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Hi Jen, The last thing a heavy train wants to do is move. A light train is easy but if I'm heavy I'll start out by "taking up the slack". Pulling real slow, notch 1 or 2. When I think my train is stretched I'll come out a couple more notches. This is the critical time. If I have enough power, say 4 or more units, and try to hurry at this point, I can pull the train in two. I have a gauge that tells me how hard I'm pulling. It's called an amp meter. If my amp meter is at the upper limits, 1600, and my speed is real slow then my "tractive effort" is high and I could break a knuckle. This danger decreases as speed increases. One thing I do and tell any engineer trainee that has the misfortune of riding with me is to keep an eye on that amp meter and don't notch up while the amps are steady or increasing. As long as the amps are on the way down it is o.k. to notch up. Starting a train is the easy part, stopping it is the trick. That same lazy ol' train that didn't want to start a while ago doesn't want to stop now! Inertia in it's truest form. You wrote," I heard him increase his speed about 4 times." Likely he was allowing the amps to drop before givin''er some more. This reminds me of something I saw on T.V. a few years ago. Connie Chung was doing a special on train crossing accidents and it seemed to me that the program was a little bit anti rail. At one point she said that, after a particular crossing accident The engineer "admitted in a court of law that he had his locomotives at FULL POWER !!" Like he was being a cowboy. You just don't get it do you Connie? Slofr8.
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