Mike's Railroad Crossing Forum

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=274467

This picture brings a question to mind. I love signals, but don't know a lot about railroading itself.

I assuming this "drawbar" (or coupler as I always knew them by) broke while the train was going down the tracks. Would the engineer know this immediately? I'm assuming they could feel it happen as I'm sure the train would all the suddon start to pick up speed without the excess weight, but what if it was a really long train and this happened towards the end of the train? Could they just leave a few cars in the middle of nowhere and not realize it?

bad idea to have that just lying in the tracks waiting for the next train to run into it.

Is going to be an interesting "find" for the next loco coming 'round the bend.