History Main / RunawayTrain

* There's one in the sixth ''Manga/DetectiveConan'' movie, ''The Phantom of Baker Street''. [[spoiler: Conan ends up fighting Jack the Ripper in a TraintopBattle.]]

* Creator/DonRosa's ''The Three Caballeros Ride Again'' has the trio fighting a villain on the flatcars of a train when the driver detaches the flatcars in order to save himself. Once they've defeated the villain, they remember that the other direction of the track is incomplete, and indeed ends right at the edge of a huge cliff. Incidentally, the track is a real one, completed in the early 1960's. Unfortunately for the protagonists, all Rosa's comics are set in the 1950's.

* In ''ComicBook/DangerGirl: The Chase'', Abbey attempts to escape by leaping on to a passing train. The bad guys employ knockout gas that renders the crew unconscious, leaving Abbey on a runaway train.
* In a 2017 issue of ''ComicBook/MsMarvel2014'', Kamala has to deal with a runaway train after its brakes are taken out by some kind of power surge. It's only doing about 25mph, which she notes is hardly "action move" speed, but she doesn't have the level of SuperStrength to stop it by herself and the emergency brake would make the whole thing crash. Upon realizing it's a ''slow-motion'' trainwreck waiting to happen, she grumbles about it being an on-the-nose metaphor for her whole life.

* A similar example happens in ''WesternAnimation/TheRugratsMovie'' when a group of circus monkeys take control of a circus train and render it a runaway while the engineer and ringmaster are SteppingOutForAQuickCupOfCoffee. The train eventually derails on a sharp curve and crashes into a forest, but nothing blows up this time.
* Seen in the beginning of ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3'', where Woody tries to stop a driverless train but fails. Cue Buzz [[{{Trainstopping}} catching the train as is falls off a bridge]]
* ''Film/TheReluctantDragon'' features a passenger train (which would later make a reappearance in ''WesternAnimation/{{Dumbo}}'') attempting to jump a broken bridge in a thunderstorm at one point, but ends up in a railway accident just because of this.

* The ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' made-for-video movie ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooFrankencreepy'' has the Transylvania Express rendered a runaway by the main villain, complete with StuffBlowingUp among derailing (but the gang and the rest of the passengers survive.)
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Zootopia}}'' has an old runaway subway car that plays out this trope (the villains have been using it as a hideout/laboratory.) Nick and Judy are able to successfully reroute the subway car to avoid colliding head-on with a speeding freight train, but the car ends up derailing and [[StuffBlowingUp exploding]] when it tips from speeding on a curve and reaches the end of the line. Played more realistically in that the train ''does'' have a proper DeadMansSwitch; Nick is stuck more-or-less stationary keeping the train going, requiring Judy to protect Nick, the subway car, and herself.

* ''Film/RunawayTrain'', a 1967 Creator/AkiraKurosawa screenplay that became a 1985 Hollywood film, is the TropeMaker and TropeNamer. The engineer has a heart attack and falls off the train, leaving only two stowaway convicts and an innocent woman aboard. It makes a touch more sense in that the "train" in this case is just a set of 4 locomotives with no cars attached; and though the brakes DO come on, the engines easily generate more pulling power than the brakes can stop resulting in them burning off after a few miles.

* ''Disaster on the Coastliner'' is a MadeForTV film where a man takes over the engineer's console of a passenger train running from Los Angeles to San Francisco, locks the other train running from San Francisco to Los Angeles on the same track, and has both hijacked the LA-Bound train's radio to come into his phone so the engineer thinks he's calling the control center, and sabotaged the computer system at the railroad control center so they can't switch the signals to red so the unaware engineer would stop his train. The man taking over the first train is using the threat of an unstoppable wreck to blackmail the president of the railroad (Raymond Burr) who was unaware of the misconduct, to publicly admit that the railroad killed his wife due to negligence and intentionally bribed the inspector who investigated the accident into saying it wasn't the railroad's fault.
* ''Final Run'' (1999) has a state-of-the-art computer controlled train malfunction and is in danger of crashing into a hospital.

