Quote:
Originally Posted by Luisito
Go trains will get electric locomotives which is better than what they have now but still would be better if they got modern EMUS to replace the current cars. Even electric locomotives are becoming rare in the rest of the world.
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From what I understand they're supposed to start with electric locomotives because the agency has so many bi-level coaches and it would be impossible to find buyers for all those in a short time frame. So using locomotives would allow the current coaches to be used until the end of their useful lives at which point they'd be phased out or until other agencies need to replace their stock and want to buy them.
I don't see that as a problem or as a sign of being somehow "behind" though. The main advantage of EMUs over electric locomotives is that EMUs have faster acceleration due to having more powered axles which reduces the chance of wheel slippage. But GO has very wide stop spacing of around 5km so acceleration doesn't matter as much as it would on a system with closer stops. Plus the issue of wheel slippage mostly pertains to lower speeds under 30km/h when first starting out, while electric locomotives are much faster accelerating once they get going. Locomotives also have the advantage of being simpler to maintain than EMUs since there are fewer motors with each one being more powerful and not crammed underneath passenger coaches.
Also, electric locomotives are cheaper to buy, operate, and maintain than diesel locomotives since they're mechanically simpler and electricity is cheaper than diesel. So GO could just buy and use more locomotives per train. If there were two locomotives per train instead of one that would double the number of powered axles, basically like going from a 2-wheel drive road vehicle to a 4x4. In fact, some EMUs only have two powered cars per train such as most versions of the Stadler Kiss. So it can be perfectly fine for a service with wide stop spacing. And there are still plenty of examples of suburban services using locomotives including some Paris Transilien and Zurich S-Bahn routes.