Disaster on the Coastliner (1979)

Touches You

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

You have to go into this movie wanting what you're going to get. I love the TV movies of the 70s and 80s and especially love disaster movies. William Shatner is a charming con-man and clearly having a ball with his role. Robert Fuller plays a handsome cad; you get to see him in just a pair of boxers (woo hoo! he was a crush of mine from back in my preteen days when he starred in Emergency!)Lloyd Bridges is an obnoxious Fed and HG Marshall as the computer guy in charge. I couldn't figure out why the deranged dude who hijacked the trains had a kitten in his car. That was just weird. Overall a fun and satisfying watch if you enjoy the styles and culture of the late seventies - my only quibble was seeing Shatner and Fuller wearing Sansabelt slacks. Ick.

This was a fun film to see on TV reruns in the early 1980s, and to see it now would be fun simply to remind me of when I was a kid. GREAT train scenes. The computer in the railroad offices that runs the whole railroad is as big as the room, yet today, a laptop could probably run the railroad.It is quite filled with technical errors and the like, plus cheesy acting + dialog, but these things can be ignored. It is refreshing to see William Shatner as "NOT" Capt. Kirk or the Priceline guy.See it.....if you can locate a copy. It's terrible, but you just might enjoy it. I did. I have given it a 3 out of 10, because it's a bad movie. But that does NOT mean that I don't recommend it....I do recommend it.But to give it more than a "3", would be kidding you. Find it, rent it/buy it/borrow it, and enjoy.

Yeah, the air hoses had busted open when the engine uncoupled from the cars, so the train line brakes were useless. However, the hijacker didn't know enough to reach for the smaller engine brake handle above the train line brake? That would have stopped the engine; as well as the emergency fuel kill switch on the rear panel which is clearly visible numerous times. Should have done his homework before hijacking a train. Also, If you take a train traveling at 120 mile per hour, and send it sailing over a newly-welded, 30 yard crossover, guess what...it's not going to make it! Regardless, the movie was enjoyable -good story, good acting, and good use of trains! Oh, and who are they fooling with "Trans Allied?" It was Amtrak!

Two commuter trains are set on a collision course by a computer programmer who has a grudge against the railroad company. It is then a race against time to save the hundreds of passengers on the two trains (including the vice presidents wife) from impending disaster. Reasons to love this movie Its full of stars - the guy from star trek, the guy from ironside, the guy from men in black its great to see all these 'stars' and to see how they were then.Its got tension, excitement and the implausible ending (which any classic disaster movie needs) - Finally it has Lloyd Bridges reprising his role from Airplane - "Now, this is no time for coffee" What more do you need?