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You did'nt mention if the hill was acending or decending. Engineers had to be much more delicate with the 'slack' when they had a crew on a caboose. Controling the slack up hill, and down hill is accomplished mostly with the 'automatic' brake valve. All the newer engines now have a 'maintaining feature', so once you set the proper amount of air, it does'nt fluctuate. If you stop your train on a decending grade (with automatic), it will usually be 'bunched' unless the engineer set alot of automatic and dragged them down the hill as in power-braking (now discourged as fuel wasting). If you do'nt back-in to the train as you release the automatic air(on a decending grade), the head end could run out violently while the rear end is still somewhat set-up and planted. Thus the head end releases quicker than the rear-very easlily causing a break-in-two by 'getting a knuckle'. To wind up my long-winded rhetoric, using the auto brake system is the key to controling the train in a smooth fashion. Controling the slack is the most important part of the hog-heads job. This can be quite difficult on a steep decending mtn. grade for example with dips and sags as you described. Just a hair too much independent brake, or too much automatic at the wrong time to control slack will result in violent run-ins, or run-outs resulting in derailments from said run-ins, and break-in -two's from over stretching...Hommie
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