This example shows a problem that can occur in long trains where the damping in the buffers or couplers not is sufficient.
The vehicles in this example have only longitudinal degrees of freedom. The first vehicle to the right is the locomotive. What happens in this scene is that the locomotive first breaks, which compresses the whole train. Then it suddenly accelerates, pulling the whole train-set apart. Due to the slack in all couplers the acceleration of the car-bodies will be very high. When the tension wave reaches the end of the train-set the acceleration in the last waggon will be over 5 [m/s2], which causes its load to slide.
If your web-browser not supports the OGG Format, please try the following link:
long_train.wmv