UK first as trains running on vegetable oil use Marylebone station
Trains powered by vegetable oil began running in and out of a mainline station in London on Thursday.Chiltern Railways is pioneering the “plant based” locomotives in a bid to cut emissions. The lines it uses to Marylebone station are not electrified, meaning that for decades it has had to use diesel trains.
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00:00 I'm at Marlegood station in London where Chiltern Railways has just launched the first
00:08 passenger train in the UK to run on reused vegetable oil.
00:14 We're determined to transform Chiltern from being an all diesel operator, we're the
00:19 last in London to be an all diesel operator so we take that challenge really seriously
00:24 and we're delighted to be able to introduce and use vegetable oil to fuel our trains,
00:31 these locomotives that haul some coaches.
00:34 We've got about four or five of these trains, this is the first time we think this has been
00:39 done with a passenger train in the UK.
00:41 Well we have the Bramford Estate just here, literally on the railway line and we have
00:47 the Four Feathers Youth Club and their playground also comes right up to the railway line.
00:53 So these diesel trains not only cause massive pollution but also noise and I have no real
01:00 issues, people's bedrooms are literally yards away from these trains so to have this new
01:05 type of train running on vegetable oil is a game changer and I really hope now we can
01:11 persuade other train operators to look at this and move away from diesel.
01:16 The solution in the long run though has got to be to electrify these lines hasn't it?
01:20 Of course but I think this is the only train station now in my constituency that is not
01:26 on electric lines now and of course we have to be but it all comes with money loss and
01:33 we have to make the business case and I am obviously working with Tilton Railways and
01:37 other operators to make that business case because obviously if we want to reduce our
01:41 carbon footprint this is the way forward.
01:45 So five of these locomotives will replace diesel trains and will lead to much cleaner
01:51 emissions around an area that is really quite built up with many houses nearby.
01:56 The only issue though as you can hear is it is still pretty noisy so the long run plan
02:03 is for these trains to be replaced by electric trains but that will require the electrification
02:09 of the network and that could take more than a decade.
02:12 (upbeat music)