Hydrogen fuel cell bus in Daiba, Tokyo. Image: Wikimedia Commons (CC)
From Lab Curiosity to Real-World Wheels
Hydrogen-powered public transport sounds like science fiction — a bus that only emits water, a train that runs on thin air. But it's already here and growing fast.
High-speed rail has one of the most remarkable origin stories in transportation. It all started with Japan's Shinkansen — the "bullet train" — which debuted in 1964, just in time for the Tokyo Olympics. At 210 km/h, it seemed almost impossibly fast compared to the lumbering steam and diesel trains of the era. France followed with the TGV in 1981, proving that high-speed rail wasn't a Japanese oddity but a transportation revolution. Germany, Italy, and Spain joined through the 1990s, each bringing their own engineering flavour.
