Continuity mistake: After Manny's fingers get crunched between the cars, blood sprays on his face. In the next couple of scenes there is hardly any there. Also, when the prison warden get sprayed with the fire extinquisher he is cleaned up in the following shots.
Runaway Train (1985)
Directed by: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Starring: Jon Voight, Eric Roberts, Rebecca De Mornay, Kyle T. Heffner
Continuity mistake: When you first see the freight train that eventually would get its caboose smashed, the locomotive is a big one with lots of snow on the front. In all the other shots of this train, it`s a smaller locomotive, and it has no snow on the front.
Character mistake: When the front door of the old F-unit is refusing to open the guys put their shoulder to it. The door they are trying to bash outward actually swings into the area where they are standing. If they really wanted to go out that door they should have unlatched it and pulled.
Trivia: This is, the way I see it, a VERY serious mistake by the filming crew of the movie. The Alaska Railroad, where the shooting of the movie took place, wanted all their logos and paint schemes of all the trains in the movie to be camouflaged. But yet, on the first shot of the locomotive of Eastbound 12 (yes, that is the shot of it before it mysteriously changes from ONE GP40 to TWO ALCo MRS's), you can see the blue and yellow paint scheme of the Alaska Railroad. On the DVD you might even be able to see the printed ALASKA on the side of the loco.
Trivia: In the film Eric Robert says jokingly to Sara "Why are we here? I'll tell you why...We're on our way to Las Vegas to see our good friend Wayne Newton." In Best of the Best 2 (1993) Eric Roberts arrives at Las Vegas at the end to stop a fight, which is being hosted by Wayne newton.
Trivia: In the original script Manny was supposed to be a convicted killer but writer Edward Bunker changed it to a safe-cracker because he didn't feel the other prisoners would respect a killer. Curiously this makes Warden Rankin's bitter and homicidal hatred towards Manny (which included welding him into his cell for 2 years) rather questionable as safe cracking isn't remotely as serious as murder.
Rankin: Let me tell you where you assholes stand. First there's God, then the warden, then my guards, then the dogs out there in the kennel, and finally, you. Pieces of human waste. No good to yourselves or anybody else.
Manny: You do what you have to do, I'll do what I have to do. Whatever happens, happens.
Rankin: Push the button. We're on a dead-end siding. We're gonna crash in five minutes.
Oscar "Manny" Manheim: Then we'll have a nice, five-minute ride together.
Rankin: You think you're a hero, huh? Shit. You're scum.
Oscar "Manny" Manheim: We're both scum, brother.
Question: Why would the loco derail if the siding switch was set to the siding where the freight train went?
Question: How was Sara so sure that there was no engineer on the train, considering that she was not able to get to the front carriage to find out?
Chosen answer: Most likely from the speed at which the train was going, a train is like driving any large vehicle. You have to maintain a certain pace, to stop at an instant, for the unexpected.
Question: Why didn't they go back to the 3rd or 4th locomotive where they could access the brake hoses and disconnect one of those, instead of trying to get to the hoses between the 1st and 2nd engines?
Answer: That's what they were doing, going car to freight car break the hoses. They knew it would slow the train down but not stop it. Slow enough so they could jump off without getting injured. That's why they were desperate to get to the first engine not only to break the hose but disconnect from it.
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: It wouldn't derail, it would break the bolt on points - the part of switch that moves, causing the points.