Train ride to the afterlife

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Movie
German title Train ride to the afterlife
Original title Atomic Train
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1999
length 164 minutes
Rod
Director David Jackson
Dick Lowry
script D. Brent Mote
Phil Penningroth
Rob Fresco
production Trimark Home Video
music Lee Holdridge
camera Steven Fierberg
cut Scott Powell
Adam Wolfe
occupation

Train ride into the hereafter (also Atomic Train - Train ride into the hereafter and Train Apocalypse ) is a TV film by the directors David Jackson and Dick Lowry from 1999 .

action

After the collapse of the Soviet Union , the United States bought discarded atomic bombs from Russia so that they would not fall into the wrong hands. In order to save costs, an employee of the removal company had one of these bombs, incorrectly declared, loaded into a carriage on train 642 . This train starts in the Rocky Mountains (USA) and drives towards the metropolis of Denver on an almost permanent gradient .

A defect causes a fire in the locomotive and the brakes also fail. From then on, desperate attempts were made to stop the train, initially with a pile of sand on the tracks. John Seger, an investigator for the transport safety authority , lets himself be dropped from a helicopter onto a train following behind in order to couple both trains and to be able to brake the front train with the one behind in a controlled manner. A TV team reports live from a helicopter about the rescue attempt.

The maneuver succeeds at first, the trains brake, but the clutch breaks . Just in time, Seger jumps on the train of the accident, which is picking up speed again. Seger tracks down the atomic bomb and manages to reactivate the brakes under dangerous circumstances. Shortly before the train comes to a standstill, however, the following locomotive opens. The train driver had disregarded orders in order to save his colleagues. The brakes on the train in front are released, the staff capitulate and jump off.

The Atomic Energy Agency orders the train to derail in a controlled manner in a sparsely populated area near Miller's Bend . This leads to critical fires, but the atomic bomb does not ignite. An expert begins defusing while helicopters drop dry powder. Fighting a fire with water would be fatal as it would cause an explosion if it reacts with the sodium waste. But the crew of a fire-fighting helicopter rushing to the rescue disregards the warning, tries to extinguish with water and thus triggers a disaster, the atom bomb detonates and Denver is almost completely destroyed.

In parallel, the film introduces the stories of the families of the main actors who are in Denver, which is to be evacuated. After the explosion, a second part of the plot begins, which depicts the arduous exodus from the city sinking into chaos and violence.

Embedded in the plot are moral speeches from the US President to the nation.

In contrast to many similar American disaster films, the plot of the film has a special position due to its division into two parts. The film first deals with a train disaster, then focuses on the disaster scenario of a large city severely hit by a nuclear explosion. The film is often shown as a two-parter on TV broadcasts, first the actions that lead to the train disaster and, as the second part, the final scenarios in Denver.

Awards

The film won the Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Award for acoustic special effects in 2000 and was nominated for another Golden Reel Award for editing the dialogues.

Factual defects

  • When the brakes fail, the train is said to be about 300 miles west of Denver. According to this, things are not going downhill, but uphill.
  • The air brakes shown in the film unfold their effect when the pressure drops, so a lack of air pressure leads to the wagons braking.
  • The footage to show Denver was shot in Vancouver .

The locomotives used have several different brakes. Even if all braking systems fail, you could still give reverse drive power.

Reviews

"Trivial action thriller against the background of decades of secret train transports of nuclear waste."

“It's hard to believe: originally the film was a two-parter that tormented its audience with another 80 minutes (!). Even with the current "short version" it is astonishing how much film director Dick Lowry could make out of so little story. What remains are confused viewers who hold their foreheads because of the unbelievable script: why is nobody so clever to simply uncouple the wagons? "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ARD film description
  2. Atomic Train (TV Movie 1999) - Goofs - IMDb
  3. ibid
  4. http://www.tvspielfilm.de/filmlexikon/?type=filmdetail&film_id=270029