>>1991764>and where are these places that are constantly swapping out failing loco-hauled passenger cars?Locos don't fail because they're built better. After all, they're purely tractive vehicles, not a combination of tractive and passenger car.
>do you think choosing multiple units instead of locomotives is the financially wrong choice to makeDepends. But I'm ok with spending more on railways if it creates local jobs in operations rather than in manufacturing train parts in Chyna or something.
>he literally gave an example of 4-car units being used and split on a busy commuter lineYou didn't get my point. The smaller your trains, the more flexibility but the more expensive overall. Two 4-car EMUs are more expensive than one 8-car EMU. That's the point. In Switzerland they're using 8-Car EMUs now for some trains. Meaning composition is 8 or 16 cars. Limited flexibility. Having 4-car EMUs would increase expense, and in the end you'd be shunting almost as much as loco+cars.
>again, where are these places that are constantly removing and adding cars to meet demand?Switzerland. They used to adjust compositions all the time for different lines, with trains anywhere from 5 or 6 cars (I even remember riding a 3-car train once) up to 16 cars, either single deck or double deck. They still do this, just less so. They'd even set up longer trains for holidays and such. Or add a few extra cars during peak hours. They could also add or remove restaurant cars. Now the EMUs will often run with a closed restaurant car when it's not operational on that route.
I'm not even saying that EMUs don't have their use, they're good for local and commuter trains because of better acceleration. They're just not better for long distance trains. Trying to argue reliability is the dumbest argument ever. There has never been a train in Switzerland so unreliable as the new flagship long-distance EMUs. The old locos from the 60s have better reliability and are even used on commuter trains.
