Hi This is not necessarily specific to TSW2 as it is to real life. Why is it on the long ICE and TGV train, are there 4 locomotives, 2 of them stuck in the middle, would it make more sense to just remove the middle locomotives, and link the passengers wagon, or maybe replace the 2 middle locomotives with passengers wagons
They are two separate trains connected together. Both locomotives and wagons form one unit. These trains connect in pairs, mainly at rush hour.
Like Richard said, it’s for flexibility. They are two separate units. Operating companies can couple trains together for extra capacity or detach them if the extra seats are not needed. Occasionally the separate halves will detach en-route and go to different destinations. In the latter case you might say ‘why attach them in the first place?’, it means you can get two trains through a congested mainline as they’ll only take up one signal block which leaves more room for other trains. You also only need one driver until they split.
In the case of the ICE you normally can´t operate them without the extreme units as some of the vital electronics are installed on them, including the signalling systems. In addition the ICE has distributed traction power on each vehicle, so the wagons are not just passively hauled. Normally they operate in predefined consists and they can just use one consist or two as explained above. On the other hand for operators is much easier to couple existing consists than shunting them to create longer or shorter trains. And there´s another important constraint: some platforms in the lines are designed for a specific max train lenght, so you couldn´t use trains longer than 400m for example, as you may not clear the entry track circuit when arriving to station and that would prevent any switches there to be operated. I remember a case where in a new high speed line they had to move one signal cause the trains barely fit to the station size. It was a very rare situation but it happened. That was much cheaper than changing the existing train design. Cheers
Even if let say all the wagon have power, the middle locomotives are still not need, as there would still be a locomotive at each end, and you end up with more passengers space, as well as the possibility to have the entire passenger space accessible, instead of having 2 separate passengers space
Don't forget that ICE power heads are still passenger coaches, so there are seats on them. It's not a waste to have them. On the case of trains with standard power heads and wagons passively hauled remember that a double train lenght also means two times the cargo mass plus the mass of the coaches themselves, so you may need the 4 power heads to be able to pull the whole train up to higher speeds as 2 may not have enough power for such a cargo. High speed trains require much more power than regular trains as they are optimized to run fast not to haul heavy cargos. Cheers
Short, boring answer: The ICE trainsets are a married pair, and the cars within the set cannot be uncoupled easily. Its much easier to just stick two together to form one, and separate them when its no longer needed. Longer, more interesting answer: all the other posts above mines
I think the train companies know what’s best. They aren’t going to split up two existing trains that both come as a complete set to take away the driving units and then add in two extra passenger coaches they have found lying around somewhere just to gain a few extra seats when they want a double length train. They just join two trains together and off they go. Much faster, simpler and cheaper to accomplish.
with half the locomotives, you will have half the power available, which would be insufficient to reach high speed... If your car had half its power, you would definitely feel it on its performance !
Or, with the quoted comparison, think of turning your car into a limousine. Surely it will effect the performance in a negative way. Those consists are exactly the way the train manufacturer intended them to be.
The amount of passengers plays a huge role in this. If you know you can fill a whole 14-16 cars train every single time, you can get a huge premade consist. This is very rare, however. Examples of this can be the new ICE4 aimed mainly at connections between Berlin and München with tons of passengers and Eurostar E320 travelling between London and mainland Europe. Otherwise, you are better off with separable 7-8 car units. You would still need more than one conductor even if it was a long unit and both halves have all necessary things on board.
Some people are very ignorant I think. The amount of people I've seen criticising the Class 80xs for being only 5 coaches is insane, when they have them in this configuration for this exact reason.
I can see the benefits to having some 5 car 80xs such as being able to split and join trains so they can serve more places. But I can also understand why people would have preferred more 9 car units instead, as a double 5 car LNER train has two buffets, two kitchens and two first class areas. This means for people to have access to all the amenities that a 9 car has in both 5 car units, it requires almost twice as many catering staff such as chefs and trolley stewards. This would be fine if all these extra catering staff are always available but if they're not, it can end up inconveniencing passengers in one of the units.
By the way, I did not meant to start a war, I was just making an observation about having the extra locomotive, and the extra weight, and the lost passenger and convenience of having access to the whole train while traveling Like a few years ago, my sister was traveling in Europe, and her and my niece were separated from Paris to Marseille, because the seat were in different train that were connected, but they could not meet until reaching destination
The ICE trains are EMUs, not locos-and-coaches. The power system is distributed through the consist; they are designed to work as a unit. Where more capacity is needed, two EMUs are joined together (in practice, DB will often temporarily join two different "trains" if they share a route for part of the run.) Compare the old days, when the IC and TEE trains were m-class coaches pulled by BR 103 locos. Since most major Hbf in Germany (and elsewhere) have dead-end platforms, after each stop a laborious turnaround of the single-ended consist was required. Push-pull was invented for a reason!
