I attend school about one block from the Union Pacific main in Caldwell Idaho, and yesterday during Lacrosse practice, we heard an awfull crunching/banging metal sound (honestly, to me, it sounded like a bunch of car couplers banging together, but others thought is was a real train/motor vehicle accident) followed by a very loud whining noise that was high in frequency and decreaced in frequency very quickly and was gone (the sound was around for less than a second, but it sounded ominous) This was proceeded by a plume of black smoke that followed the path of the train for several hundred yards. While we could not actually see the engine or most of the train for that matter since it was blocked by buildings, it certainly didn’t sound good. Just wondering if there were any engineers out there that might know something.
Post this in the Railroading forum. I am trying to think of something…
Sounds like the train was put in emergency braking from what you describe.