This train, southbound MKCFW, was powered by three locomotives: an SD60 / AC6044CW / SD90MAC, adding up to a total of 14,180 horsepower. I found out later that he had a total of 104 cars weighing 10,787 tons and was 7,251 feet in length. At the time that they broke in two, the head end of the train had almost crested the grade, so they had pretty much the entire length (and weight) of the train on the ascending grade behind the power when the drawbar broke on the sixth car.

When a drawbar breaks on the leading end of a car (i.e., the "wrong end") the task of moving the car to set it out is somewhat difficult, because there is no longer anything to couple onto, in order to move the car. There are a number of options for getting things moving again:

a) The railroad will send mechanical department personnel to the location to replace the drawbar on the spot (very time consuming, and not feasible if the car is in an inaccessible location where a repair truck cannot get to it)

b) the crew might be able to use a chain to attach the bad order car to the car in front of it, and pull it ahead to a spur track where it can be set out.

c) the crew on a following train will bring their power up behind the rear portion of the train that broke in two, and will assist that crew by setting out the bad order car from the rear.

Whichever they decided to do, I knew they'd be stopped for a while, so I headed home to get my camera gear and then returned.

By the time I got back, the crew had begun to implement option "b" (described above).
A maintenance-of-way employee assisted them in chaining the bad order car to the car ahead of it, and they succeeded in pulling it past the south end of the Kroger spur switch and then shoved it in the clear. (At least they were close to a spur track when they broke in two!) Then they coupled back onto the remainder of their train, and were just about to get moving when I had to leave to pick up my daughter at school.

The photos I took that day weren't exactly prize-winning shots, but they do illustrate an unusual occurrence on a rail line that I don't usually go out of my way to photograph, even though it's so close to home. And it was interesting to watch... in nine-plus years of train dispatching, I've had a handful of trains on my territory endure drawbar "incidents", and I've heard about and dealt with the after-affects of several others... but I had never seen one in person until last Tuesday. Who would've thought that the first one I'd see would be at the closest grade crossing to my home?