Atomic Train

As the films intro credits roll we are shown a montage of virious train wrecks of North America incliuding the 1996 Maryland train collision and unused B-roll footage from Under Siege 2

The film begins in Dallas, Texas as a freight train departs a railyard. At the same time a bus full of children on their way to school get stuck on a railroad crossing. As the train approaches the crossing, the engineer throws on the train's emergency brake in an attempt to avoid a collision with the bus. The bus moves out of the way and narrowly avoids a collision, though the rear escape door is blown off by the train.

We then cut to Denver, Colorado where we meet John and Megan Seger. John is an investigator at the NTSB and the two both struggle to bond with their stepchildren, Chance and Grace. We are then taken to a railyard in Stillwater, Utah, where engineer, Wally Phister and Brakeman, Tucker Ames are assembling a freight train carrying various Bio-Medical chemicals. As the evening approaches, two men drive to the railyard and break into one of the boxcars. John Henry Bradshaw places a large flammable sticker over Russian serial codes written on the crate. His colleague noting how the whole story behind the crate and sticker do not add up. The next day we cut to the train leaving the yard, being dispatched by Ed Brown and Chritina Roseli as Denver Railway Control. We are also introduced to Stan Atkins, the Conductor who rides with Wally and Al Discus and Steve Monroe who are two Hostlers who are riding with Tucker in the trains Caboose. Meanwhile, Grace and her boyfriend, Danny, are out in the city while John and Chance are rockclimbing for the day.

As the train weaves through the mountain, Wally notices the trains air pressure drop with white smoke billowing from the locomotives radiator. As Stan investigates the smoke a large explosion within the locomotive shakes the Air Hoses between the locomotives and freight cars apart. A fire begins to fry the Hydraulic Brake system on the locomotive, disabling the brakes. Denver Railway Control plans to dreail the train using a Derailer. John Seger who has been notified of the crisis boards a chasing locomotive via a helicopter.

As the chase train prepares to end its attempt as the Runaway is too close to the derailment sight, Ed and Christina receive a call from an employee from Bradshaw Disposal System, he tells them that a boxcar on Runaway train contains a Cold War era, Russian made, Nuclear Weapon. With the information they were given, Ed and Christina contact N.E.S.T to alert them of the Bomb, in the meantime they cancel the dreailment to prevent detonation.

As Wally attempts to connect the brake hoses, he slips and crushes his hand between the Knuckle Coupler and request's first-aid from Stan and are alerted of the canceled derailment. John and Ray are also notified and told to run at full speed to catch the runaway. After a near miss with the MOW crew, Wally and John are told about the Bomb on board. As Ray approaches the Runaway, John attempt's to join the two trains, eventually the couplers connect. Due to the tension between the two trains, it causes the Runaway to shake violently under the stress. Eventually the couplers fail and as the chase train falls back, John quickly jumps across the gap and lands on the porch of the Caboose, after the train hits another sand berm, Tucker, who was standing on the Cut Lever is thrown from the train and is ran over and killed by the still moving chase train.

Now stuck on the Runaway, John radios in to Denver Railway Control. N.E.S.T Colonel, Tomy Levy, asks John to go into the boxcar with the Bomb to gain more information of the cargo. After scaling the side of the train, John is met by Stan who hands him a crowbar to pry open the door. Once inside John begins to search the boxcar to find the Bomb. Once found, John is told to flee and find safety. To attempt to stop the train once more, John connects with Wally via radio to come up with another plan to stop the train, Wally suggests that John try to connect the hoses again. John tries as well but fails as the hose is too far out of his reach. John then tries to knock out the trains electrical system, applying the Dead Mans Brake on the Slave Locomotive. Wally waits until the train reaches Jackson Summit, the steepest uphill portion of the train's downhill descent. As John prys the electrical wires apart he is electrocuted and stumbles over the side of the train, barley holding on. As he wiggles his way back onto the runningboard of the locomotive, he finishes wiping out the electrical system, causing the brakes on the Slave Locomotive to lock. As the train slows down to 20 MPH, Ed notices that Ray has returned to the Runaway, attempting to rescue Al. Ed commands Ray to stop but goes unheard as Rays cab radio was muted. As Ray realizes that the Runaway is stopping, Steve who had gotten on earlier jumps clear as Ray telescopes through the Caboose, killing Al and shoves the Runaway over the top of Jackson Summit, burning the brakes up in the process. As the Runaway picks up speed, Wally tells Stan to hop off of the train before if picks up too much speed, Stan reluctantly gets off the train before he climbs back on the Slave Locomotive. John then convinces Wally to jump off as the train as well.

Stan attempts to connect the brake hoses but looses his balance and falls between the train cars. Now completely unmanned, the train speeds out of control towards the derailment site, a farmland area near Denver called Millers Bend. As the train careens off the track the train cars mangle and pile up on each other, spilling all of the hazardous material which quickly catch fire. The N.E.S.T team soon arrives to assess and extinguish all of the fires. Meanwhile, John and Wally are picked up in a Hi-Rail and taken to the crash site to be taken home from there. Once there John stays behind to help diffuse and remove the bomb from the boxcar.

