Passenger Trains > That bad Amtrak movie that had William Shatner in it

It was "somthing liner". Two pax trains on a collision course that had so many goof ups and un truths in it would make a railfan laugh,if it weren\'t for so many people actually believe a railroad is run like it is in the movies.

My question is in the movie a track gang hastily builds a connecting track between two parallel tracks. Then they stick these bars underneath the track to support it as the train speeds by............To those who work on the actual rails,what were they "trying to do",and compare it to reality. Something about ballast.

It was "Disaster on the Coastliner" and I watched some of the outdoor footage being shot in Connecticut ("East Lyme" ain\'t really in California). It was a made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC.

As I recall, it was a made-for-TV movie called "Disaster on the Shoreline Express". The plot (such as it was) had a presidential candidate traveling on an Amtrak train, while an evil genius rewired a dispatching console (under the guise of repairing it) to put two trains on course for a head-on collision (of course, the relay logic in the field wouldn\'t permit this, so they had a convoluted explanation for why the engineer of the candidate\'s train ignored the red signals.

Anyway, the only way to save the day was to have some track guys (with hand tools!) "cut and throw" the tracks so that, in effect, the candidtate\'s train crossed from one track to the other and disaster was averted (apparently they did eventually convince the engineer to stop).

What a laugh. Those were real strong track guys, bracing the high rail with their lining bars as the train whizzed past! NO, you can\'t do that in real life.

The film was shot in Connecticut, but was supposed to be on the LOSSAN corridor (which is mostly single track, and of course there aren\'t too many palm trees in Connecticut). One of the worst train films ever made.

I kinda liked it. Especially as the monstrous (in comparison) F40 and Amfleet consist roars by, barely missing the heads of all those workers pushing hard on the rail to keep it from tipping over.

1) When the William Shatner character jumps off the F40PH and into a river, he lands in the Four Mile River, but walks ashore from the Niantic River, six miles away. He must have been quite a swimmer!

2) The stuntman who made that jump ruptured an eardrum in so doing.

3) There\'s a scene in the film in which helicopters are pacing one of the trains. If you look real close, you can see two little figures on an overpass watching when one of the choppers pulls up and away to avoid hitting the structure. Those figures are my brother and me.

4) At the location shoot in Niantic/East Lyme, huge crowds gathered (most of them Star Trek fans, I suspect) to ask Shatner for his autograph. Newspaper reports at the time said he stiffed them.

That was one of my favorite train movies (behind Silver Streak and Runaway Train).
I sure do like those "windshield grilles" on the F40\'s, those look so awesome.

Sounds like one of those movies I wouldn\'t want to see. At least on "Superman: The Movie" they made the scene when he had to save the AMtrak more beleivable.

"What a laugh. Those were real strong track guys, bracing the high rail with their lining bars as the train whizzed past! NO, you can\'t do that in real life."

Explain the whole ballast under the rail thing. In the movie they can\'t saying,"She(the rail) will hold". HOLD WHAT?!

On a side note,why are there slow orders when new rail is laid down?

Speaking of bad train TV, anybody remember the TV show "Supertrain"?

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0079056

What about "Atomic Train" and
Back to the Future 3? Crazy stuff eh? :-)

Geep...

As I understand it, the new track needs time to settle into the ballast. While the new track tampers do a pretty good job of compacting the ballast around the ties, a few trains running over the spot are needed to complete the job.

To Kevink and Frequentflyer:

Correct, newly tamped ballast needs to compact. To avoid the need for slow orders, Amtrak uses "dynamic stabilizers", basically big vibrators, to compact the ballast after tamping.

That\'s one reason why the "cut and throw" shown in the movie wouldn\'t have worked -- certainly not at the speed shown. No time for the track to compact. Second reason: you\'d have to drop a lot of stone in the low spot between the tracks and then surface it to preserve proper line and surface.

And trackworkers wouldn\'t be able to hold up the high rail with their lining bars. Lateral curving forces are in the range of 5,000 -- 10,000 lbs. per axle in many cases.

Had to be "Supertrain" Double-deck atomic powered "Love Boat" on rails - complete with elevators.
It was a mid-season replacement in Feb. 1979 on NBC (last-place network that year)
.
It ran for nine excruciating weeks before being cancelled. (But then re-run that summer)