AUBURN — A local train enthusiast got more excitement than he expected Saturday when a Pan Am Trailways train broke apart and then broke down in front of him.

Bob Cavanagh, of Auburn, was standing outside the Auburn Public Library, watching the 77-car train travel east at 4 p.m. Suddenly, he said, the 12th and 13th cars separated.

“It literally broke apart right in front of me,” he said.

At the separation, the cars’ air brakes engaged with a bang and the train stopped.

“It’s was amazing how quickly they stopped the train. The cars basically stopped on a dime,” Cavanagh said.

Cavanagh, who has worked as a volunteer train conductor and brakeman with the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway, went into the library and suggested someone call 911. 

“Then I walked down to near the head end of the engine and the conductor came walking back and I told him what had happened (with the cars),” he said. 

The two cars separated because the knuckle coupling that held them together broke. 

“When the freight conductor walked back to the train and saw the broken coupler and took the broken part off that was still hanging on the train, he said, ‘We’ve got a souvenir here if you want it,” Cavanagh said. “I said, ‘Yeah, some scrap dealer will take that.'”

The train blocked multiple downtown roads, including busy Court Street, for more than an hour until the coupling could be replaced.

[email protected]