Japan’s Railway Technical Research Institute hopes to get a fuel cell powered, non-polluting, low-noise train into service by 2010, railway officials say. RTRI officials said Monday that its fuel cell driven train development program has been making steady progress, reported the Yomiuri Shimbun Wednesday. A test drive of a prototype wheel system powered by fuel cells was successful earlier this year. The institute, which has engaged in research and development on fuel cell trains since 2001, plans to build an experimental train to run in the near future. The RTRI was established in 1987 following the privatization of Japanese National Railways as a joint R & D institute of the seven Japan Railway companies. The fuel-cell system being tested in the RTRI project is basically the same as that used in automobiles, designed to generate electric power through a reaction between hydrogen in a cylinder and oxygen in the air. © Copyright 2004 by United Press International

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