The 777 heading down the mainline
AWVR 777 is an AWVR (Allegheny & West Virginia Railroad) AC4400CW in the 2010 action/thriller movie, Unstoppable. It was a runaway train carrying hazardous chemicals known as Molten Phenol from Fuller Yard towards Stanton, Pennsylvania. Courtesy of the heroic actions of veteran engineer Frank Barnes and rookie conductor Will Colson, the train was stopped in Stanton Pennsylvania before it could cause any more fatalities beyond when it derailed a lash-up and the engineer was killed, shortly before Barnes and Colson began their pursuit.
The Train That Could Not Stop In Time[]
6:35 am. In Fuller Yard AWVR railroad operations before the events happened. In the film, 777 is double-heading a mixed freight train with one of its sister locomotives, AWVR 767 , another AC4400CW. The train consists of 12 closed hopper cars filled with different types of grain, 8 tank cars filled molten phenol, a toxic, flammable chemical used in the manufacturing of glue and other art supplies, 3 open hopper cars filled with coal, a single boxcar towards the end of the train, and 2 bulkhead flat cars carrying large steel pipes. Originally to the schedule, 777 was supposed to be moved from Track D16 to Track D10 in to make way for the Railroad Safety Campaign train with a field trip that would arrive later that day. Instead, due to a misaligned switch, 777's temporary engineer, Dewey, decides to jump out of the cab to run ahead of 777, throw the switch, and attempt to climb back on. But when Dewey supposedly thought he set the independent brake he forgot to do so without air brakes, Which 777 didn't have at the time due to a disconnected air hose, the brake was useless and so was the Deadman switch. 777's throttle suddenly popped out and slid back from the forward idle position to the full backward position, Notch 8, full power.
With nothing or no one to stop it, AWVR 777 becomes a runaway train, heading onto the wrong track. In a panic, Dewey runs after it to try and climb back on and manages to grab onto one of the handrails but before he can get back on, the speed of 777 pulls him to the point where he loses his footing and falls onto the ballast. Despite Dewey's assumption that 777 would only travel at 10 mph, 777 and its train quickly began accelerating and was already well over 10 mph in its first minutes under it's own power. Dewey and Gilleece tried to climb back on 777 again by racing to the front of it in a hi-rail truck. 777 may have already been going reasonably fast as Dewey struggles to catch up with it. When the truck is match to match with 777's front, Gilleece is able to grab one of the handrails but has to abort his attempt to avoid being hit by a signal post that detaches the right-side door. AWVR 777 then runs rampant all over the AWVR mainline and across the state of Pennsylvania. The RSC 2002 field trip train had to divert into a siding in Portville and narrowly avoids colliding with 777. Other trains on the mainline also have to divert into sidings to avoid collisions. Police and Pennsylvania State Troopers were called to block off all the railroad crossings on the mainline to prevent cars from being hit by 777, because they wouldn't be able to hear or see the train coming. At one crossing in Findlay AWVR 777 hitting the horse truck and it is broadcast on the report on the runaway, damaging one of it's ditchlight.
Another video is obtained from a surveillance camera that is pointing directly at the tracks. In Keating Summit, a plan is launched by AWVR's vice president Oscar Galvin to try and stop 777 by putting 2 SD40-2 locomotives (7375 & 7346) in front of it to couple up to 777 and slow it down so an AWVR employee (Ryan Scott) can be lowered onto the roof by helicopter and get in to the cab and stop 777. At first, The pair of SD40-2s hold their position in front of 777. Then the engineer of the SD40-2s, Judd Stewart, begins to apply the brakes on the SD40-2s, causing 777 to bump into the lash-up, creating a cascade of sparks and slowing 777 down despite the occasional time when 777 would push the SD40s away from it, forcing Judd to apply the brakes again. Judd had managed to slow 777 down to under 40 mph where Ryan is lowered onto the roof of 777 by a helicopter. However before he could even move, 777 had slammed into the lash-up, the force of the collision sent him flying backward and into the right front cab window of 767, knocking him unconscious. AWVR then tries to get Judd to slow 777 down enough to get it off the mainline, but this attempt went horribly wrong as 777 pushed the SD40-2s away from it giving them a burst of burning brakes and increasing speed. The SD40-2s enter the siding too fast causing them to fall on their side and explode in a giant fireball, killing Judd. Instead of following the SD40-2s onto the siding.
AWVR 777 surprisingly jumps the switch, staying on the mainline.
Next, 777 encounters another train, AWVR 1206, another SD40-2 that was forced to stay on the mainline as it was directed into a siding too small for its consist and had to go onto a rip track instead where they met with 777. The veteran engineer, (Frank Barnes) and young conductor (Will Colson) get 1206 to narrowly avoid a head-on collision with 777. As 777 raced past 1206, It crashes into the last boxcar on their train, reducing it to nothing but scrap. This, along with hitting the horse trailer, is what gave AWVR 777 the damage on the right front side of its cab and the right portion of the locomotive's front handrails. Outside of the small town of Arklow, police try shooting the emergency fuel cutoff button on 777's fuel tank, but this is ineffective because officers are mainly shooting at the fuel tank and if one of them had hit the Emergency fuel cutoff button, it wouldn't have worked since it needs to be held down for at least 3 seconds.
