Yeah, I would rather go with smaller, but automated trains. But in germany for example this would mean, basically changing everything installed electronically there already is.

The problem with trains in Germany is not high tech automation it is the aggressive cost-cutting that removed a lot of redundancy and stability, so now it is a worse service in quality and reliability

Well, it is one of the problem. Recently new tech was installed - but not at all with the idea of automatisation in mind. Apart from that I know, I often had the fun adventure of not knowing will I catch the last connection, or not.