https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sc...ury-steam-train.html
It is an interesting article technology wise, but it also shows how bad articles are. First of all, calling this a 'steam train' isn't true,a fuel cell as far as I know generates water vapor, which is not the same as steam (seem to recall steam is at 100 C, the water vapor that comes out of a fuel cell is room temp),not to mention it is driven by electricity, not steam.
More importantly, while it will definitely be cleaner and less noisy than a diesel at the engine (I am sure people living near the tracks will appreciate both), it isn't greener per se because of the pollution that happens when you create hydrogen gas. Currently as far as I know they use electrolysis, which requires electricity, to separate hydrogen from water. In terms of pollutants and carbon dioxide, if the power plant used natural gas it would be less of pollution and CO2 than the diesel generates for the power required to run the engine, but it still has a footprint,if it was coal or oil generated electricity could be as bad or worse than the diesel. The only "green" way really would be either nuclear power (which has its own issues) or generating the hydrogen from modified photosynthesis in algae, which as far as I know is still not out of the lab.
Surprised people aren't complaining, if they ran a train like this in the US I could guarantee we would have people crying 'Hydrogen? Rememeber the Hindenberg?', saying it was dangerous (hint, gasoline vapor is a large amount more explosive than hydrogen.