* ''Bollywood/RaOne'' has part of the climax take place on a train being temporarily helmed by the BrainwashedAndCrazy heroine.

* In Creator/KimNewman's story "The Greek Invertebrate" (in the collection ''Literature/TheHoundOfTheDurbervilles''), Professor Moriarty and Colonel Moran are aboard the "Kallinikos", which becomes an example of this.
* ''[[Literature/ClockworkCentury Dreadnought]]''. The armoured train Dreadnought is racing at full speed to keep ahead of the much-faster Confederate train Shenandoah, which is on a parallel line. When the latter pulls ahead everyone realises that the Shenandoah could use its guns to blow up the tracks ahead and derail the Dreadnought killing everyone on board, so they need to stop the train. Unfortunately the Dreadnought is so heavy and powerful that even with every brake applied in the locomotive and every carriage there's still a question as to whether it will stop in time.
* In Creator/SeananMcGuire's short story ''Literature/OneHellOfARide'', the train on which the protagonists are traveling crosses through some dimension hole straight into hell ... or, as Jonathan helpfully explains, not quite hell, but some other circle of the underworld. Unusual in that the train stopping would be the worst thing that could happen - they need it to keep going to have a chance at returning to our world.

* ''Disaster on the Coastliner'', a MadeForTVMovie about a man who sets up a train that can't be stopped, to get the president of the railroad to admit he committed some criminal acts that caused the man's wife to die.

* Played almost perfectly straight in one of the later (and far sillier) episodes of ''Series/SeaQuestDSV'', with a trans-atlantic mag-lev. [[RefugeInAudacity Underwater]]. They even had to get it to jump the tracks...

* ''Series/DadsArmy'' used this trope in one episode. The unit had to move a train out the way of an incoming one after the drivers got drunk, but ended up with a runaway train after it turned out they'd left the brake wheel back at the station and that the line was all downhill from that point. Cue Captain Mainwaring climbing over the train roof, the warden, vicar and verger on a handcart trying to bring them the brake wheel and then them having to go damn fast the other way after the platoon accidentally put the train into reverse.
* ''Series/DueSouth'' did this in 'All The Queen's Horses'. The brake was tampered with, and Buck Frobisher used a rifle shot he and Bob called "The great Yukon double Douglas Fir telescoping bank shot" to nail the switch and force the train onto an empty track before it could hit an oncoming train carrying nuclear material.
* ''Series/CSICyber'': In "CMND:\Crash", the bad guy hacks the computer on a subway train and disengages all of the safeguards. The Cyber team has to work out how to board the runaway train and shut it down before it reaches the end of the line.
* The climax of the ''Series/NCISLosAngeles'' episode "The Livelong Day" is built on this trope. And just to make it more dire, there's a bomb on the track.

* In Episodes 3 and 4 of the Taiwanese action drama ''[[Series/BlackAndWhiteTW Black and White]]'', Gao Yi, having gone full bore psycho through [[GettingHighOnTheirOwnSupply regular use of his own drug Dreamer]], hijacks a subway train, disables the remote brake system and disables everyone by means of releasing the drug into the vent system. It's up to Wu Ying Xiong and Pi Zi to stop the train before it crashes and kills everyone on board.

* "The Runaway Train Came Over The Hill, and She Blew..."

* Likewise "Runaway Train" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
* "Runaway Train" by Music/SoulAsylum reached number 5 in 1993 and is used as a metaphor for runaway children/teens.
* "Locomotive Breath" by Music/JethroTull seems to take place on a runaway train, though, similar to the Roseanne Cash example, it's metaphorically used to describe a man having a nervous breakdown.
* "J.C. Cohen" by AllenSherman (a parody of "The Ballad of Casey Jones") is a song about a conductor on a runaway New York subway train. The train eventually ends up at the North Pole.

