The brass air-gauge needles in Cab Zero-Zero slammed flat against their zero-stop pins with a tinny clatter that sounded like coins dropping onto a sewer grate.
Marcus Cole threw his full weight against the heavy Westinghouse brake handle, hauling it back into the emergency notch until the bronze teeth ground together:
[CRUNCH-GRIND]
Nothing happened.
No air hissed from the equalizing reservoir beneath the cab floorboards. No cast-iron brake shoes slammed against the sixty-inch steel wheels. The main reservoir pipe had been sheared clean through between Car One and Car Two, and every single pound of pneumatic pressure had dumped into the dark tunnel behind them.
Through the salt-streaked glass of the cab windshield, the black bore of Tunnel Zero rushed toward them at terrifying speed. The speedometer needle on the cast-iron console was already trembling past forty-eight miles per hour.
Mac reached down with his right hand and yanked the heavy brass reverser lever back toward neutral:
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