ac6000cw
Established Member
Agreed - as already mentioned in post #23 aboveThis is why hand brakes should be applied whenever a freight train is unattended, and failure to apply enough of them was the cause of a disaster a few years ago when much of the small community of Lac Megantic on the US-Canada border was obliterated by a runaway oil train.
The fatal (for the crew) runaway on Kicking Horse Pass (Field Hill) in Western Canada in 2019 was also basically the same cause, compounded by high air leakage levels in below -25C temperatures - see https://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/enquetes-investigations/rail/2019/r19c0015/r19c0015.html