* "Blood on the Coal" by The Folksmen (the folk incarnation of [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap Spinal Tap]]). As all folk bands have a song abut either a mine disaster or train wreck, the Folksmen decided to combine them by having a song about a runaway train ''in'' a mine. The song features on the soundtrack of ''Film/AMightyWind'' (although it predates the movie).

* A sort of reverse example occurs in ''VideoGame/Jak3Wastelander'', where the player must ''start'' a runaway train full of explosives(!) and ''clear'' its path so that it crashes into a blocked gateway which must be opened.

---> '''Big Smoke:''' Follow that train!

* A similar thing is the concept of ''VideoGame/BlastCorps'', but instead of a runaway train, they have a truck set on an automated course. A truck with nukes.
* One of these is created as part of an escape plan in ''VideoGame/Grandia1''. The heroes lure the villains into the train engine, where they had stoked up the fire really high and then broke the brakes. Then they detached the passenger cares, trapping the villains in the engine. While nobody was hurt, by the time the engine had slowed down enough for the villains to safely leave, they were too far away to be an immediate threat.
* The ending of ''VideoGame/TotalOverdose'', after missiles destroy the train trestle. The train can't be saved, but Ram can rescue his [[{{Chickification}} de-Actioned]] {{Love Interest|s}} from her bondage at the front of it.
* The entire plot of the Sinclair Spectrum game ''Stop the Express''.

* In ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft: Warlords of Draenor'', player characters board a goblin-engineered train in the Grimrail Depot instance. After the final boss fight is aced, the players sabotage the train and cause it to derail.

* About halfway through Sonic's story in ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006'', Dr. Eggman plants a bomb onto a passenger train and causes it to travel down the tracks at maximum speed. The purpose is to keep Sonic occupied trying to save the passengers.

* On ''WesternAnimation/XMenEvolution'' the Brotherhood create accidents so they can save the day. Their final act is trying to stop a runaway train. They leave after being reminded that there is a second train that will cause a collision.

* Episode 15 of ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooMysteryIncorporated'' ("The Wild Brood") features one, complete with a knocked-out engineer, broken bridge and exploding locomotive (also a shout-out to the train fight and wreck scenes in ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII''.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheNewAdventuresOfWinnieThePooh'' episode "The Good, The Bad and the Tigger" featured an Old West variation of this trope, in a near episode-length fantasy. The accused train robbers Tigger and Pooh (both of whom apparently "borrowed" the train, mirroring them borrowing Christopher Robin's toy train in real life) wind up rendering the train a runaway, mostly due to Tigger fooling around with the controls in the locomotive. Pulling all the levers and switches doesn't stop the train, pressing the brake only results in the train flipping over and going the other direction, and then it eventually rams into Sheriff Piglet's speeding handcar and blows up, [[NonFatalExplosions but nobody dies]]. Later Pooh and Tigger try to put the train back together, but the train comes to life and start zooming around the town without any rails and Piglet ends up stuck on the front of the train. Tigger paints fake tracks on the ground, [[InsaneTrollLogic under the logic that trains can't resist following tracks]] and then decides to wait for the train to run out of steam. Several days later the train is still going so Tigger causes it to crash with a banana peal, and Piglet is ok.

* ''Film/FinalRun'' has a state-of-the-art computer controlled train malfunction and is in danger of crashing into a hospital.

* ''Film/RunawayTrain'', where the engineer has a heart attack and falls off the train, leaving only two stowaway convicts and an innocent woman aboard. It makes a touch more sense in that the "train" in this case is just a set of 4 locomotives with no cars attached; and though the brakes DO come on, the engines easily generate more pulling power than the brakes can stop resulting in them burning off after a few miles.

* ''Film/TheReluctantDragon'' features a passenger train (which would later make a reappearance in ''Disney/{{Dumbo}}'') attempting to jump a broken bridge in a thunderstorm at one point, but ends up in a railway accident just because of this.

