Approximately 42.4% of Europe's railway network remains non-electrified, and every hydrogen trial aimed at serving it with fuel-cell freight trains has so far failed to produce a commercially viable operation. That is the starting point for a blunt assessment from Michael Barnard, a Vancouver-based energy decarbonisation expert, who told RailFreight.com he cannot name a single European freight application where he would recommend hydrogen over the alternatives.

Several railway-based trials have been undertaken, are underway or are planned across Europe. Cost and reliability problems have kept all of them from reaching commercial operation. Much of the non-electrified network is worked by diesel trains today.

Why does non-electrified not mean hydrogen-ready?

Barnard rejects the premise that unwired track automatically creates a fuel market. "'Non-electrified' does not mean 'needs a fuel'. It means deciding how much of the route should be wired and how much onboard storage is needed for the rest," he said. "Partial electrification plus batteries means you don't need wires over every siding, terminal, bridge or lightly used kilometre."

The cost arithmetic is decisive. Per kilometre, hydrogen-powered transport currently costs much more than diesel or battery-electric operation. Pro-hydrogen organisations argue that prices could fall as demand grows — Europe already has industrial capacity to produce low-emissions hydrogen through electrolysis powered by renewable or nuclear energy, yet many electrolysers run below capacity.

Barnard dismisses the idea that rail freight demand would fix this. "Rail freight might improve the utilisation of a stranded electrolyser. It does not make its hydrogen cheap," he said. "Higher utilisation spreads electrolyser capital over more kilograms, but it also means operating during more hours when electricity is not exceptionally cheap. Then come balance-of-plant costs, compression, storage, transport and dispensing."

How large is the delivered-cost gap?

Barnard points to a systematic flaw in cheap-hydrogen projections: they confuse production cost with delivered fuel cost. "I've reviewed European studies where apparent €2–3/kg hydrogen becomes closer to €8/kg delivered industrially and roughly €14/kg for transportation once omitted system costs are restored," he said.

Even with many European rail freight operators heavily state-backed, cost per kilometre will dictate wider adoption. "I see no evidence they are approaching commercial competitiveness," Barnard said of hydrogen-powered operations.

Are the technology barriers fundamental?

In a locomotive, hydrogen functions as an indirect way of storing electricity. "Freight locomotives are already electric at the traction motors, including diesel-electrics," Barnard said. "Hydrogen adds an indirect energy pathway: make hydrogen with electricity, compress, store, move and dispense it, then convert it back to electricity in a fuel cell, normally through a battery buffer."

That final step undermines the case. Hydrogen fuel-cell systems depend on battery-electric technology that is advancing independently — and advancing fast enough to make hydrogen redundant in Barnard's view. "European manufacturers now offer powerful electric freight locomotives with batteries for terminals, sidings and gaps in electrification. That directly removes one of hydrogen's historic arguments," he said.

He points to Lower Saxony as evidence. There, Deutsche Bahn bought a hydrogen fleet and dedicated infrastructure, encountered operating and cost problems, and then selected batteries for its next major diesel-replacement phase.

What evidence would change the verdict?

Barnard sets a high but specific bar: "What would change my mind is evidence: a sizeable commercial freight fleet running for several years on genuinely low-carbon hydrogen, without exceptional operating subsidies, with high availability and audited whole-system costs below battery-plus-electrification — followed by the operator spending its own money on a substantially larger second fleet."

No such fleet exists. Meanwhile, the competitive picture keeps hardening against hydrogen. "Hydrogen rail freight is not competing with a theoretical future battery. It is competing with mature overhead electrification and rapidly improving batteries, using an electricity system that railways already have. Falling electrolyser prices do not change that," he concluded.

For operators planning diesel replacement on the 42.4% of the network without wires, the working proposition emerging from fleet decisions such as Deutsche Bahn's in Lower Saxony is partial electrification combined with battery-equipped locomotives — a path suppliers already offer commercially, and one that hydrogen trials in Europe have yet to beat on cost or reliability.