He goes to a group of older workers, with whom he has some barbed words over their age differences, and finds Barnes among them. Arriving at work, Colson, a conductor, gets his orders for the day and learns he will be working with engineer Frank Barnes (Denzel Washington), with whom he has never worked before. He calls her but she refuses to even answer. Meanwhile, in the southern Pennsylvania town of Stanton, Will Colson (Chris Pine) gets up for work, stopping to surreptitiously watch his wife put their son on the school bus. In the Fuller yard in northern Pennsylvania, children arrive for a school field trip on rail safety.
Unlike in the film, the name of the engineer, whose mistake led to the incident, was not disclosed to the public.
#Unstoppable movie story serial
Several parts of the train suffered damage, but it was repaired and a number of modifications were made to it, including its serial number, before it started operating again. The speed of the train was gradually slowed down and when it had reduced to 18 km/h, another trainmaster, Jon Hosfeld, ran alongside it to climb aboard and shut it down for good. They chased the runaway and coupled it to the rear car. Freight train Q636-15 uncoupled its locomotive #8392 which had engineer Jess Knowlton and conductor Terry Forson on board. But nothing worked, and the authorities had to come up with a plan that involved another train. This detail was also included in the film.Īll the attempts to derail the train from a distance failed, and the cops even tried to shoot at the emergency fuel cut off switch. The toxic substance needed to be contained lest some sort of spill leads to the deaths of people in its vicinity. He was dragged 80 feet before he let go and the train began its 65 miles journey.Īpart from the fact that it was a runaway train with no way to remotely control it, another thing that made it a hazard was the thousands of gallons of molten phenol in its two tank cars. When it started picking pace, the engineer tried to reboard it.
#Unstoppable movie story free
However, at the time, the air brakes of the train were disconnected, which meant that the train was free to move with no automatic brakes good enough to stop it.
When he boarded off, he believed he had properly set the braking system.
The incident happened in 2001 when the engineer of CSX 8888 got off the train to correct a misaligned switch. Yes, ‘Unstoppable’ is based on the real-life incident of a runaway freight train. If a train did run without any supervision, would it be possible to engage in such bold and risky acts? Are the actions of the lead characters plausible or is it just a trope to give a heroic sense to the film? Luckily, two men come to the rescue with a daring plan to stop the train, but it seems a very Hollywood-y thing to do.