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'' has an old runaway subway car that plays out this trope (the villains have been using it as a hideout/laboratory.) Nick and Judy are able to successfully reroute the subway car to avoid colliding head-on with a speeding freight train, but the car ends up derailing and [[StuffBlowingUp exploding]] when it tips from speeding on a curve and reaches the end of the line. Played more realistically in that the train ''does'' have a proper DeadMansSwitch; Nick is stuck more-or-less stationary keeping the train going, requiring Judy to protect Nick, the subway car, and herself.

* The vast majority of fatal rail accidents avert this trope, as they occur because a train that ''isn't'' out of control still takes a considerable time to stop. A stalled, reckless, or suicidal driver on the tracks can thus be run down because they're not spotted until it's too late for a train's brakes to prevent the collision. Which is to say, by the time the engineers running the train can see the obstacle, it's too late to stop.

The defining characteristic of this trope is that the train is out of control or can't be brought to a controlled safe stop. ''Film/EmperorOfTheNorth'', where Ernest Borgnine as Shack tells the engineer not to stop the train even though there's a danger of a crash if they don't make the siding before the oncoming express, is not an example in this case; the engineer could stop the train.

* The vast majority of fatal rail accidents avert this trope, as they occur because a train that ''isn't'' out of control still takes a considerable time to stop. A stalled, reckless, or suicidal driver on the tracks can thus be run down because they're not spotted until it's too late for a train's brakes to prevent the collision.

* The "trolley problem" is one of the philosophers' stock examples of an [[SadisticChoice ethical dilemma]]: If five people are about to be killed by a runaway trolley, and the only way to stop them is to push a fat man in front of the trolley, would you kill the fat man to save the five, etc.

[[folder:Films -- Animation]]

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]

* In Creator/SeananMcGuire 's short story ''Literature/OneHellOfARide'', the train on which the protagonists are traveling crosses through some dimension hole straight into hell ... or, as Jonathan helpfully explains, not quite hell, but some other circle of the underworld. Unusual in that the train stopping would be the worst thing that could happen - they need it to keep going to have a chance at returning to our world.

[[folder:Pinballs]]

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* A train in Ohio [[http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93304&page=1 left its station]] in Toledo without a conductor in May 2001 and went on a 66-mile runaway race, until an engineer was able to jump onto the engine and stop it. This incident, known as "Crazy Eights" due to the train's number, inspired the film ''Film/{{Unstoppable}}'', mentioned above. As if that wasn't enough, the train was carrying hazardous chemicals.

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lac-M%C3%A9gantic_rail_disaster The Lac-Megantic rail disaster]] in Quebec, Canada in 2013. A train carrying a highly volatile form of crude oil was left running with insufficient brakes at the top of a hill and the engine was threatening to break down under the strain, so a technician was sent to shut off the locomotive. However, this ended up causing the air brakes to lose pressure, and the train rolled downhill into the town and derailed when it hit a curve. The tanker cars full of crude oil caught fire and exploded, killing 47 people (including 5 that went missing and are presumed to have been vaporized by the explosion) and leveling most of the buildings in the town's centre. It was the deadliest rail accident in Canada since the country was formed in 1867.

* Turning a switch to force the train on a short track so it will derail

* The 1988 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de_Lyon_rail_accident Gare de Lyon train crash]] was the result of this. A commuter train driver inadvertantly disabled his train's braking system while trying to reset an emergency brake and a misleading gauge reading failed to alert him to the error. As he came down the grade into the Gare de Lyon station in Paris, he realized he had no brakes and the train was out of control. Officials at the station tried to avert disaster, but a combination of miscommunication and technical misuderstanding instead routed them onto a track occupied by a delayed outbound train. The commuter train hit the waiting train head-on, killing 56 and injuring another 60.

* The 1988 [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gare_de_Lyon_rail_accident Gare de Lyon train crash]] was the result of this. A commuter train driver inadvertantly disabled his train's braking system while trying to reset an emergency brake and a misleading gauge reading failed to alert him to the error. As he came down the grade into the Gare de Lyon station in Paris, he realized he had no brakes. Officials at the station tried to avert disaster, but a combination of miscommunication and technical misuderstanding instead routed them onto a track occupied by a delayed outbound train. The commuter train hit the waiting train head-on, killing 56 and injuring another 60.

* ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}:

* In the 6th Franchise/{{Digimon}} movie, ''Anime/DigimonTamers: The Runaway Digimon Express'', the Tamers are faced with stopping (Gran)Locomon when the train [[{{Mon}} Digimon]] appears during Ruki's birthday party.

* A particularly tragic runaway train accident was the Armagh rail disaster in 1889 where a train carrying children on a Sunday school outing stalled climbing a steep hill. The decision was made to divide the train and take the front portion forward, collecting the rear portion later. Although the train was fully braked the brakes were not failsafe so once the locomotive and front portion of the train were uncoupled the rear portion would be unbraked and roll down the hill. As no handbrakes were available either, the crew secured the rear of the train by placing a number of stones behind the wheels. This was effective, but sadly as the front portion started to move it rolled back into the rear portion with enough force to crush the stones, the rear of the train then rolling free down the hill until it collided with a following train. 78 were killed, 260 injured, mostly children. This accident caused such shock and outrage that it lead to massive changed to rail safety in the UK, requiring continuous automatic brakes on all passenger trains, and also improvements to signalling. The accident is seen as the beginning of the modern era in UK rail safety.

* One of these is created as part of an escape plan in ''VideoGame/{{Grandia}}''. The heroes lure the villains into the train engine, where they had stoked up the fire really high and then broke the brakes. Then they detached the passenger cares, trapping the villains in the engine. While nobody was hurt, by the time the engine had slowed down enough for the villains to safely leave, they were too far away to be an immediate threat.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Anastasia}}'' has one of these, thanks to green glowy devil thingies. And of course, our heroes survive, and the train plunges off a damaged trestle into a gorge and [[StuffBlowingUp explodes spectacularly due to all the crates of dynamite]]. Right after, Dimitri says "I HATE trains. Remind me never to get on a train again!"

See Also DeadFootLeadfoot and TrackTrouble. If the FailsafeFailure isn't justified, then this may also be a case of JustTrainWrong.

The semi-unrealism with this trope is that the majority of locomotives in the world have some form of a DeadManSwitch. If a certain handle in the driver's cabin isn't depressed constantly when the train is moving or if no positive action showing an alert operator is detected within a set time period, the emergency brakes will come on. Moreover many trains also are equipped with some sort of speed control device that will apply the brakes automatically if an overspeed condition is detected.

* ''Disney/{{Zootopia}}'' has an old runaway subway car that plays out this trope (the villains have been using it as a hideout/laboratory.) Nick and Judy are able to successfully reroute the subway car to avoid colliding head-on with a speeding freight train, but the car ends up derailing and [[StuffBlowingUp exploding]] when it tips from speeding on a curve and reaches the end of the line. Played more realistically in that the train ''does'' have a proper DeadManSwitch; Nick is stuck more-or-less stationary keeping the train going, requiring Judy to protect Nick, the subway car, and herself.

* Both major {{Traintop Battle}}s in ''Film/TheLoneRanger'' end up taking place on top of runaway trains. Being set in 1869, this movie gets a pass on the whole DeadManSwitch issue.

* The entire plot of ''Film/{{Unstoppable}}''. VeryLooselyBasedOnATrueStory, namely the "Crazy Eights" incident mentioned below. The plot of the movie is that the brakes on train 777 work, however the deadman switch is disabled due to other brakes not working, and there's nobody aboard to stop the train which has been set to full throttle causing it to blast across the rails at 70 miles an hour, is carrying dangerous chemicals, and is headed towards a residential area. In addition to trying to slow it down by coupling to it from the rear, certain things go awry such as a train derailer failing due to the weight and speed of the train. While many of these details are exaggerated for television (for example, nobody died in the real incident), certain things are true such as the train derailer failing to stop the train and that the train was carrying very dangerous chemicals.