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* In the 6th [[Digimon]] movie, ''[[Digimon Tamers]]: The Runaway Digimon Express'', the Tamers are faced with stopping (Gran)Locomon when the train [[Mon|Digimon]] appears during Ruki's birthday party.
* In [[Honoo no Alpen Rose (Manga)|Honoo no Alpen Rose]], a bridge in the frontier between Austria and Switzerlan is severely damaged. The train in which the main characters travelled was able to barely stop, but there was another coming towards them at full speed. {{spoiler|Jeudi and Lundi help as much as they can to get the other train to stop... but there's an explosion and Lundi disappears. Jeudi has to go to Austria on her own, thinking that Lundi is missing and possibly dead. He survived but barely, and they're not reunited until several chapters later.}}
* There's one in the fourth [[Detective Conan]] movie, ''Captured in her eyes''. {{spoiler|A [[Trauma -Induced Amnesia]]-affected Ran is thrown in its way, Conan pulls a risky [[Diving Save]] to rescue her.}}
 
== [[Comic Books]] ==
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* A [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall_rail_accident:Waterfall rail accident|real-life incident]] happened in Australia when the driver of a commuter train suffered an apparent heart attack and died. He didn't fall out of his seat, and was heavy enough that the weight of his leg kept enough pressure on the pedal which controlled the dead-man's switch to prevent it from tripping by release, but not enough pressure to trip it by too much pressure, causing the train to go out of control and crash. The accident resulted in the addition of a second switch, a button that has to be pressed every 30 seconds to prevent the emergency brake from stopping the train automatically.
** Crews had also been known to cheat the deadman footpedal by jamming a flag stick (of coincidentally perfect length) between the underside of the control desk and the footpedal, although there was no evidence that this was the case in the abovementioned crash. Needless to say that sort of thing is a rather career-limiting maneuver these days.
** Other railway systems have also had [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinton_train_collision:Hinton train collision|incidents]] related to disabling deadman systems. Given many hours with little to occupy the mind, people will come up with many ingenious ways to bypass things that they find inconvenient (and most deadman safety systems, whilst crucially important, are inconvenient in some way or another).
* The "''Big Thunder Mountain Railroad''" ride at the various [[Disney Theme Parks]]. Depending on the place, the story is usually something along the lines of some sort of possessed/ghostly runaway trains that continued to run after a disaster of some sort hit the area.
* Back in the early 1900s, an Electric Train collided with another near Newcastle. The body of the driver was found some distance further down the track, and examination of the wreakage showed that the dead mans handle of the train had been tied down. Speculation is that the driver was leaning out of the train to spy on a young couple in the compartment behind the cab, and was struck by a bridge and knocked from the train, which then continued driverless before coming to a halt.
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* 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.
* In Philadelphia, two cars from a powered-down passenger train somehow became uncoupled from the others, and rolled down the tracks for several blocks with two SEPTA rail employees aboard. Unable to activate the brakes with the power off, they had no way to stop the cars; fortunately, an uphill slope brought them to a halt before they encountered any obstacles.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bernardino_train_disaster:San Bernardino train disaster|The San Bernardino train disaster]] in 1989: An overloaded train didn't have enough braking power to slow itself when descending a long grade into the town of San Bernardino, derailed, and destroyed several houses. Then two weeks later the gasoline pipeline that ran parallel to the tracks, and was damaged during the cleanup, ruptured, spraying gasoline over the surviving houses in the neighbourhood, and then caught fire.
 
== [[Video Games]] ==
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[[Category:Film Tropes]]
[[Category:Runaway Train]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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