this post was submitted on 17 May 2024
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Depends on what you call a "whole ass train". Many of these routes could be easily service by a 1 or 2 car DMU like the rural routes in Scotland and Wales.
Seems like a train that uses both sides of the track fulfills different requirements. A train can only be made to go one way at a time, but can hold more people (increased bandwidth), but these smaller half-cars can be moving people in both directions at the same time (lower latency). Seems quite clever if it works out.
There are stations on Anglesey where you have to stick your arm out to hail the train, and the only two routes they lie on are served by the kind of 1970s DMU like you mentioned on its way to Chester or a Pendelino on its way to London or something.
I've used those request stops! Those sort of rural lines are exactly what we're missing here in the states, just bouncing back and forth on the line. You can see here Americans don't even know what they are, but they're the perfect solution for these lines going between little towns
I live next to a railway line in the south west that is similar. A single train runs up and down the line. If you're on one of the stations, you wave to the train so it'll stop for you. If you're on the train and want to get off, you ask the driver to stop.
That sounds more like a tram than a train
They're definitely trains. I live next to a similar one. It is physically a train, with exactly the same hardware as trains on busier lines (though typically only hauling 1-2 carriages instead of 4+). It's just more fuel-efficient for a train to keep going through a station if nobody is getting on or off, so when passenger numbers are low, the practice is to let the driver know if you need on or off.
This is what one of the stations looks like: