Sees thumbnail ... Ooooh. I was hoping you wouldn't know that engines with manual lapping brakes effectively cut the brake line (manual valves can't be controlled remotely) so the only brakes you'd have for the whole train were the DE2 brakes, but you were way ahead of me 🤣 Personally I wouldn't have started the 2nd DE2 until I was hooking up to the train but that's just me :) You could have cut the train to get it moving up that hill - if you're trying to go up a hill to a junction you can take half the train up then back it into the other leg of the junction and leave it there while you fetch the rest of the train. I once had to split a train into 3 parts to get up the first hill out of the harbour, Luckily DV doesn't care what order you deliver cars in as long as they're all there.