Unstoppable-THE MOVIE

Hi Guys,
Just wanted to let everyone know that there is a pretty cool train-related movie coming out in November called "Unstoppable" which is about an unmanned freight train carrying a load of chemical waste and poision gas that is out of control and at risk of derailing in a large metropolitan city. The movie features the stars Denzel Washington (Independence Day) and Chris Pine (Star Trek) in the lead roles, and by the trailer clip its looks to be pretty action packed. Here is the link to the trailer website.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0477080
George

 

I saw the trailer at the theater last week, and I agree it looks exciting in the same way that a similar film called "Runaway Train" did about 15 years ago. However, from what I could tell it's another one of those train movies where all the laws of physics as well as the realities of railroad technology are either suspended or ignored. My guess is that the more you know about how railroads actually work, the more stupid this film will seem. Still, there are very few bad Denzel Washington pictures, so I will probably end up seeing it.

GS

 

The chemical industry is not the only one being trashed. From what I've seen in the trailers, railroad management is portrayed as a greedy bunch with little concern for public safety. As for reality, there is very little if any. As a professional, with 32 years in the transportation department at a major railroad, I can't stomach this kind of "entertainment." Railroads are the safest form of transportation for hazardous materials. Movies, such as this one, are an insult to any and all involved in this mode of transportation.

I'm not against entertainment. I just don't understand why realism is important to one type of film and completely forgotten in another. That's my two cents worth.

 

Agree with all the posts. What they do with airplane movies is beyond belief.
However, that said, it (they) would be boring to watch otherwise.

I remember another train movie or TV show several years about a runaway train hauling nucular material. It did have nice shots of rail locomotives and equipment.

 

After 10 years in law enforcement, it really amazes me how much of the general public believes that you can lift a fingerprint from a storm screen. I was really fortunate to get in the business about the same time CSI was starting it's run (sarcasm here). Another distortion: Getting lab results back within a day and solving a crime based on that evidence..........not a chance, at least not for most departments in Missouri. The average time for a typical agency in Missouri for getting laboratory results: six months.

Back on topic-I'm looking forward to seeing the movie. I don't think there will be a huge uproar from the public about increased rail safety when it's already just about a safe as it can possibly be. There just isn't as much interaction between the railroads and the public like there is between the various forms of government and the public. Going to see this movie will be a pleasant departure from all the "chick flicks" that my wife has subjected me to over the last couple of years, no matter how far-fetched it is.

Pat Moreland
Union Mo.

 

For those interested, here is a review of the "Unstoppable" movie from the Trainsmag.com weekly newsletter. It sounds like it is pretty much what we all expected it to be.

GS

Unstoppable: Now barreling toward a theater near you

By David Lustig
Published: November 12, 2010
Denzel Washington charges across the top of a moving tank car in the movie “Unstoppable,” in theaters today.
Photo by Robert Zuckerman, Twentieth Century Fox


"Unstoppable" is not a train movie; that’s the first thing you should know. It’s an action movie, just like every other suspense-filled Hollywood blockbuster you’ve ever seen. The only difference in this film is that the central premise is not a sinking ship or a burning building or a crippled airliner, but a runaway train, one that more than lives up to the movie’s title.

Don’t enter the theater expecting a documentary on railroad operations. You need to go into "Unstoppable" with a "Mission Impossible" mindset, not the mindset of a railroad rules examiner. The movie took the kernel of a possible scenario, layered it with every plot cliché in the screenwriter’s handbook, and wrapped it up in full-blown testosterone-driven Tinseltown action. As visceral action entertainment, "Unstoppable" delivers, even though as railroad propaganda, it’s kind of misses its mark.

Of course, that dichotomy between what’s real and what’s fiction has the railroad industry concerned. Those who work in or follow railroading know about the industry’s exemplary safety record. The general public might not. How much of an issue this becomes remains to be seen. The Federal Railroad Administration, Operation Life Saver, and Association of American Railroads have yet to comment, perhaps because they haven’t seen the movie.

Unstoppable says right up front, it was “inspired by actual events.” And that’s true. On May 15, 2001, CSX SD40-2 8888, assigned to yard duty, left Stanley Yard in Walbridge, Ohio, with 47 cars — two of them loaded with molten phenol, a combustible liquid — and no one on board.

The air brakes had been bled off (deactivated), as is common in a freightyard environment. The engineer, seeing a switch ahead was not lined correctly, got out of the cab, lined the switch, and prepared to reboard. Unfortunately, before alighting, he’d accidentally put the throttle in Run 8, its highest setting, and the train’s speed had built up to the point he was not able to get back aboard. The independent (locomotive) brake he’d applied deactivated the engine’s alerter, which would otherwise have stopped the train after a period of inactivity.

The runaway traveled 69 miles at speeds reaching above 40 mph before a CSX trainmaster was able to climb on after another train crew coupled a locomotive onto the rear and slowed it down. There were no collisions or derailments. End of a story that didn’t need to happen.

From that event, "Unstoppable's" filmmakers let their imaginations run wild: Let’s ramp it up several hundred notches past Run 8. Let’s make the runaway about the same number of cars, but make eight of them loaded with highly toxic ingredients used to make glue, increase the top speed to 70 mph, and put every conceivable obstacle in its way, including a horse trailer stuck on the tracks (with a rearing horse that forms the spitting image of the Norfolk Southern thoroughbred), and a local freight train just a few cars too long for the siding it was hastily switched to.

