ultimate in minimalist personal railroad sets, this creation can be made in seconds using a coil of copper, set of magnets and single battery. The animated image above pretty much says it all, but you can also see a more detailed video below.

Add a few magnets on either side of the battery then set your creation loose inside the coil and watch it shoot from one end to the other. Coiling the copper (if starting with wire) is probably the most time-consuming part of the equation, but easy to do with idle hands while, say, watching the video showing how to do the other parts.

The result is quite bare in terms of initial aesthetics, but of course you can always start covering things up in creative ways, too, or elaborating on the basic design to make more complex ‘tracks’ for your creation.

The post DIY Electromagnetics: The World’s Simplest Electric Train first appeared on Gajitz.

As far as super-fast maglev trains go, China has long been the undisputed champion with their 267 MPH Shanghai Maglev Train. But Dr. Deng Zigang of Jiaotong University may have just bested his own country’s record. His super-maglev loop train could allow future commuter trains to travel at mind-blowing speeds of up to 1800 MPH. 

The train is able to go so fast thanks to its use of a vacuum tube, which eliminates the air resistance that holds back other maglev trains. By enclosing the train in a tube, the air resistance is reduced by a factor of up to ten times less that of other maglevs. According to Dr. Zigang, more than 83 percent of a train’s energy is wasted by air resistance once a train reaches speeds of 250 MPH.

The Evacuated Tube Transport (ETT) system could eventually be used in commuter systems, but for now the inventor sees it as first being used in military and space launch environments. If the idea eventually becomes a real commuting option, it seems like “my train was running late” will never be a viable excuse for arriving late to work in China ever again.

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With traffic on both the ground and in the air becoming more congested, alternate forms of transportation are vital. The Horizon System is a completely electrical plane/train hybrid that will hopefully alleviate the crowding at major hubs worldwide.

The Horizon System would include pods that would carry passengers to the aircraft while both are in motion. The entire ship would float along mag-lev rails, meaning it never touches the ground. The aircraft is also entirely remote controlled, which would make it the largest drone plane on earth.

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In the last century of automobiles and associated innovations, few things have stayed the same, but a few major themes have remained: (1) someone sitting focused at the steering wheel of their four-wheeled vehicle at all times, and (2) the primacy of internal combustion as the driver of most consumer vehicles. Both of these paradigms are being radically rethought through vehicle automation, on the one hand, and new forms of energy conversion on the other. In turn, these are the two main topics of this second Lincoln-sponsored Gajitz article on cutting-edge vehicular innovations past and (now) present.

Driverless Vehicles: the mental image conjured by fully-automatic (no, not just your shifting!) cars is perhaps jarring enough to keep these concepts and prototypes at the top of most peoples’ minds when they think of vehicular innovation. Or perhaps it is the near-reality of it all, with successful tests already being run in California, and Nevada giving the go ahead for real street-legal applications (having licensed its first autonomous vehicle – with Google driving technology – mere months ago). There are still questions to be answered – who is at fault, for instance, if your driverless car crashes? As yet, though, the only crash of such a test vehicle came when it was being manually driven.

Road Trains: vehicular platoons, in convoys, may be the bridge we need between fully-manual and totally-automated car technology. Fuel efficiency is increased, wind drag decreased, and time freed up for other things – all while drivers remain passive riders for much of their journey, jumping into and out of queue when signaled by the hub truck. SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment), featured in the video above, is already testing these on the open highway.

Kinetic Asphalt: cars give off more energy than we give them credit for – everything from their weight and motion to minor vibration and temperature differentials can be used by the very roads they drive on to generate power. Companies like Innowattech are already testing these on a limited scale, on freeways that can generate 1 MWh – enough to power 2,500 homes, or roadside amenities from traffic lights and street lamps and lighted billboards. Of course, municipalities can also use them to fuel other non-fan-favorites, like radar guns and traffic cameras.

Energy Recycling: when the internal combustion engine first came into mass production, it was an amazing and powerful thing. The story since then has, to some extent, been one of iterative refinements – figuring out how to preserve all of that precious energy being generated by vehicles using its technology. Regenerative breaking, for instance, has long been used (primarily in trains) to recoup energy lost to heat in the breaking process, but a new variant is on the boards now as well: regenerative shock absorbing, turning bounces back into power. Other recent and pending innovations of internal-system recycling revolve around the reuse of waste gasses to power steam generators.

The post Reinventing Wheels: 4 Cutting-Edge Automotive Innovations first appeared on Gajitz.