Trivia / Runaway Train

• Actor-Inspired Element: Manny's mustache was suggested by Jon Voight after he watched the prison documentary Scared Straight!
• Cast the Expert: Danny Trejo was offered a job as a prison extra while working at the prison as a counselor. The screenwriter Eddie Bunker, a reformed criminal himself, recognized Trejo from his prison days and offered him a bonus if he'd train the lead actor for a boxing scene. After watching him work, the director cast him in a small role as a prison boxer, which spun into an entire career playing thugs and toughs.
• Deleted Scene: The script originally had a consist of locomotives chase after the runaway, attempting to couple-up and drag it to a stop, (eerily similar to the real-life story the movie Unstoppable is based on) but Barstow has to order them to stop, rightfully fearing they'll crash if the runaway tears up the elderly Seneca bridge at its excessive speed.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Eric Roberts worked out for several months prior to filming to put on thirty pounds of muscle. Roberts has said that the characterization of Buck came easily to him as he had grown-up in a Mississippi neighborhood which was full of ex-cons.
• Fatal Method Acting: During filming in Alaska, a helicopter en route to location struck power lines and crashed, killing pilot Rick Holley.
• In Memoriam: This film is dedicated to Richard Holley, a helicopter pilot who died during the filming.
• Playing Against Type: Jon Voight initially thought the role of Manny was wrong for him, until Andrei Konchalovsky advised Voight that the best villains in movies are "actors who play against type."
• Recycled Set: By far one of the biggest obstacles the Alaskan division of the filming crew encountered was the Railroad is fully operational. They were strictly forbidden to interfere with the timetables of any other trains. There was no room for outtakes in the wilderness. They wanted to show the runaway collide into a freight train hauled by GP40s, but had to settle on reusing their own hired train◊ hauling their studio equipment for the 'Eastbound 12' scene instead.
• Saved from Development Hell: Akira Kurosawa teamed with Joseph E. Levine to produce this in 1965. He Intended for Lee Marvin and Henry Fonda to star. It was to be the first of four movies that they would make together, but none materialized.
• Star-Derailing Role: No pun intended. It would be about a decade until Jon Voight again got decent roles, and never really got back to being a leading man. Eric Roberts had to spend a long time in obscure roles before getting back. Today he still better known for being Julia Roberts' brother and Emma Roberts' dad.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Akira Kurosawa also planned to direct this movie, but the plans fell through.
  • Tom Berenger was originally cast as Buck McGeehy, but dropped out in order to shoot Platoon. Jeff Bridges was also considered.
  • Robert Duvall once expressed interest playing the role of Oscar "Manny" Manheim.
  • There were several differences between the film and its original first-draft English script: The film was originally set in Wisconsin, not Alaska. The beginning featured a freight train running past the prison, accompanied by a piece of soul music by convict Jonah who played the guitar in this script. Manny is in prison for murdering his wife, who was two-timing him, not bank jobs. Ranken, the prison warden is younger and more out of control, breaking Manny's arm for harming one of the guards. There is no boxing match scene. The train engineer, Al, doesn't die of a heart attack, he is pitched off the engine when it takes a curve too fast. There is a chase sequence where a set of locomotives try to chase the runaway, planning to couple up and stop her. The reason for the railroad company derailing the train and condemning its passengers is not because it will collide with a chemical plant. Instead, a locomotive has derailed in her path in the middle of a town. The spur where the runaway eventually crashes is referred to as "The Elkins Steel Mine", a disused mine at the end of an out-of-use siding.

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