Oh yes, did I mention the passenger special filled with young children on a fieldtrip to learn about railroad safety? And a railroader deftly running at full speed from car to car at speed in an attempt to get to the locomotive? This is the same as six-shooters that never run out of ammunition, horses that gallop without stopping hour after hour, and pioneer women closing their eyes before firing – and hitting – the bad guys.

One potentially eye-rolling moment occurs when local law enforcement and National Guard troops start shooting at the fuel cutoff switch as the runaway train roars by. It’s incredible, but that actually happened during the real incident.

To the rescue is actor Denzel Washington, playing a grizzled, 28-year railroad veteran of the fictitious Allegheny & West Virginia, and costar Chris Pine, playing a four-month-on-the-job newbie. Are you seeing the elements of a buddy movie subplot here? You bet you are. But don’t think "Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion." Think of a railroad version of "Saving Private Ryan," or perhaps "The Blues Brothers."

After some deliberation, this dynamic duo decides to go after the runaway using the SD40-2 they've been assigned for a local freight. Their actions get support from a local yardmaster, and flak from clueless upper management.

Actually, for all of the backlash the railroad industry is set to unleash on this film, most of the working-day railroaders portrayed on screen are safety-conscious and invested in doing the right thing. They are portrayed as everyday heroes with difficult jobs and an abiding commitment to an industry that has nurtured them and their families for generations. The railroad atmosphere is abundant, and much of the terminology rings true, even as the event itself becomes more improbable.

The film’s director, Tony Scott, is a master at keeping audiences glued to their seats, using a constant barrage of quick cuts, almost nonstop music-video-type pacing, and high-contrast images, all of which serve to enhance the overall urgency and immediacy of the crisis.

Scott got bitten by the train bug while directing his last film, “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3,” which Washington also stars in. Unleashed from New York’s confining subway tunnels, Scott makes the most of his full-sized train set. The movie’s production cost came close to $100 million, and might have been even more without the generous tax breaks provided by Pennsylvania and Ohio, where virtually all of the on-location filming took place.

In "Unstoppable," Scott avoids using miniatures and employs computer graphics imaging sparingly, opting instead for real equipment and on-location filming in places that might look familiar to Northeastern train-watchers. Those are real AC4400s and SD40-2s being raced, blown up, and reined in.

And the Santa Fe Warbonnet once again asserts itself as the most iconic railroad paint scheme of all time.

If strict adherence to railroad protocol is your milieu, forget it. But if you want to enjoy a visual romp through a railroad fantasy world with characters that might remind you of some real railroaders you know, take a chance.

Behind the scenes of "Unstoppable"

Principal photography for Unstoppable began in Brewster, Ohio, on the Wheeling & Lake Erie on Aug. 31, 2009. After a week of filming, the production company headed north to Pennsylvania, setting up offices in Bradford, Pa., about five miles south of the Pennsylvania-New York border.

Every day, the production crew traveled to the Western New York & Pennsylvania destined for Port Allegany, Eldred, Turtlepoint, Blanchard, and Emporium as well as north to Olean, N.Y., for photography.

On Oct. 10, the company moved their base to State College, Pa., and shot on the Nittany & Bald Eagle before moving to southeastern Ohio and back onto the W&LE, including Bellaire, Martin’s Ferry, Mingo Junction, and Steubenville. Production wrapped principal photography on Dec. 18.

In Emporium, the company created an actual train derailment, a huge special effects sequence that closed the main intersection of the small hamlet for more than five hours.

The movie used eight locomotives, including four AC4400CWs from Canadian Pacific (both sets numbered 777 and 776, the units on the fictional runaway train) and four SD40-2s (at least two numbered depicted as the 1206 used by Denzel Washington and Chris Pine) from W&LE, as well as about 60 freight cars.

 

I saw the movie this week end. It was good. Though of course being a hollywood film they did tweak a few things. One of the biggest thing that poked at me was the tracks. If you pay close attention in the movie, those tracks do look up to grade for 55 mph speed limit, more like 25. I still recommend seeing it though.

 

Being in the movie and entertainment business, I just wanted to throw my 2 cents in here. Since the movie industry, as well as the transportation industry are both VERY safety conscious, especially when it comes to the protection of human lives, I just wanted to say, there are ways of speeding up and slowing down film to make it look like a human being, an object like a truck, plane, or, yes, even something as large as a freight train is moving at an outlandish speed. That is some of the Magic behind cinematography. In the movie I was a principal character in last year, A KILLING STRAIN, they made it look as if I was running from a horde of flesh eating zombies, the general public unaware, that I have severe knee problems and can run for nothing. The cartlage in both my knees is pretty much gone. But in the movie, because they asked me to walk like I was running, and did so in increments that I could with stand, it looks like I am boggyin across a field of tall grass thru a wooded area with loads of hills and trees to duck and dodge. Hollywood cant get everything Exactly perfect, but it is the imagination of the script writer to bring us something so close to the real thing, people not knowing anything about the railroad other than that a stopped train is more likely to make us all late to things in our worlds, that they are known to some as a pain in the you know what. I for one, can also relate because I spent 14 glorious years working for the railroad and I enjoyed every minute of it. I miss it, but I aint holding nuthin back from what I am doing now. I still have my trains, although on a much much smaller scale, but any movie about trains, is bound to be at the least, interesting, but, I cant speak for everyone. Denzel always does a great job, it is the person who wrote the lines he says, that make him or break him. Looks like a good movie. I may have to get out to the theater and see how it is in my book!