Disaster On The Coastliner... The movie 1979

I know this topic has come up before regarding Amtrak trains in movies. I came across this today while channel surfing. Even though I saw the last hour of it, it was all pure Amtrak. My question is for anyone who may have seen it is, How accurate was the movie regarding locations, interiors, etc... Location was California coast with two trains on a collision course, however one was coming from SF to LA and the other northbound from what seemed to be SD to LA. Obviously they would never meet. Other things caught my attention as well... Good movie and cast including William Shatner F-40 rooftop scenes were interesting as was laying a 30 yard rail connection in 45 minutes!!! These guys should work for NJT!!! LOL

Yes I saw the movie many years ago. The location where the train crashed, I believe was in the Seacliff area. Seacliff being railroad east, geographicly south of Santa Barbara. The seens where acurate. Between Devon and Ventura there's about 110 miles of track that runs along the Pacific Ocean.

Although the story line was two passenger train on a collision course between San Francisco and Los Angeles, Amtrak never went into San Francisco directly. The Coast Starlight's turned inland at San Jose heading to/from Oakland. Caltrans does have comuter trains between San Francisco and San Jose.

The scenes at LAUPT are acurate. That's exactly how it looks.

I have seen this TV movie and I also live on the US West Coast. Trust me the exterior segments of this movie were NOT NOT NOT filmed anywhere on the USA West Coast. This was filmed on the Amtrak NORTHEAST corridor. In 1979 Amtrak basically did NOT have ANY extensive passenger rail corridors in California. With the exception of long-distance trains the only 1979 California Amtrak operations were a (twice??) daily San Joaquin train (Oakland to Bakersfield) and a three times daily San Diegan service (Los Angeles to San Diego). At that time Amtrak only had a SMALL fleet of Amfleet cars on the west coast for these trains that ran under the ok of FREIGHT railroads. Remember that there was NO San Diegan service NORTH of Los Angeles and NO California Capitol Corridor at all. In 1979 ALL California mainlines were owned and dispatched by the freight railroads. As a matter of fact the entire west coast was owned and operated by the freights. A VERY LIMITED west coast passenger operation for sure in 1979.

The movie makers probably needed to use a location where Amtrak ran the ENTIRE show in order to film the movie. The 1979 freight trackage ownership in California would not have been favorable to the production of this movie. Therefore in 1979 the easiest place to film a movie with Amtrak passenger trains would have been someplace on the Northeast Corridor.

This excellent movie database (movie BIBLE !!!!) agrees with my statement that this was mainly filmed in the Northeast US , specifically in the state of Connecticut

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079056/locations
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079056/locations

--- Dnaiel

Few films ever demonstrated both Hollywood and the general public's lack of understanding of the basics of rail technology than this one.

2nd trick op wrote:Few films ever demonstrated both Hollywood and the general public's lack of understanding of the basics of rail technology than this one.

On this movie, I think Hollywood was filming with a blind eye. If it was going for actuate rail technology the movie would have been a lot different.

From what I've seen o the general public track side, I have concern about its welfare. It suprises me that there aren't more accidents.

They have been showing this movie regularly on the Metro Channel here in NJ/NY.
You have to hand it to the crews, building a crossover in 45 minutes in very impressive LOL....
"Put your backs into men...let me hear you groan"

To be specific about the filming location, it was on the southeast Connecticut coast --- places like East Lyme, Niantic, Mystic. This is the ex-New Haven Railroad New York-Boston "Shore Line."

I own it on VHS, its pretty good I wish it was superliners, I am uncertain about the accuracy because the movie is fairly old.

I have seen this film a few times in german and i love it. The german title is "Die Weiche steht auf Tod", translated, "The turnout is switched to dead"

This train flick is now available for viewing on Netflix. I just watched it yesterday after not seeing it since it was re-run on TV long ago.
Sure it is somewhat hokey plot-wise, but I didn't care: the story was nifty and the Amtrak trains looked great! I also got a kick out of Raymond Burr playing a railroad prez and Pat Hingle an engineer (love his engineer cap!) And of course, part-time Trekkie that I am, I loved how Bill Shatner was in it playing a character that is the polar opposite of James T. Kirk. I even sympathized with the disgruntled employee who set the trains up to crash and was kind of sad he died after he and Bill jump for it near the climax of the runaway F40PH sequence.

All in all, it is a terrific train flick.

The scene where the Track gang is using pry bars to hold the gauge is one heck of a streach
Was done around the East Lyme Ct area of the NEC before the catenary was strung up.
(bit dusty here;cough)

I did a scan of the movie. I could identify various parts of the Shore Line. It is amazing how it looked when the area was built up. One thing everyone left out is there is a scene where the engine clearly isn't an F-40. It was either an FL9 or one of the E units.

It must be that high budget 70's disaster flick editing at work! You would think without the perfunctory all star cast, they could have done a better job!

Perhaps this should be moved to the Movie forum because I want to know if people think this movie or Unstoppable is more unrealistic.

In the opening credits there are exterior shots of trains being hauled by one of the rebuilt E8/9 units (I think the unit was.. 495?). There's also a shot maybe halfway through the film in which "Northbound 12" crosses the Niantic River with an E8/9 leading with an F40PH trailing back to back.

Interesting note: "Northbound 12" did not have any mail cars (for those who recall its real life *actual northbound* counterpart the Fast Mail)

I really like the chief dispatcher saying ignore the red signals as the cab signals display red. I guess this was before ATC was mandatory. I also love the fact they uncoupled on the fly instead of pulling the air.

'Cept that the "chief dispatcher" was actually Jim Waterman talking on his radio from the cab of the southbound train #3, blocking central control's connection. Was it even have been possible at that time for the radio signals and channels to be reprogrammed the way they supposedly were in the film?

Now what I really loved was the original engineer getting off the cab and saying to the young railfan (who reminded me of myself from about 15 years ago ) "Hey how're you doing?! Do me a favor keep an eye on that will ya?" And the kid goes "What??" and the engineer says "Look out somebody might take it" Hahahaha And then somebody does...

Sorry if i've "spoiled" the beginning for anyone who hasn't seen it