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I'm not sure about your terminology, and I'm probably not about to do much better, but yes the first coupling must bear the load of the full train, how could it be otherwise? In fact it's worse that that, the first cross section of atoms in the first coupling must bear the full load, but some atoms are pretty good at that sort of thing.

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>yes the first coupling must bear the load of the full train

This is only the case with a standard locomotive arrangement.

The trains involved here appear to be EMUs (electric multiple units), which have motors in most of the bogies (wheel assembles). Therefore, the lead car isn't pulling the whole thing.

Even when trains aren't EMUs, often you have a "push-pull" arrangement, such as the French TGV which has a power car at each end.

> how could it be otherwise?

In a push-pull configuration, couplings in the back of the train would experience compressive force

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push%E2%80%93pull_train

Touché. Although I don't think that's quite what the questioner was getting at.

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