Trains are relatively long in proportion to their width. That makes the sides of the trains become relatively more important for aerodynamics than the fronts.
Possibly, making the front more aerodynamic has so many disadvantages that it’s not worth it. For example, a train with a long nose means less space for passengers in a given length of train. It also may be a bad choice aerodynamically if you want to have the ability to combine multiple railroad cars into a single train.
If this is a high speed train, and the front car of the train is always being rotated backward, how do you deal with making sure that this first car is aerodynamic, and remains aerodynamic once it is no longer the first car?
Traditional trains have wheels and engines, which are quite heavy. And with a traditional train you're trying to minimize losses due to air resistance, which is not an issue in a low pressure tunnel.
You can plasma sheaf the train head. The stability of wheels/rails and other mechanical stuff at say 700km/hour is probably a bigger issue than air resistance.
The Germans were really keen on aerodynamics for surface vehicles in the 30s; trains too! Here's some video footage of the Schienenzeppelin (propeller-driven diesel train) during it's preliminary 1930 test runs:
It later set a 143mph land speed record for a petrol-powered train, although it didn't exactly catch on (in no small part due to safety concerns concerning the passenger-mincer at the back). More here:
I'm not talking about high speed trains. I'm talking about medium speed cargo trains. Despite the lack of a flush body, each container does draft the following one, greatly decreasing drag.
Each car in a normal cargo train doesn't have its own engine. They are pulled by locomotives. This is more efficient than putting an engine in every car.
Passenger trains typically do have engines in every car, but we're not talking about passenger train here.
Don't trains usually have to accommodate the potential for standing passengers and thus have to have a much smoother acceleration curve than is strictly necessary for car comfort?
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