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Runaway Train: Difference between revisions
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The defining characteristic of this trope is that the train is out of control or can't be stopped. ''[[Emperor of the North]]'', 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 semi-unrealism with this trope is that the majority of locomotives in the world have some form of a [[Dead
In addition, since the 1870s, all trains have used a failsafe air braking system; when the braking lines are pressurised, the brakes are released. An absence of pressure applies the brakes. Therefore, an individual carriage severed from the rest of the train will automatically grind to a halt. If you're lucky, you'll get a [[Hand Wave|handwave]] about how something has disabled these [[Failsafe Failure|failsafes]] but don't count on it.
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See Also [[Deadfoot Leadfoot]]. If the [[Failsafe Failure]] isn't justified, then this may also be a case of [[Just Train Wrong]].
{{examples
== Anime & Manga ==
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== [[Comic Books]] ==
* In ''[[Tintin (Comic Book)]] in America'', Tintin steals a locomotive to catch up with the express train the villain has taken, and discovers that the brakes don't work. In ''Prisoners of the Sun'', Tintin and Haddock are suspiciously placed alone on the last coach of a Peruvian train. The coach comes detached from the rest of the train, and the emergency brake doesn't work.
* [[Don Rosa]]'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.
** The track incidentally is real one, completed in the early 1960's. Unfortunately for the protagonists, all Rosa's comics are set in the 1950's.
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* [[Batman Begins|"I won't kill you... but I don't have to save you."]]
* Happens in a sequence in ''[[Heroic Trio]]'' when a bad guy takes over a train station as bait for the heroes.
* The entire plot of ''[[Unstoppable]]''. [[Very Loosely Based
* Seen in the beginning of ''[[Toy Story]] 3''.
* The premise of the Canadian NFB [http://films.nfb.ca/runaway short] [[Runaway]].
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