Photograph of the world's first high speed hybrid train. Porterbrook Leasing in collaboration with Hitachi have converted a high speed train car to run as the world's first high speed hybrid train. The system, which has been developed by Hitachi in Japan, consists of a battery-assisted diesel-electric traction engine. The traction unit uses the battery when the train is at rest and in the early stages of acceleration up to around 30 kilometres an hour, at which point the conventional diesel engine takes over.