Antofagasta hydrogen locomotive: heavy-haul design and operations notes for engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan

First reported on MINING.com
30 Second Briefing
Antofagasta’s transport division FCAB has launched Latin America’s first hydrogen-powered freight locomotive in northern Chile, converting an existing diesel-electric unit to run on fuel cells and lithium-ion batteries. The pilot locomotive, developed with engineering firm TMI and fuel-cell supplier Ballard, is designed for heavy haul on the Antofagasta–Bolivia corridor, where gradients above 2% and long distances have traditionally locked operations into diesel. The project will test hydrogen supply logistics, refuelling cycles and performance at altitude, informing future decarbonisation of ore and sulphuric acid rail transport.
Technical Brief
- Pilot operations will validate fuel cell performance under low humidity, high solar radiation and desert dust conditions.
Our Take
Hydrogen appears in only a handful of keyword-matched pieces in our database, so Antofagasta’s move into hydrogen traction in Latin America is still an outlier compared with the bulk of Mining sustainability coverage, which remains dominated by electrification and renewables at fixed plants.
For operators currently reliant on diesel rail in Latin America, a working hydrogen locomotive from Antofagasta’s transport division provides a regional proof-of-concept that could de-risk similar pilots for bulk haulage corridors serving copper and iron ore districts.
Within the 201 tag-matched Projects/Product/Sustainability items, most low-emission initiatives focus on mine-site fleets rather than off-site logistics, so this hydrogen locomotive signals that decarbonisation pressure is now extending more visibly into the transport links of the mining value chain.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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