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{{trope}}
[[File:traintop battle 2711.jpg|link=Spider-Man (film)|
A staple of Westerns, but still seen in plenty of action films and series, the '''Traintop Battle''' is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]]. Often the result of an aborted [[Train Escape]].
A train has plenty of advantages for an action scene: it's fairly enclosed, without people able to go too far either way for fear of falling off, it has plenty of opportunity for tunnels and overhead lines for your [[Look Behind You!]] moments, it doesn't need much explanation, the high speed acts as wind to let characters [[Dramatic Wind|billow dramatically]]. In short, it turns an
If hero and villain are trying to get to a location in time, it means the hero can be thrown off, and "lose" without dying. Or a villain may be forced out of the action, only to return later.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]]
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]''. With the sheer amount of train-time in that thing, it had to happen some time. "Some time" was, in this case, pretty early in.
** There's also Ed and Alphonse's fight with the terrorist Bald early in the first anime and manga (the chapter is cut from ''Brotherhood'').
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'''Cow:''' Oh, it's no problem! }}
* In ''[[Soul Eater]]'', Death the Kid gets into a three way battle with one of the various Mizune rat witches and a fat fisherman assassin while on a train that's zooming through the desert.
* In ''[[Maiden Rose]]'', after Klaus and Azusa jump on top of a train Azusa asks why they will be going in through the last car and fighting their way to the engine room rather then running across the top straight there. Klaus [[
* A recent episode of the Best Wishes arc of the ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' anime had Meowth pretend to reform and join the main characters, saying that Team Rocket fired him for messing up one of their evil plans, but it is then revealed that he joined them as part of a trap set up inside one of Team Rocket's trains, and that Meowth was never fired at all. A battle between Ash, Pikachu, and Co. and the Subway bosses Emmett and Ingo and Meowth, [[Took a Level in Badass|Jessie, James]], and an elite Team Rocket member follows shortly afterward, and ends with the elite Team Rocket member carrying off the Team Rocket trio with his helicopter.
* ''[[Allison & Lillia]]'' almost has a train battle during Allison's arc, but it's cancelled due to tunnel. We have to wait until Lillia's arc to see a proper train battle.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* One [[Golden Age]] ''[[Batman]]'' story climaxes in a battle between Batman and [[The Joker]] atop a moving train. A punch from Batman sends the Joker off the edge of the train and over a cliff in a [[No One Could Survive That]] moment.
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* Taylor Hebert (reincarnated into the body of a Muggleborn girl) takes out a Death Eater with a bowie knife on top of the Hogwarts Express in the ''[[Worm]]/[[Harry Potter]]'' crossover fic ''[[A Wand for Skitter]]''.
==
* ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]'' has Indy getting chased along a line of circus train cars. [[Two Words: Obvious Trope|One word]]: Rhinoceros.
* [[
** ''[[Octopussy]]''
** ''[[From Russia with Love]]''
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{{quote|'''Gene:''' "You know what I like about you? You're tall." ''(train enters a tunnel)''}}
== [[Literature]] ==▼
▲== Literature ==
* The climax of ''[[The Dresden Files]]: Death Masks'' took place on top of a train, and the fights were pretty damn badass for a book.
** To elaborate, {{spoiler|Dresden, a mob boss (equipped with commando gear and an assault rifle), and two Knights of the Cross (one of whom is carrying an AK in addition to his holy sword) chase and then land on the train in the mob boss's helicopter, which happens to be, on Dresden's request, playing "Ride of the Valkyries." All of that to stop a group of demons from unleashing an apocalyptic plague.}} Just as awesome as it sounds.
* The ''[[Sherlock Holmes]]'' tribute novel ''[[The Seven-Percent Solution]]'' features a train-top [[Sword Fight]] between Holmes and the villain.
* The ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]: [[Eisenhorn]]'' trilogy features a traintop sword-fight between Eisenhorn and the mercenary captain Clansire Etrik. However, the train is not moving at the time, which is probably a good thing since it is noted as being able to make a trans-continental crossing in a day.
** It is, however, coated with ice and in the middle of a blizzard, so that may even things out.
* In ''[[The Tomorrow Series|The Other Side of Dawn]]'', Ellie jumps onto a goods train from a bridge and ends up fighting an enemy soldier atop the train and inside one of the carriages.
* Alistair MacLean's ''[[Breakheart Pass]]'' is set around an American train in indian country in the late 1800's. It has a couple. For that matter, the same author has a [[Cable Car Action Sequence|top-of-the-gondola fight]] in ''[[Where Eagles Dare]]''.
