Train Derailment Physics 101

"On July 31, 2017, CSX assembled Train Q38831 in a rail yard in Chicago, destined for a city outside of Hyndman. It had five locomotives at the front and 136 cars trailing behind, about half hauling hazardous material: propane, isobutane, ethyl alcohol, phosphoric acid and molten sulfur heated to 235 degrees Fahrenheit. It was a bomb train, as some workers refer to them, given its combustible cargo. When it left the yard and traveled east, the train grew. In Lordstown, Ohio, workers added 28 cars. In New Castle, Pennsylvania, they added 14. Now the train was 2 miles long."

"It had 38 empty cars near the front with almost all the train’s tonnage behind them, so the empty cars would be lurching around as all that weight bore down on them."

https://www.propublica.org/article/train-derailment-long-trains