Trains are going to have to become moving C-UAS platforms, they are the largest trivial to hit moving target and their movements are by definition completely predictable in space if not in time.

The good thing for mass transit is, trains will make extremely good C-UAS platforms. You can armor the shit out of train, carry an arbitrary amount of ammunition in heavily armored cars and rail infrastructure is made to be able to be built out and repaired surprisingly fast.

The idea of being attacked by a shahed while on a train is very scary, but consider that a large passenger train could be very easily equipped to carry an arbitrary amount of drone interceptors that could be launched straight from the train. Weight is less of an issue to Trains than any other form of travel over land, so electronic warfare/jamming equipment, sensors and other defenses against drones including armor are more feasible for trains than any other land vehicle.

Also consider that there is a good chance that a train that needs C-UAS capability at any one time is probably transporting some amount of logistics, which probably includes C-UAS equipment. Trains ARE a good chunk of logistics, thus you don’t face the same issue you do with protecting other vulnerable parts of society where you have to solve the problem of how to get all the C-UAS equipment to the places that need to be defended (you must defend these delivery methods with C-UAS as well). The platform you are defending is itself the answer.

Armed and armored trains don’t really make sense against anything bigger than a drone/shahed, a single tank will always beat the biggest “war train” and fighter-bombers can atomize a train with a glidebomb but they are actually perfect platforms to shoot down shaheds from especially if the enemy can’t figure out a way to damage train tracks on a massive scale which again is actually surprisingly hard to do. Empty train tracks are a very low value military target unless there is a train coming just around the corner unaware, which most of the time, often for extended lengths of time, there is not.

I think Turtle Tanks are in most ways a complete deranged failure of a design, but Turtle Trains may make more sense.

None of this matters for russia though as their air defense networks are failing in a general collapse. Their trains have become “fish in a barrel” and no amount of armor and weapons they slap on them desperately changes that. They are all going to get blown up until russia is only moving logistics on their train tracks with small improvised carts.

Taken together, these incidents reveal a clear pattern: russian military rail logistics remain under constant pressure. Fuel trains and locomotives — once considered relatively safe deep in the rear — are now increasingly vulnerable. Ukrainian drones are not only reaching these targets but doing so with increasing frequency.