It seems that everyone in this thread insists that DMUs are better “because they’re better” which is even less of a valid reason than citing enthusiasts as the sole appeal of loco haulage.
I’m well aware of the reasons for the use of EMUs, my local line being the first to see them introduced by the L&YR. The argument was entirely to do with quadrupling the capacity of terminal accommodation, movements to and from the turntable being required by multiple locos in addition to those bringing stock in and out of the station. With those movements crossing the station throat eliminated, a more intensive, higher capacity passenger service could be operated than was possible by conventional methods.
By the time DMUs were devised to copy this mode of operation without electrification, the railway not only had a crude oil lobby to give into, someone had also given it the brilliant idea that by being more efficient, they could slash terminal capacity rather than increasing it. They had also lost any concept of having standards.
It’s alright saying multiple units have better acceleration, or that by not having a single vehicle at the front which is much heavier than the others you reduce track maintenance costs, but when you have a mixed traffic railway, none of these things matter. Loco haulage is still required for freight traffic (unless we’re going to put motors on container wagons) and can no longer share resources with passenger services. All you’re doing is making it harder to manage capacity, the opposite of the reason for using EMUs in the first place.
Why was it that in the dying days of BR in the 1990s, we still saw a proliferance of loco hauled workings, deputising for failed or unavailable multiple units, both Diesel and electric, but particularly Pacers? I would suggest that the reason for the almost total extinction of LHCS in this country (but notably not others) is an obsession with doing things on the cheap, not properly and not having any form of minimum appropriate standards.
DMUs are worse than EMUs. Note how many DMUs run without the full range of amenities that would be present on the conventional loco hauled stock they replaced e.g. catering and how many EMUs retained this until it was lost around privatisation and also how many incompatible DMU and EMU fleets are now present on the network, which cannot rescue each other. Almost all of BR’s first generation multiple units were able to be rescued by, or even run in service with a loco that would be available locally.
Loco haulage has a number of particularly significant advantages, more than just generically more comfortable passenger accommodation due to not having underfloor Diesel traction noise or vibrations (although why was this deemed to be acceptable in the first place?) I would rather focus on the abilities for standard locos to be more efficiently shared between passenger and freight operations, to change loco including traction type either at a strategic location (Voyagers under the wires Manchester - Coventry vs a loco change by BR at this location) or even when you simply want to use the loco or stock for a different purpose. You don’t need a new line to be electrified or some other massive change.
Loco haulage is also much more flexible when you want to make some variation to the ordinary timetable, either an extra coach for a group booking, by a wedding, school etc, rather than them booking a road coach, or for dedicated additional day excursion trains including footexs. Note the difficulty running these kind of services with fixed formation DMUs.
Making upgrades to traction and passenger accommodation independently of each other should also be an advantage, but having multiple redundant, complicated, expensive cabs buried in the consist when not necessary is obviously not the most efficient way to run a railway and once you have 2 or 3 units in multiple, they still take up as much platform length as a loco would, but in the middle of the platform rather than at one end. Perhaps we shouldn’t have so many unusably short platforms on the network anymore.
It’s as if there’s no ambition to run longer trains to increase capacity, let alone sufficient stock to do it. The ability to build and maintain a large number of simple and comfortable passenger vehicles cheaply, without the requirement for them to also carry all the equipment for them to move themselves, either individually or as a group of 4 coaches etc, with a national shortage of DMU vehicles while off lease fleets EMUs, constituting what would otherwise be a large number of coaches, unable to be used by any means. Not having underfloor traction equipment would also make it easier to build low floor coaches for level boarding, if we had the capability to design such vehicles.
This is just what was said about HSTs when they first came along - fixed formation trainsets. An article in Modern Railways 12 months after introduction showed how, in order to maintain the full service, they were shunting in and out at the depot every night. In fact Bounds Green asked for and got their own Class 08, specially fitted with HST couplings, specifically to do this.
The magazine visited one night; an air con module in a restaurant car had failed, for which they didn't have a spare module. But they did have a spare restaurant car in another set which was stopped for a different reason. Cue the Class 08. For those unfamiliar with these practices, such on-the-spot decisions are what engineering managers do (did) for a living.
It’s almost unfathomable in the context of today’s railway that this was done not to ensure that the service ran, but to ensure it ran with
air conditioning in the restaurant car - what proportion of trains today run with no catering
or working aircon - including those that are supposed to have it?
So early into their introduction, other possible options due to a single fault on a single HST vehicle could have been, bring in a Deltic or Western hauled service with different stock, simply remove the restaurant car and run the HST without catering, given that it was not acceptable for BR to run a restaurant car without aircon, remarshalling of the HST set that night was obviously by far the best solution for passengers, making the issue entirely transparent to them and since it seems BR were prepared for it, little to no extra work for the railway.
Both the faults with the aircon module and the other fault with the set which the spare restaurant car came from could be seen and rectified by maintenance on the same day as a full HST was in revenue earning service both with catering and aircon available to passengers all day and without the need to swap the restaurant cars back afterwards. That sounds like a railway functioning perfectly.
