Stadler Tests Hydrogen Trains for Sardinia’s Network

Stadler Rail is testing a hydrogen-powered train on a purpose-built Swiss track before delivering trains for Sardinia, Calabria and Sicily. The project puts a corporate manufacturer and a regional transport company at the centre of decisions about how transport changes, but the announcement gives no fare, cost or passenger details.

A test track built for the order

The track runs almost 4 kilometres between Hemishofen and Ramsen stations in the canton of Schaffhausen. Built in the spring, it adds a third rail inside an existing standard-gauge track, allowing Stadler to test rolling stock for networks with a 950-millimetre gauge.

Those narrower tracks serve parts of southern Italy, including Puglia, Sicily, the Naples area and Sardinia, according to Stadler. The company built the test track for vehicles intended for those networks. First, Stadler tested the FLIRT H2 hydrogen-powered train built for California on the standard-gauge line; after that project’s success, it extended the track for narrow-gauge trains.

Now the company is testing systems on vehicles built for the Sardinian Regional Transport Company, or ARST. The planned fleet links a Swiss manufacturer’s testing facility to regional rail networks in Italy. That’s the machinery behind the polished language of a transport transition: a company develops the equipment, and ARST’s network is where the trains are meant to run.

The promise, and the missing details

“The imminent delivery of the new hydrogen-powered trains represents a decisive step for ARST,” Carlo Poledrini, the railway company’s director-general, said in a press release. He said the trains would arrive in Sardinia after a major testing phase, allowing final trials to begin “swiftly” on the network.

Poledrini said the trains would enable “concrete progress towards zero-emission transport and greater energy self-sufficiency.” The statement describes the goal. The article gives no details about the hydrogen source, the trains’ operating costs or what passengers will pay. Nor does it include comments from passengers or workers on the affected networks. The company and ARST speak; the people who will use the service don’t appear in the announcement.

Stadler expects the Schaffhausen track to play a key role in commissioning the fleet over the next three years. Tests are scheduled for 21 vehicles. The company says it is building the trains for Sardinia, Calabria and Sicily, extending the project beyond ARST’s Sardinian network.

A transition inside the market

The announcement also places the technology inside a company operating at substantial scale. Stadler Rail employs 18,000 people, including 6,000 in Switzerland, and recorded turnover of CHF3.7 billion ($4.48 billion) in 2025. Its share price had risen 44% since the start of January and 57% over the previous twelve months.

Those figures sit alongside the promise of “zero-emission transport”: a corporate order, a test facility built by the manufacturer and a rising share price. Stadler traces its origins to the engineering firm Ernst Stadler founded in Zurich in 1942. It’s now based in Bussnang, in canton Thurgau, and makes trains, trams and metro vehicles, including rolling stock that operates on railway lines in Switzerland and Ticino.

The technical milestone is real. Narrow-gauge hydrogen trains are undergoing tests on a track designed for them. But the announcement frames progress through delivery schedules, fleet commissioning and company performance. It says little about the people whose regional transport is supposed to change. The trains are being prepared for the network. The public case for the transition remains a company press release and a director-general’s promise.