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Atomic Train is a 1999 American television film disaster film-action film-thriller film miniseries about an accidental nuclear weapon destroying the city of Denver. It was originally broadcast on NBC in two parts on May 16 and 17, 1999.
John Seger, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, is notified of the crisis and boards a chasing locomotive via a helicopter piloted by Ray, another engineer. Ed Brown and Christina Roselli abort the planned derailment after they are warned by another employee from Bradshaw Disposal Systems of the bomb's presence, which allows John to catch up and couple to the runaway to engage its brakes, slowing it down. However, the couplers gave way, forcing John to board the train. Brakeman Tucker Ames is killed when he is thrown off the caboose and onto the tracks. Lieutenant Colonel Tom Levy from NEST contacts John and tasks him to corroborate the warnings about the bomb. John eventually locates the bomb inside a boxcar, and relays the information to Denver Railroad Control, finally confirming the threat. Chaotic evacuations commence in Denver.
As the train reaches Jackson Summit, the final mountain peak before reaching Denver, John attempts to stop it by jamming the electrical lock using a crowbar. His efforts are successful but short-lived. Against Brown's orders, Ray speeds forward in an attempt to rescue the crew but realizes too late that the runaway is slowing. The chaser locomotive slams into the caboose and disengages the brakes, causing the train to speed up once again at Jackson Summit. Realizing there is no way to stop it, John convinces Wally to abandon the train. The final crew member to be left behind, conductor Stan Atkins, attempts to re-connect the air hoses but falls off and dies. Now completely unmanned, the train speeds down the mountain and careens off the track at Millers Bend, the final derailment site set up near Denver. Although the bomb does not detonate, the chemicals on the wrecked train are set ablaze.
Firefighters and military teams struggle to extinguish the fire and extract the bomb, but are forced to retreat when chemicals combust around them. NEST Commander Reuben Castillo volunteers to disarm the bomb alone. However, Sodium starts to leak, and Tom Levy attempts to abort bombing the site with water, which would ignite the sodium. One of the helicopter crew misinterprets the order and dumps water onto the wreck, triggering a nuclear explosion and releasing an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) that wipes out all electricity in Denver and sending a shockwave that tears through part of the city. Thousands are killed and injured, but John and his family survive.
With Denver in ruins, John attempts to get his family out of the city ahead of the nuclear fallout, but the EMP renders almost every vehicle immobile. After much discussion, Megan's ex-husband, Mac takes their children, Chance and Grace through the old, abandoned coal mines for a quicker route out of Denver. John and Megan manage to hitch themselves and an injured Danny aboard a bus bound for Eminence, Kansas where FEMA had set up an emergency shelter. However, John elects to stay behind and decides to follow their kids. Further ahead, Mac is crippled due to an accident and Chance is left hanging precariously over the deep mining pit while trying to rescue his father. John manages to rescue Chance, but Mac falls to his death.
John, Chance, and Grace Seger finally make their way to the FEMA refugee camp in Eminence, and the family is once again reunited.
The actual film uses all Canadian railroad equipment, including the MLW M-420. The two locomotives that attempt to couple to the runaway train are in the paint scheme of BC Rail, which has since been folded into Canadian National.
The derailment sequence at the fictional Millers Bend Lumber Yard, was filmed using 1/6 scale miniature trains for the derailment sequence. This scene involved the film crew bring onboard both Academy Award-winning, creator, Gene Warren, and pyrotechnics specialist, Joe Viskocil, to create the scene, which was the best and biggest action moments of the movie. The aftermath of the train wreck used full scale replicas of the train cars that were erected out of wood, steel and foam.
The runaway freight train’s locomotives and freight cars used in the movie, were re-lettered for the fictional railroad company Westrail. This is the third movie made in the late 90’s to use trains re-lettered Westrail, since two other movies made the year before Evasive Action and Hijack featured trains and railroad equipment re-lettered for that fictional railroad company of the same name as well.
Some scenes showing the aftermath of the train crash, were also used in the beginning of the 2003 movie Death Train, which also featured some deleted scenes of the wreckage of as Bryan Genesse’ character, Ryan, makes his way out of the derailed train, before it explodes. That movie however, does not reference or mention of a nuclear bomb involved. In this movie, the explosion sequence is the result of the dangerous cargo on the train.
The boxcar carrying the bomb is out-of-date and was illegal to use by railroads after 1995. It had solid-bearing trucks rather than roller-bearing trucks. Railroad cars with the older trucks disappeared long before 1999.
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