Hitachi Rail Names Preferred Supplier For Battery System Development For UK Trial
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Rail Technology Magazine.
These are the first two paragraphs.
Hitachi Rail UK is continuing its commitment to electrification and sustainability as it has teamed with a UK based Technology firm to design and supply its traction and battery systems for its intercity battery train trial which it hopes to run in the future.
Working with the North East England Partnership and Turntide Technologies, Hitachi UK Rail are working towards a UK trial for its battery technology which is engineered to reduce emissions and fuel costs. It is hoped, that if successful, it’ll advance the UK’s position as a global leader in battery train technology.
Note.
- Turntide Technologies took over Hyperdrive Innovation.
- Turntide Technologies have designed and built systems for JCB.
Up until now, we have been told very little about the batteries.
I have the following questions.
Is The Battery System In The Class 803 Trains For Lumo By Turntide Technologies/Hyperdrive Innovation?
The Wikipedia entry for Lumo, says this about the design of the Class 803 train.
Services are operated by a fleet of 125 mph (200 km/h) Class 803 electric multiple unit trains, ordered in March 2019 at a cost of £100 million, financed by the rail leasing company Beacon Rail.[15] While based on the same Hitachi AT300 design as the Class 801 Azuma trains operated on the East Coast Main Line by franchised operator London North Eastern Railway (LNER), they are not fitted with an auxiliary diesel engine, but instead feature batteries intended solely to power onboard facilities in case of overhead line equipment failure.
The maker of the batteries has not been disclosed.
If they have been made by Turntide, then they would certainly have had a good vibration testing.
Is The Battery System In The Class 803 Trains Similar To That Proposed For Class 800/802/805/810 Trains?
It would seem sensible, as this would mean that Hitachi would only be introducing one type of battery into the various fleets.
Supporting structures and wiring harnesses would then be identical in all trains, whether diesel engines or batteries were to be fitted.
Are The Batteries Plug Compatible With Similar Performance To The Diesel Engines?
I have never driven a train, but I have ridden in the cab of an InterCity 125, as I wrote about in Edinburgh to Inverness in the Cab of an HST.
The driver controls the two locomotives individually, just like I controlled the two engines in my Cessna 340 with two separate throttles.
So how does a driver control all the three engines in a five-car Class 800 train or the five engines in a nine-car?
Put simply, the driver just tells the computer, what speed or power is required and the train’s computer adjusts al the engines accordingly.
I believe it would be possible to design battery packs that are plug-compatible with similar performance to the diesel engines.
Hitachi could be playing an old Electrical/Electronic Engineer’s trick.
As a sixteen-year-old, I spent a Summer in a rolling mills, building replacement transistorised control units for the old electronic valve units. They had been designed, so they were plug-compatible and performed identically.
The great advantage of this approach, is that no changes were needed to the rolling mill.
So if Hitachi are using a similar approach, there should be very few or even no changes to the train.
What Range Will A Class 800 Train Have On Batteries?
This article on Focus Transport is entitled 224-kilometre Battery Range For FLIRT Akku – Stadler Sets World Record For Guinness Book Of Records.
I would be very surprised if Hitachi don’t break that record of 224 kilometres or 139 miles.
Conclusion
I belive we’re going to see a real revolution in rail transport.
The Anonymous Widower 
I’m afraid the driver does not control the two locomotives individually, both engines are interlinked via train wires. The controller to the right of the driver is the power control, while the one to his left is the brake control. This philosophy goes all the way back to the GWR Railcars of the 1930s.
I’m not sure if he was pulling your leg or, like the driver at Leeds Station who told me that the dmu wouldn’t “work in the upper gears”, was confused about the 7-step power controller. As I well know, a T211r transmission only has one torque converter and one fluid coupling.
Comment by fammorris | May 25, 2023 |
Meant to say comment refers to HST
Comment by fammorris | May 25, 2023 |