* ''[[The Wolf's Hour]]'' by Robert R. McCammon has the protagonist forced to fight his way from one end to the other of a train in Nazi Germany that has been rebuilt as a rolling death trap while the [[Egomaniac Hunter]] stalks him from behind.
* Fitting of its Western influence, [[The Alloy of Law]] includes a gunfight atop a moving train, which continues despite the protagonist being thrown off the top (he uses magic to save himself).
* ''[[A Certain Magical Index]]'' has the battle between Touma and Freyja, which occurs on top of a subway train in a tunnel. Since Freyja fights by summoning giant monsters, many of her creations are large enough that they scrape against the ceiling of the tunnel but take no damage due to their [[Super Toughness]].
* [[Discworld]] has a train battle in the book that introduced trains to the setting, ''[[Raising Steam]]''. They even take the battle into a tunnel, when the story's <s>hero</s> protagonist ''doesn't'' warn his opponent of the upcoming danger. {{spoiler|Said opponent is a dwarf, though, so there's just enough clearance for him to remain standing on the train car while it's in the tunnel.}}
== [[Live-Action TV]] ==▼
▲== Live-Action TV ==
* Partially invoked in the pilot of ''[[Human Target]]'': there isn't a fight on the roof of the train, but there are several go-rounds in the cars, and one in the air ducts at the top of the cars.
* The [[Community/Recap/S2/E11 Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas|second]] [[Christmas Episode]] of ''[[Community]]'' has one. Did we mention it was [[Stop Motion|stop-motion]] [[Beyond the Impossible|animated]]?
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==▼
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* The ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' setting ''[[Eberron]]'' has a magic train for two purposes. To get the characters to places quickly, and [[Rule of Cool|for them to have climactic fights on top of it]].
== [[Video Games]] ==▼
* The
▲== Video Games ==
▲* The videogame adaptation of ''[[Quantum of Solace]]'' includes a flashback level set during the unremarkable train ride to the eponymous ''[[Casino Royale]]''. It now includes a traintop gunfight.
* ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' has several fights upon an [[Afterlife Express]], though little is made of the particular environment. The boss is the train itself.
* ''[[Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door]]'', against the [[Giant Space Flea From Nowhere]] Smorgs. To simply ''reach'' the boss fight itself, you also have to hammer your way through a veritable horde of them on top of the Excess Express first.
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* The fourth stage of ''Super [[Double Dragon]]'' is a truck-top battle, which may be a [[Shout-Out]] to the second level of ''[[Bad Dudes]]''.
* Two back-to-back levels of ''[[Syphon Filter]] 2'' have you racing to the front of a train to stop it before it reaches a blown-out bridge. You fail to stop it, but jump onto a chopper stolen by Lian just before it falls through.
* ''Smokin' Guns'', being a Western mod, has this. "Santa Fe Express" Deathmatch map is on a moving train plus terrain buzzing by (you fall, you die), where train top is mostly for long-range engagement (due to lack of cover) and the inside for short-range. Also, there's a stopped train in "Backwater" Deathmatch/Robbery map, but its top, while accessible, is useful mostly in that you can jump from it in either direction, otherwise it's just exposed for other high places and semi-exposed for low.
== [[Web Original]] ==▼
▲== Web Original ==
* ''[http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/501313 The Ballad of Cripple Kane]'' starts out with of course, a saloon brawl, a horse chase, but it ends up on a ''train''. Oh wait you knew that, reading the trope and all. It's still ''''awesome''''!
== [[Western Animation]] ==▼
▲== Western Animation ==
* In one ''[[Family Guy]]'' fantasy sequence, Stewie has an [[Imagine Spot]] about a fist and knife fight with someone on top of a moving 19th century train over a [[MacGuffin]].
* In the third episode of ''[[The Spectacular Spider-Man]]'', Spidey fights The Lizard on top of a moving subway.
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* Done twice in ''[[Kim Possible]]''.
* Done in ''[[Winx Club]]'' S4 episode 13, Layla, Nabu and Sky fight Ogron, the leader of the Black Circle on top of a moving train. It quickly becomes just a fight between Ogron and Sky when Nabu is knocked off the train and Layla had to catch him before he hit the ground.
* This is how Rainbow Dash of ''[[My Little Pony:
* In the ''[[G.I. Joe: Renegades]]'' episode "Homecoming, part 2", Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow fight on top of the train, while [[The Baroness]] takes out soldiers within the train.
* The ''[[Archer]]'' episode "The Limited" has ISIS escorting a radical Nova Scotian separatist (yes, really) back across the Canadian border via train. Archer keeps talking about how it's been, like, his life-long dream to fight on top of a train. And in the show's semi-deconstructive spirit, when the time comes, he finds it's not all it's cracked up to be.
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