This. The capital costs are huge, such that it only makes marginal sense on a financial basis alone. You get further factoring in service improvements (lighter trains without diesel engines -> faster acceleration -> shorter journey tines), the societal benefits of decarbonisation, and electric trains breaking down less often, but that only moves the viable point so far.
In the extreme case, a railway which is 200 miles long and takes 3 trains a day will never have a positive financial case for electrification. So once you've electrified all the stuff that should have been done decades ago (like main lines with 10 trains an hour) and then pushed on to the marginal stuff (hourly rural lines) there's still a small core of lines left. You could just bite the bullet and electrify them anyway, or you could go with things like battery electric trains (good for short distances off an electric mainline) or biodiesel/green hydrogen. The latter are likely to be cheaper.
Worth testing, anyway, and this looks like a good place to test them.
Hydrogen trains might make sense even if hydrogen cars don't, since the trains run on their tracks, according to a fixed timetable, and need little new infrastructure.
The issue with Hydrogen is its storage technology.
It requires a high pressure (300-bar minimum, 700-bar ideal) environment... or cryogenics to store compact liquid hydrogen.
Building a small, personal, car-tank that withstands 700-bar of pressure and survives typical car accidents is... really difficult? However, building a large train-tank that withstands a typical derailment is far easier.
------
I don't think Hydrogen will ever be useful for personal cars. The pressure requirements / storage requirements look rather insane.
I know there's groups working with carbon-fiber designs and other advanced materials, but those are really expensive. Larger trains / trucks can just use standard steel to contain the Hydrogen at 700-bar of pressure (because a bigger tank is easier to scale).
I mean, Toyota and Hyundai are making personal H2 vehicles.
But they're expensive, very expensive, because those storage tanks are extremely sophisticated. Unless those storage tank costs come down by a LOT, I don't think H2 cars will compete reasonably against other technologies (Hybrid, PHEV, or EVs)
-----
$50,000 for an H2 vehicle with only 180 horsepower engine is really meh.
In the extreme case, a railway which is 200 miles long and takes 3 trains a day will never have a positive financial case for electrification. So once you've electrified all the stuff that should have been done decades ago (like main lines with 10 trains an hour) and then pushed on to the marginal stuff (hourly rural lines) there's still a small core of lines left. You could just bite the bullet and electrify them anyway, or you could go with things like battery electric trains (good for short distances off an electric mainline) or biodiesel/green hydrogen. The latter are likely to be cheaper.