Why does it take a long time for a train to come to a complete stop?

Trains stop in their own time.

Every freight train, every situation, every load is different. The distance it takes to halt a train in an emergency is based on multiple factors: the speed when the brakes are applied, the track's incline, the number of cars hooked behind the locomotives and the loading of those cars, the "brake delay" inherent in the train's hydraulic system, the friction-causing metallurgy of the wheels and tracks, the weather.

Even the engineer behind the controls can't know on any given day how long it would take to stop the train.

"There is no specific rule of thumb on that," said Greg Udolph, general manager of the Texas State Railroad, a freight and tourist line in East Texas running from Palestine to Rusk. "If the track is wet with dew it changes. Everything that can affect it does. A train takes as long to stop as it takes to stop. Sometimes it can be a mile. Sometimes it's less, sometime's it's more."

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