Firefighters and military teams struggle to extinguish the fire and extract the bomb, and are forced to retreat when chemicals combust around them. John is flown to Denver in the news helicopter and reunite with his family. Meanwhile, NEST Commander Reuben Castillo, a volunteer, attempt to disarm the bomb alone. However, liquid metallic sodium starts to leak, and Tom Levy attempts to abort bombing the site with water, which would ignite the sodium. One of the helicopter crew misinterprets the order and dumps water onto the wreck, triggering a nuclear explosion and releasing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that wipes out all electricity in Denver and sending a shockwave that tears through part of the city. Thousands are killed and injured, but John and his family survive after taking shelter in concrete pillars.

With Denver in ruins, John attempts to get his family out of the city ahead of the fallout, but the EMP renders almost every vehicle immobile. After much discussion, Megan's ex-husband, Mac takes their children, Chance and Grace through the old, abandoned coal mines for a quicker route out of Denver. John and Megan manage to hitch themselves and an injured Danny aboard a bus bound for Eminence, Kansas where FEMA had set up an emergency shelter. However, John elects to stay behind and decides to follow their kids. Further ahead, Mac is startled by an owl h totals his motorcycle, and is crippled due to being thrown down over a catwalk and Chance is left hanging precariously over the deep mining pit while grace is unharmed. John arrives to help and rigs a pulley system around the ladder that chance is hanging from. Mac offers to pull on the rope to bring chance back up onto the catwalk, however, with Mac's condition, he is unable to use his lower body and slowly inches towards a mining pit as he tugs on the rope before eventually falling to his death.

John, Chance, and Grace Seger finally make their way to the FEMA refugee camp in Eminence, and the family is once again reunited.

The release poster features FM C-liners, of which one remains, Canadian Pacific 4104, at Nelson, British Columbia.

The actual film uses all Canadian railroad equipment, including the MLW M-420. The two locomotives that attempt to couple to the runaway train are in the paint scheme of BC Rail, which has since been folded into Canadian National.

The two switchers used at the beginning of the movie were most likely Montana Rail Link SW9 locomotives. Repainted to sport a white Texas silhouette.

The derailment sequence at the fictional Millers Bend Lumber Yard, was filmed using 1/6 scale miniature trains for the derailment sequence. This scene involved the film crew bring onboard both Academy Award-winning, miniature effects creator, Gene Warren, and pyrotechnics specialist, Joe Viskocil, to create the scene, which was the best and biggest action moments of the movie. The aftermath of the train wreck used full-scale replicas of the train cars that were erected out of wood, steel and foam.

The runaway freight train's locomotives and freight cars used in the movie, were re-lettered for the fictional railroad company Westrail. This is the third movie made in the late 90's to use trains re-lettered Westrail, since two other movies made the year before Evasive Action and Hijack featured trains and railroad equipment re-lettered for that fictional railroad company of the same name as well.

Some scenes showing the aftermath of the train crash, were also used in the beginning of the 2003 movie Death Train, which also featured some deleted scenes of the wreckage of as Bryan Genesse’ character, Ryan, makes his way out of the derailed train, before it explodes. That movie however, does not reference or mention of a nuclear bomb involved. In this movie, the explosion sequence is the result of the dangerous cargo on the train.

The boxcar carrying the bomb is out-of-date and was illegal to use by railroads after 1995. It had solid-bearing trucks rather than roller-bearing trucks. Railroad cars with the older trucks disappeared long before 1999.

Location

The movie was filmed in the mountains and city area of Vancouver, British Columbia in 1998. Several film locations include: Britannia Beach, the mainline of the British Columbia Railroad, North Vancouver, Clinton and Lillooet. The city of Vancouver was used as the stand-in Denver, Colorado since the film was not shown on the Colorado NBC affiliate, KUSA-9, because of the Columbine shootings.

• Rob Lowe as John Seger, a NTSB investigator, Grace's father and Megan's husband
• Kristin Davis as Megan Seger, John Seger’s wife and mother of Chance
• Esai Morales as Noris "Mac" MacKenzie, Chance's biological father, Megan's ex-husband, and police officer
• Sean Smith as Chance MacKenzie, son of Megan and Mac, and Grace's step-brother.
• Mena Suvari as Grace Seger, John Seger's daughter, Chance's step-sister and Megan's step-daughter.
• John Finn as Wally Phister, the engineer of the runaway train.
• Zack Ward as Stan Atkins, the conductor of the runaway train.
• Eric Keenleyside as Tucker Ames, the caboose brakeman of the runaway train.
• Anthony Harrison as Al Discus, the Bradshaw Employee of the runaway train.
• Colin Lawrence as Steve Monroe, the Bradshaw Employee of the runaway train.
• Eric Johnson as Danny, Grace's boyfriend
• Edward Herrmann as President Fellwick
• Don S. Davis as General Harlan Ford
• Norman Armour as Savella
• Blu Mankuma as NEST Commander Rueben Castillo
• Michael Tomlison as NEST Lt. Colonel Tom Levy
• Jane Perry as Kelly Marx, KNFS-News TV reporter
• Henry Lubatti as John Henry Bradshaw of “Bradshaw Disposal Systems”
• Chris Ellis as Ed Brown, a “Denver Railroad Control” Employee
• Yanna McIntosh as Christina Roselli, another "Denver Railroad Control" Employee

• Won the Golden Reel Award (2000) for "Best Sound Editing - Television Mini-Series - Effects and Foley"^{[citation needed]}
• Nominated for Golden Reel Award (2000) for "Best Sound Editing - Television Mini-Series - Dialogue and ADR"^{[citation needed]}

Trimark Home Video (under the label NBC Home Video) released the film in DVD and VHS on September 21, 1999.^[2]

• List of disaster films
• Unstoppable (2010 film)