Usually trains have multiple locomotives, and defects that stop the entire train are rare. Usually they will just isolate or shut down the bad locomotive and carry on to the next yard, where that locomotive will be swapped out and sent to the shop.
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Freight rail is generally held up as the safest way to transport massive amounts of hazardous material. It's a highly regulated form of transportation, and yet train derailments happen often in the U.S. In 2021 alone, there were 293 train derailments on, quote, main lines, meaning not in work areas or in rail yards.
They might need to get one train into one place, another into another, and they needed different lanes or space to do it. It could also be a crew time-out issue. Just like with airplanes and pilots, when they hit a certain number of hours, they have to shift out. They have to get rest.
Union Pacific, United States. Run from 8–10 January 2010, consisting of 296 container cars and hauled by nine diesel-electric locomotive spread through the train with a total length of 18,000 feet (3.4 mi; 5.5 km), from a terminal in Texas to Los Angeles.
Trains can't stop quickly or swerve. The average freight train is about 1 to 1¼ miles in length (90 to 120 rail cars). When it's moving at 55 miles an hour, it can take a mile or more to stop after the locomotive engineer fully applies the emergency brake.
CSX #8888, an SD40-2, ran away under power without a crew after the engineer incorrectly set the locomotive's dynamic brake and was unable to get back into the locomotive after it began moving.
Texas tops the list with 208 million tons of rail freight received each year. The Lone Star State is crisscrossed by a large network of railroads, making it easy for goods to move in and out of the state.
Federal regulators limit the speed of trains with respect to the signaling method used. Passenger trains are limited to 59 mph and freight trains to 49 mph on track without block signal systems. (See dark territory.)
For a variety of reasons the practice is less common in the 21st century, although a community of freight-train riders still exists. Typically, hoppers will go to a rail yard where trains stop to pick up and unload freight and switch out crew.
I am a professional hobo. I have been hopping freight trains since 1989 and have ridden over 330,000 miles of steel since my very first hop out on the rails. Canada, USA and Mexico are my usual hopping grounds.
Passenger trains carry people, while freight trains carry goods, raw resources, and even the mail. Because freight trains no longer need to carry passenger cars, engineers have changed their design. These changes mean that freight and passenger cars can no longer travel together.