>>1991494>>1991494>when it breaks down the whole train is out of serviceNot the case at all.
>all the same, any small breakdown means full EMU out of service, not just the one carThe motor car that's effected is the one that is out of operation the train still works, especially with newer EMUs going away from a dedicated motor/trailer set to ".5" motor sets.
>breaks down more easily than a locomotiveYou could argue this but new emus are built around redundancy where this isn't an issue.
>awkward space distribution because of mechanical parts having to be fittedWhat do you mean I've never had any issues with this unless it was older stock that had to have an ATS cabinet moved inside the train.
>more noise and vibration in passenger compartmentOnly in motor cars but it's not even that bad.
>little flexibility, you can only couple together whole EMUs and not single cars (eg. either 8 or 16 cars with no in-between)Cool the kururi line runs 1 car dmus in the middle of the day and at rush hour they hook up 3 of those 1 car DMUs together. Keikyu runs 8+4 emus in rush hour and uncouples them at shinagawa until there is enough of them on a storage track and runs them 4+4+4 all abound for different stations.
>you can't combine different trains like maybe through cars or a train section from another country (this is common in Europe) so you still need locos for thatJR tokai runs 211,311,313s together in trainsets. Jr Hokkaido even has multiple working on the Kiha 201 dmu with the 731 series emu.