[ELI5]Why does most locomotives seem to be not so aerodynamic compared to bullet trains?

Question

I’ve seen this in most local trains. They seem to be box shaped while bullet trains are more of an aerodynamic model.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

Well a bullet train tends to be pulling the same type of car behind it so the whole thing can be designed aerodynamically at once. And it needs to be aerodynamic to avoid turbulence from shaking things up to badly more.

Freight trains tend to be pulling cheap cargo containers that are just stacked onto a flatbed car, or flatbeds with lumpy cargo strapped down, or fuel tanks, etc. The point it they’re not exactly uniform. And the quality of the tracks isn’t set up to let them go fast in the first place so the benefits of good aerodynamics is just not important enough to spend money on.