Galvin devises another plan to stop 777 by trying to derail it in Arklow, but once again their attempt was thwarted by 777 as it destroyed the derailers when it rolled over them, smashing a few police cars since it was too heavy and going too fast to derail. After 777 passed them, the crew of 1206, Frank Barnes Will, detach from their consist and begin to chase 777 in reverse in their own attempt to stop it. They eventually catch up to 777 and manage to couple up to the runaway train at the cost of grain spilling out from the last car and Will's foot getting crushed in between the couplers when he tries to secure the connection. 1206 then starts braking, creating a huge constant shower of sparks. 1206 is able to slow down 777 to under 50 mph, but 777 quickly regains speed shortly after as the consist is too heavy and the single SD40-2 was outmatched by the 2 much stronger AC4400CWs. As an attempt to help 1206 slow down 777, Frank goes out running on top of 777's consist and applying the hand brakes on its freight cars. This allows Will to use 1206 to slow down 777 to nearly 20 mph, but shortly after achieving that 1206 loses its dynamic brakes in a huge flame due to the traction motors being overheated.
AWVR 777 is now quickly approaching the Stanton Curve in the city of Stanton. The Stanton Curve is a sharp elevated curve with a 15 mph speed limit leading everyone to jump to the conclusion that 777 will fly off the tracks if it reached the curve. To make matters worse, right next to the curve are giant fuel storage tanks. If 777 were to derail into these fuel storage tanks, the results would be catastrophic. Frank, who is resting on top of one of the tank cars suggests that Will, who is still in 1206, to use the independent brakes as a last resort to slow 777. When 777 enters the curve it had entered with enough speed that it's balancing on one set of wheels causing it to hit nearby electrical posts, knocking them down and the pipes on one of the bulkhead flat cars to detach and roll off the car falling to the ground below and narrowly missing hitting one of the storage tanks. After hitting the independent brake as hard as he can multiple times, Will manages to get 777 back on all its wheels and on track. After making it through the curve, Frank tries to continue applying hand brakes to the freight cars but he can’t get any further as the gap between the bulkhead flat and the tanker cars has stopped him.
Ned Oldham, in his pickup truck and with his convoy of police cars and fire trucks which had been following AWVR 777 since the beginning, had pulled up alongside 1206. Ned Beckons to Will to hop in the back of his truck. Will, though still with a broken foot, complies and jumps into the back of Ned's truck. Ned races to the front of 777 with the convoy of emergency vehicles close behind. When Ned reaches the cab of 777, Will jumps. He grabs on to the handrails, his feet dangling below him as he hangs onto 777. He finds his footing and climbs into the cab of AWVR 777 and applies the brakes and sets the throttle into idle stopping the train and putting 777's potentially-castastrophic rampage to an end. Shortly after having stopped the train, a ceremony is set up to honor Frank, Will, and Ned for interviews. The ceremony is held in a suburb in Stanton next to the tracks where the runaway train is parked, for the press and the public to take pictures of it, admire it, and be able to look at it up close. It's unknown what happened to 777 after Unstoppable, But what almost certainly happened was after the ceremony is finished, 777, and 767, were returned to Canadian Pacific, repaired, and still operate as CP 9782, CP 9751, CP 9758, and CP 9777. They can be seen operating on CPKC’s system. It is unknown what happened to the SD40-2 units.
Trivia[]
- Elephant sounds were mixed with train noises to make 777 sound more menacing, including one sound That was used for the T. Rex in Jurassic Park.
- During development, 777 was nicknamed "The Beast". Denzel Washington uses the nickname in a behind-the-scenes interview. [1]
- There are also some problems with the movie's information:
- It passes three junctions that would have and should have derailed it immediately. However, it is likely the dispatcher set them to clear before 777 approached.
- It derails a lash-up even though it was traveling on the same track as the lash-up. It is not possible for any train to jump a switch no matter how fast it's going. However, there are thoughts that Scott Werner had called off the plan to switch 777 off the mainline, clues refer to him saying (Don't side it yet, it's going to fast.)
- It almost derails 1206, as it was going on a siding, one boxcar was derailed off the mainline where 777 was, and 777 hits it and goes unscathed. 777 would've derailed because the track switch was aligned with the siding, and NOT the mainline. However, it is likely that the dispatcher set the switch to the mainline before the boxcar cleared and 777 passed on. As Frank said, with 777's size and speed, it will vaporize and destroy anything in it's path, including other trains or cars.
- AWVR 777 crashed through a boxcar, and the boxcar exploded like it was made of plywood. it was canonically made of steel, so it would not have done that. It may have been that the boxcar was rusty and rotten wood or loaded with crates of explosives or gasoline to have exploded.
- A few frames before 777 hits the aforementioned boxcar, it is seen with one of the trucks on the ground and not the rail.
- There is damage to the front of the 777, (save for the left light) before it hits the trailer, due to scenes being filmed before the events happening.
- 777 and 767 travel about 75 MPH, though a single AC4400CW wouldn't be able to do so pulling 39 cars. 767 wouldn't have been used as power since it was a yard move. But it was possibly the momentum of the train's weight and 25 cars to make it close to 75 MPH or if 767 was under power too.
- CP 9783 Or CP 9782 was the early production version of 777 and CP 9777 was the late production version of 777.
- It had some extras, 9777, 6796, 7768 and 3505.
- According to the script, 777 was originally identified as a new hybrid SD40-2, ITX no. 888, (after CSX 8888) before it was changed to 777, the locomotive and railroad changed.
- 777 was said to be hauling 39 cars, but counting the consist would reveal that it is actually 25 instead.
