Why Some Trains Have 10+ Engines (and How They All Work Together)

In 2001, a single driver in Western Australia controlled eight locomotives spread across 4.5 miles of train. The engines in the middle couldn't see the track. They had no physical wire to the cab. And every one of them had to brake within a fraction of a second of each other, because if they didn't, nearly 100,000 tons of iron ore would rip the train apart from the inside. One person. Eight engines. 682 wagons. Why would anyone build something that fragile and call it a system?