Prototype Railroading: "Unstoppable"

About a year ago, a rather successful movie came out about railroading, called Unstoppable, starring Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.  I thought I would talk about the movie and how it compared to railroading off the big screen, since I have had a lot of people ask how accurate it was.  Lately I have not gotten these kinds of questions as frequently as I did about six months ago, but the movie is no longer as new.  Overall, while entertaining, the movie was rather inaccurate of what railroading is really like.  I realize it said, "Based on a true events," or something like that at the beginning of the film, but it was only based on them.  Some of the things portrayed in the film were quite dramatized!

Before we go into all the details about the inaccuracies in the film, let's talk about locomotive safety systems, which prevent something like the runaway in Unstoppable from happening.  Every locomotive has a system which requires input from a person on the engine.  The most common type of system is an alertor, which requires an input on any of the locomotive controls to silence a periodic alarm.  The alertor is looking for some sort of input from a human being.  When there is no control input, a timer starts.  After a certain period of time, a message appears on the engineer's computer screen, with a timer countdown.  If there is no response to that message within about five seconds, an audible alarm begins, and continues to grow louder for about the next 20 seconds.  If no response is made in the next 20 seconds, the system cuts out the throttle, putting the engine in idle, and sets a full service brake application, bringing the train to a stop.  The alarm, and timer, are reset by either pushing the alertor button or by moving any of the controls.  Moving the throttle, blowing the horn, ringing the bell, and changing the position of the brakes would all reset the alertor timer.  If no further manipulations of the controls are made, the alertor will start flashing its message on the computer screen again in about a minute.

While the alertor system is more common on locomotives, there is another system, which does nearly the same thing, but in a different way, called the deadman.  The deadman system usually consists of a pedal or bar on the floor, which must be depressed at all times.  The engineer must keep a foot on the deadman while moving the train.  If pressure is removed from the deadman, the results are the same as ignoring the alertor.  The system will make a brake application and bring the train to a stop.  The alertor tends to be more popular, probably because the deadman is more easily fooled.  It is easy enough to set a grip or case of water bottles on the deadman, and then not worry about it, but that also defeats the purpose of having one.

So now you ask, if all locomotives have a deadman or alertor, and the train stops with no input, how do trains run away?  With the alertor system, there are certain things that can be done to disable the system.  When the train is stopped, and the air brakes are applied, the alertor is disabled.  When the independent brakes, or locomotive brakes, have been set to more than ten to fifteen pounds, the alertor is disabled, because the independent brakes are only set at low speeds, when stopping, and while stopped.  Cutting out the brakes also disables the alertor, because the brakes are only cut out when the locomotive is not being used as the lead locomotive.  If it is not the lead locomotive, the alertor needs to be deactivated.  In order for the events depicted in Unstoppable to take place, specific events would have to happen in very specific order, and anything the engineer knew about train handling would basically have to be thrown out the window.  But the movie says it was based on a true story, so what is going on there?

The movie was allegedly based on an incident that took place on the CSX, near Toledo, OH.  A locomotive, CSX #8888 to be specific, managed to get out of the yard with a small train, and with nobody on board.  The locomotive was being used to switch cars around a yard in Toledo, when the engineer realized he was going to run through a switch lined against him.  He attempted to stop the train by setting the independent brake, but the weight of the cars behind him unable to stop before the switch.  He decided to set some dynamic brakes, which are typically pretty effective, but mistakenly placed the throttle in notch 8, or full power, rather than in full dynamic braking.  Since the independent brake was applied, the alertor was deactivated, but the engine itself produced enough horsepower to simply overpower the brakes.  When the engineer realized he was still not going to stop for the switch, he made his biggest mistake that day.  He actually left the cab of the locomotive, with no one else on board, and got off to try to line the switch ahead of the train.  Running a switch gets you in trouble, up to possibly getting fired.  Obviously, the engineer would want to avoid running the switch, to prevent getting fired, but running the switch would have been better than leaving the cab of a moving locomotive!  Since the engine was in throttle, and despite the braking, it was picking up speed.  He attempted to board the train as it went by him at the switch, but it had accelerated enough that he was not able to.  At that point, the train continued down the yard lead and out onto the main track with nothing to stop it.  This was, more or less, depicted in the movie.  In the movie, the train was approaching a switch improperly lined, but not one they would have run through.  They would have simply gone down the wrong track.  Also, mysteriously, in the movie, once the engineer left the cab, the locomotive managed to place itself in full throttle!  I must admit, I laughed pretty hard at that!  Once the train left the yard, signals would still function as usual, including all grade crossing devices.  Gates, lights, and bells would all work at crossings equipped with them, there just would be no one to blow the horn.  CSX #8888 and the train following traveled about 50 miles before they were brought to a stop.  Not all the events in the movie actually happened in reality, although some of the ones shown were considered, though not used, to bring the train to a stop.  A copy of the incident report can be found here.

The observant viewers of the movie may have noticed that the air hoses were not connected between the cars and engine on the runaway train.  I have had more than a few people ask about that, thinking it was a huge mistake to be switching without all the brakes on the train connected.  Actually, that is pretty normal practice, especially with small cuts of cars.  The independent brakes on the locomotive are quite powerful, and usually capable of controlling a cut of cars typically handled during switching.  In order to expedite the switching, the air is bled off all of the cars being handled, releasing the brakes, and letting them roll freely.  Cars are then switched as needed, and the locomotive does all the braking for the train.  Of course, when the train leaves the yard, all the air hoses will be connected and the brake system charged up and tested.  The cars are only handled without air within the yard.  If the cut is too big to be handled by just the locomotives, then some or all of the air hoses would be connected to allow better braking.

The events of the CSX incident could potentially happen again, although the chance of it happening again is pretty slim.  Usually engineers do not apply brakes, and then put the locomotive in the highest throttle setting!  Most of that incident was the result of mistakenly putting the engine in throttle versus dynamic braking, and then from dismounting the engine while it was moving.

There were a lot of other times when the movie strayed from reality a bit.  I will not go into all the details, simply because a full analysis could take days!  I thought that most of the railroaders in the movie were portrayed as a grouchy, obnoxious bunch of people who hated anyone newer than them, which I think for the most part is not quite accurate.  Of course, there are some people like that, and the number of them would vary from place to place, but my experience has been that most railroaders are pretty patient with new railroaders, and quite willing to train them and help them learn the ropes.  Most railroaders realize that they were new once too, and someone took the time to train them.  Usually, the railroaders I am acquainted with are only grouchy and obnoxious if you are a complete idiot and risk getting everyone fired, injured, or killed, and I think in that kind of situation, they have every right to be!  Yes, you get teased a little as the new guy, but it is usually in a good-natured way, and generally everyone out here is just trying to get the job done and make it as pleasant a process as possible.  Overall, I thought it was an entertaining, if not 100% accurate movie, although I may have laughed a bit more than the average viewer!