Man v. Mountain
Pulling hard through the north portal of the famous 2,200ft long Cumberland Mountain Tunnel "AKA Cowan Tunnel" the northbound manifest CSX Q512-16 (Waycross,GA-Avon,IN) is pulling off an old railroad traditional move that haven't been seen on this section of railroad in quite sometime, doubling the hill. The 15,000 ton 164 car train with the pusher on the rear had broke in half 50 cars deep if I may made add in the train, just half way up the 6 mile 2% grade before the crest. With the head end having to back south to the other end of the portal so the conductor could get on the ground and walk the train with a replacement knuckle also with engine problems playing another big roll on we rails, the crew was in on a headache. Under the watchful supervision of SC-Dispatcher the first half of the train will head north to the town of Cowan where the crew will cut the first cut of 50 cars off, and the motor will head back light to the 90 cars that is being held in place by the pusher. The lead motor will fetch the other half of the train with the pusher on the rear and the heavy manifest will head north once again to Cowan where the crew of Q512 will put the train back together and continue north for Nashville the whole sequence took a told of about 3 hours.
