Plot
Westrail #642, a freight train bound from Stillwater, Utah to Denver, Colorado, containing biomedical and flammable chemicals along with the Soviet-era atomic bomb smuggled by John Henry of the Bradshaw Disposal Systems, becomes a high-speed runaway as the air hoses gives way. Westrail's senior train engineer, Wally Phister crushes his hand when he unsuccessfully attempts to re-connect the air hoses, before they reach for the portable derailer set up by the Denver Railroad Control (DRC) at Silver Gorge.
John Seger, a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigator from Denver, is notified of the crisis and, via a Park Ranger helicopter, boards on the trailing locomotive piloted by engineer Ray, and the two gives chase. DRC dispatchers; Ed Brown and Christina Roselli, abort the planned derailment at Silver Gorge upon being warned off by one of the employees from Bradshaw Disposal Systems of a nuclear bomb on board the train, which allows Seger to catch up and couple the chase train to the runaway.
However, the couplers snap free as they attempt to slow down, and in the chaos, the runaway’s conductor, Tucker Ames, is thrown off the caboose and is struck by Ray's chase locomotive. NEST Lieutenant colonel Tom Levy, tasks Seger to locate the bomb to confirm whether if Bradshaw Disposal Services' warnings are legitimate. John Seger soon finds the smuggled nuclear bomb inside the boxcar, and relays the information to DRC.
As Westrail 642 reaches Jackson Summit, the final mountain peak before descending downhill towards Denver, John Seger, after failing to reconnect the air hoses, briefly manages to slow the runaway train by jamming the lead locomotive's electrical lock using a crowbar. However, Ray, in an attempt to rescue the crew, slams into the caboose, killing an injured crew member Al Discus and disengages the brakes, causing it to speed up once more.
Realizing that there is no way to stop it, Seger convinces Phister, who was initially reluctant, to abandon the train. Stan Atkins, the only engineer remaining, attempts to re-connect the air hoses but falls off the train and dies. Now completely unmanned and out of control, Westrail #642, speeds down the mountains and careens off the tracks at Miller’s Bend, the final derailment site set up by NEST near Denver. Although the bomb does not detonate, the chemicals on the wrecked train are set ablaze.
NEST teams, including Seger, arrive to extract the atomic bomb away from the crash site, but are forced to retreat as the volatile chemicals explode around them. NEST commander Reuben Castillo volunteers to disarm the bomb on the spot alone. However, the liquid metallic sodium barrels starts to leak. Tom Levy attempts to abort the water bombing, but his orders fail to reach one of the helicopter crews, who dumps water onto the wreck, igniting the metallic sodium and triggers a nuclear explosion, sending a shockwave that wipes out a portion of Denver, along with thousands of people within the blast radius
John, Megan, and Megan's ex-husband, Noris "Mac" MacKenzie, who managed to survive the blast after being reunited moments before, attempts to get their family out of Denver before the fallout arrives, but the electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear explosion renders almost every vehicle immobile. After much discussion, Mac takes his son Chance MacKenzie, and Seger's daughter Grace through the old, abandoned coal mines for a quicker route to Eminence, Kansas, while John and Megan Seger hail a bus also heading out of town and brings Grace's boyfriend Danny, who was injured, out of town, but John Seger decides to follow their kids.
Further ahead, Mac is paralyzed due to an accident and Chance MacKenzie is left hanging precariously on a dilapidated ladder over the deep mining pit while trying to help his father. John Seger, with Mac's assistance, manages to rescue their son, but the ladder gives way and Mac falls into the mining pit and to his death.
At a FEMA refugee camp in Eminence, Henry Bradshaw, after escaping from Denver, looks on over the dead and injured people affected by the disaster he had caused, while John, Chance, and Grace Seger reunite with Megan and Danny.
Production
In the film's opening scenes, montages of actual train wrecks were shown alongside newsreel transcripts, such as one from the 1987 Maryland train collision, the 1993 Big Bayou Canot rail accident. Fictional ones are included as well, such as one scene taken from the 1995 film, Under Siege 2: Dark Territory.
The release poster features FM C-liners, of which one exists today, Canadian Pacific 4104, at Nelson, British Columbia.
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 been folded into Canadian National Railways over a 60-year lease since 2004.
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, miniature effects 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.
