Railworks America

This is just more of a personal curiosity since in my neck of the woods, commuter trains don't really exist other than amtraks with small clusters of amfleets. If you would even consider those commuters.

But anyway...

Is there any reason behind the shape of the front/rear of most commuter cars? It seems like aside from the f59phi's and superliner/surfliner cars, there's really no locomotives that match the profile of most single level and bi-level commuter cars making the airflow over the cars kind of odd. Some of the combinations between locomotives and commuter cars can look a little strange.

EngineerJohn wrote:This is just more of a personal curiosity since in my neck of the woods, commuter trains don't really exist other than amtraks with small clusters of amfleets. If you would even consider those commuters.

But anyway...

Is there any reason behind the shape of the front/rear of most commuter cars? It seems like aside from the f59phi's and superliner/surfliner cars, there's really no locomotives that match the profile of most single level and bi-level commuter cars making the airflow over the cars kind of odd. Some of the combinations between locomotives and commuter cars can look a little strange.

Laziness, lack of flair, and function/cost over form that has been a problem for the majority of any engineering project since the 80s.