ElI5: Why do subway trains have a flat front rather than being streamlined?
In: Other
In addition to what the other commenters have said, subway trains are generally modular. All the cars are the same design. The front car is whichever car happened to get hooked up in front today; there’s nothing special about it. So if you wanted to streamline the front, you’d have to streamline every car. That would bring up other problems.
The train occupies most of the tube. That means that pushing away the air with streamlining won’t work. There is a concrete wall there.
Streamlining is great for high-speed trains that run out in the open countryside, but once you get in a tube that you mostly fill, all shapes are essentially flat. At that point, save some metal and just make the end flat.
because they don’t really need to be. designing a train to be streamlined makes it more expensive to build, and is dont because it helped reduce wind resistance and drag on the train. But this is only cost effective for trains that are meant to move Very fast over Long distances, which is why things like high speed rail lines or so called “bullet” trains between cities have flat fronts. By making these trains streamlined they make them more efficient, make them lose less energy, and in turn cost less to run because you pay for less energy.
Subway trains dont travel nearly as fast, and have to stop way way more often after much shorter distances, sometimes only a handful of blocks away. These lower speeds and the constant stopping and starting means that streamlining these trains isnt going to really benefit them, so theres no point to spend money on it.
Due to how long they are trains are already so streamlined that making the front of the train more aerodynamic has a negligible effect. Additionally light rail tends to be pretty slow, at least compared to high speed bullet trains, so the difference is even smaller.
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