Today, Stadler Rail held a press conference for its new FLIRT Akku battery train for the German state of Palatinate.
In attendance were the Minister for Climate Protection, Environment, Energy and Mobility of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Katrin Eder, the Chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate South Public Transport Association, Dr Fritz Brechtel, Harmen van Zijderveld, from the Board of DB Regio Schiene, and Jure Mikolčić, CEO of Stadler in Germany.
A surprise guest was Petra Berg, Minister for the Environment, Climate Action, Mobility, Agriculture and Consumer Protection for the state of Saarland, which neighbours Rhineland-Palatinate and which has a line that these new trains will also run on.
This train is scheduled to enter passenger service on 240km of track in Rhineland Palatinate in December 2025.
In order to prepare for the arrival of these new trains, infrastructure preparations are also under way. Overhead line island installations are being built in a number of locations to provide intermittent spots where the batteries can be recharged. The existing overhead line on one track at Kaiserslautern central station is also being extended by 80 metres. In addition to the ‘islands’, the partial electrification of the Biebermühlbahn line is also required. There are two viaducts here that are a challenging feature of this project.
All 44 trains, which will gradually enter passenger service in 2025 and 2026, will be operated by DB Regio. Under perfect conditions they have a top range of 224km but on the network where they will be running they will never be without a power source for more than 48km. Stadler says the minimum guaranteed range of battery operation for its vehicles is 80km.
Everyone in attendance was in agreement that this kind of battery technology was a bridging technology for certain lines and in other cases, on quieter lines, the economical decision. However, Mr Mikolčić stressed that the decision-making about what kind of technological solution should be chosen should be made on factual rather than ideological grounds: different technologies have different pros and cons and they needed to be weighed up against the specific use case.
There was also agreement that all these technologies were developing at a rapid rate. Mr Mikolčić said he could not predict where traction technology was going because the rate of change was so rapid.
The Stadler FLIRT Akku is also capable of operating as a regular electric train under 15kV wires.
