| Q368-11 sits on Track 2 Main in emergency mode, on the bend between Broadford and West Yough. The train was in the middle of doing a crossover, meaning the 151 car train was occupying both tracks of the mainline when it went into emergency. It resulted in a huge disruption and backlog of trains in both directions, affecting Q276-11, X115-12, Q359-12, Q277-12, Z687-12, Q640-12, and Q138-11, among others. The train was having trouble maintaining air pressure due to a bad valve on one of the railcars. The one causing problems was thought to be the 147th one on the train, almost in back. After isolating that railcar from the braking system, the air brake pressure was brought back up to 87psi and they decided to give a try at restart. The train only moved east less than a mile before a tremendous hissing sound/air release was heard, and an annoying repeating buzzing sound was heard coming across a radio frequency for the EOT device, signaling that the train had went into emergency again. The train stopped almost immediately and once again the search began to find the problem. That took about another hour and by then there were many trains having to sit idle, waiting for this train to get out of the way. By the time the air issue was finally fixed, the crew ran out of hours and so the train had to stop in Connellsville, creating another delay. I suspect it was probably after dark by the time the train made it to Cumberland. |