I had heard so much of this flick, Unstoppable, I finally purchased a DVD from Amazon and watched it last week. Actually it was rather entertaining, but in all of the reviews and comments I have read so far…maybe I missed it, but the most incredible mistake I feel was overlooked. When the lash-up of two diesels pulled ahead to match the speed of the run-a-way, and then try to brake an equally powered train going at speed …which in it self was insane, why didn’t they put an engineer on the rear platform of the resucing lash-up and just have the fellow step onto to the platform of the run-a-ways when contact was made? Pemature end of story, I guess!!!
Also, but I think this was discussed…having the good guys trying to shoot the emergency fuel cut-off located just next to the fuel tank…and at 70 mph!!! Oh my!!!
Still I enjoyed the movie, even though my wife looked at me as though she caught me watching a porn flick.
Bit of trivia, but the real train hase that was loosely based off of, also had State Troppers trying to shoot out the fuel Emergency ut-off at, well, less than 70mph, but 40-50 isn’t that much easier.
Yes, they should’ve put the engineer on the front of the braking train, but you’ll notice they missed another key fact. EVERY time someone tried to get onto the locomotives runnign away, they went for the LEAD platform, including tweedledee who ran past THREE other places (maybe only two, if the trailign riunaway loco’s nose door was locked, but still) where he could’ve gotten on and ran the platform to the cab, before it ever got out of the yard.
I s’pose he could’ve applied the dynamics and then walk back to do the shut-down, but he was killed before he had a chance to pull it off.
Anyway, what I feel was the most incredible mistake in the movie was when the hostler jumped off to line the trailing point switch, it was actually correctly lined! Was the producer afraid he’d have to pay to repair it?
From what I’ve read about the origianl incident the only “real” parts of the movie were the beginning when the train gets loose, and the end when they stop it. Everything in the middle was totally made up. There were no police and helicopter chases, and no spectacular crash while trying to stop the run away.
The whole incident took place in the middle of the night, and the general public never even knew about a run away train until a year later when the NTSB incident report was released. Still, that would have been a very booring film.
Yeah the real thing wasn’t the middle of the night, but it also wasn;t hauling hazardous materials and heading right into a populated town with a sharp elevated curve that would throw any runaway into a series of oil storage tanks.
As for not just having a guy jump to the runaway, what guy? I’ll go with - they had to hurry so there wasn’t time to get a seocnd crewmember on the two units to be able to do that. Of course, they had time to prep the helicopter to try to lower the guy on - but then a railroad usually doesn’t just have locomotives laying around all over the line, so if the two units were close to where the runaway was going to pass, they would have been rushed a bit.
ANd the shooting, is indeed taken from the real event, of course that one wasn’t going anywhere near 70mph, either.
70 was probably chosen so non-train peopel could relate. When they try to say somethign is speedign out of control at 25mph most people would tend to think “so?” When you say 70, that’s above the speed limit on even most open highways. It conveys an idea of fast, dangerous, and out of control - since the general public seems to be very physics challenged and seems to expect a fully loaded semi or a mile long freight train to be able to just stop instantly.
There was a runaway locomotive on the Long Island Railroad/New York and Atlantic back in April 18, 2005. The locomotive never went above 25 mph, but man, what a mess. 70 mph makes a much more visual impact. It’s a shame that they can’t do like On Star ant shut down the engine from a central location.
Thanks Jeffrey. We had a runaway locomotive on the Long Island Railroad/ New York and Atlantic in April 2005. Although it never went above 25 mph, it made a mess. 70 mph would make more of a visual impact.
This is a great movie for suspense and action - even though the outcome is known it kept my on the edge of my seat. I’m also pretty good at willful suspension of disbelief, but… what I had trouble with the time and distance. The runaway is moving at 60-70 mph. The chasing unit is reporting that it’s one mile back, and has, what, 4 or 5 miles to catch up and slow the runaway before the bridge? So they need to make up that mile in maybe a couple of minutes which means that old SD unit needed to get up to 90 or 100mph to have a chance to catch up in time. But they always said they were doing 70.
Other than that, a good time and worth the rental fee. Sorry I missed it in the theatre.
Another great movie of a similar genre, 1985’s Runaway Train with John Voight, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca DeMornay. Edge of your seat drama and F units.
The SD-40 would have had no trouble catching up, as Denzel said, “she’s old, but she’s got 5,000 hp”.
I guess it was one of them there new SD40-5 thingies that have been kept under wraps.
I liked the 168 wheel cornering on the bridge (2 x 6 axle locos and 39 cars = 336 wheels, and the whole lot was up on one side), guess it had Koni shocks and beefed up racing suspension, race drivers/mechanics take note!
Actually 8888 took her solo run beginning at 12:35 pm from Stanley yard in Toledo and there was 2 loads of molten phenol among the 47 cars that 8888 took along on her solo trip…The engineer of the chase locomotive was slightly injured.
I loved “Unstoppable”. Though it was hokey in parts-- “We’re doing 70, in reverse !” (yeah, so…?) – I expected that. What I didn’t expect was how thoroughly enter-trained I would be by the movie. I’ve seen it twice now, and am waiting for it to come out on one of the cable movie channels we get so I can see it a few more times.
What’s this other movie you’re referring to? Not “Silver Streak”…?? That had Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder in it. There was another one-- “Runaway” maybe? That took place up north someplace snowy. There was also one about a train coming back from a ski resort-- can’t remember the name of it-- one of those 70’s type disaster movies… is that the one you’re talking about?