History Main / CoolTrain

* The Black Engine in ''{{Deathwatch}}'' campaign ''The Emperor Protects''. Essentially, it's a daemonic entity in the form of a train, which follows rails designed to allow it to become incorporeal and exist outside real-space. This effect of this is that the Black Engine is able to completely [[NoConservationOfEnergy ignore the laws of physics]] while in transit. In exchange for it's services, [[FateWorseThanDeath transporting psychic individuals so their souls can be drained]], it's fed human human slaves on every round-trip.

** How could you forget about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastech_360 FastTech 360]], which looks like something right out of a classic Japanese science-fiction manga/anime, and the two production-version trainsets they inspired, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E5_Series_Shinkansen E5 Series]] and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6_Series_Shinkansen E6 Series]]? The prototype version even had air brakes that pop out of the top of the train, looking like cat ears (but were sadly not incorporated into the production versions). For extra cool, check out the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR–Maglev JR-Maglev MLX-01 MagLev Train]], and the future production version of it, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L0_Series_Shinkansen L0 Series]]. These are ''maglev'' trains, the prototype version is ''the'' record holder for the fastest train in the world (at 581 km/h), and the production version will run at up to ''500 km/h''. The production version also has an extra long nose for extra coolness points.

[[BackToTheFuture http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/train_time_machine.jpg]]
[[caption-width:300:[[{{IncrediblyLamePun}} Epic Rail]]]]
->''I love this guy! He's like a satanic ThomasTheTankEngine!''\\
--'''TheSpoonyExperiment''' on [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom Doomtrain]] in ''FinalFantasyVIII''

Well, lots of these are actually only Cool Locomotives - including the one to the left - but hey, let's not split hairs.

!!Examples:

[[folder: Anime and Manga]]

* ''GalaxyExpress999'', described as the love child of a CoolTrain and a CoolShip.
** What's even cooler is that the 999 itself was inspired by a real life train: the Empire State Express No. 999 (which as you can guess, operated in New York, AKA: the "Empire State") The 999 was the first steam locomotive to exceed 100 MPH, making it a RealLife CoolTrain for its time.

* ''Brave Express Might Gaine'' - a Cool Train SuperRobot.

*** And let's not forget that their ultimate finisher move, Joint Dragon Fire, literally had the opponent ''[[FinishingMove getting run over by the whole line of them, linked together,]]'' '''''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill WHILE THEY WERE ENGULFED IN A DRAGON-SHAPED FIREBALL.]]''''' If THAT ain't a Cool Train, I don't know what is.

** Wouldn't a [[spoiler: solid gold]] train weigh hundreds of tonnes and handle crummy?
** [[RuleOfCool Not in Speed Racer!]]
*** Technically, the entire situation was academic. [[spoiler: The entire point of the Mammoth car was to smuggle the gold out of the country in the last place anyone would think to look]]. Yes, it handled crummy (somewhat mitigated by the fact that nearly every wheel had its own engine), but it crushed everything in its path.

** Runs on 120 km/h, indeed fastest Steam Train EVAR
** 120km/h is not something strange to Steam Trains at all.
* Locomon, seen [[http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Locomon here]], is a [[{{Digimon}} Digimon]] that is itself a cool train. It also evolves into the even cooler and decidedly more badass [[http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/GranLocomon GranLocomon]].

* ''{{The Galaxy Railways}}'', which is part of the ''{{Galaxy Express 999}}'' universe, is all about Cool Space Trains.

* ''TransformersRobotsInDisguise'' gives us Team Bullet Train, three transforming trains with the [[CombingMecha combined]] form of Rail Racer.
* The armored train in ''CastleInTheSky''.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

* ''LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' Vol 2 has a Secret Black Government Train. Its engine number is .007, which isn't a reference to [[JamesBond Campion Bond's family]], but to Kipling (see below).

[[folder: Film]]
* As in the original TV series, Jim West and Artemus Gordon travel in one named "The Wanderer" in ''Film/WildWildWest''.
* The ending of ''BackToTheFuture III''. "It runs on steam!".

* The missile train from ''GoldenEye''

* The 1985 movie prison-escape-movie ''Film/{{Runaway Train}}'' featured four diesel locomotives coupled together to form the titular train, a black, ice-encrusted, dinosaur-like monster machine tearing through an Alaskan blizzard with no brakes. The fact that the train was intended solely as a moving stage for the drama occurring inside it was irrelevant to the fact that it possessed as much character as the Golden-Globe winning, Oscar-Nominated performances of actors Jon Voight and Eric Roberts, especially after it crashed through another train and became hideously deformed!!

* The requisite big chase in ''[[MadMax Mad Max]]: Beyond Thunderdome'' revolves around a train made of a truck and a small house that doubled as a methane powerplant (for some reason).
* Morton's special train in {{Once Upon A Time In The West}}.

* The New York Central's Twentieth Century Limited in ''NorthByNorthwest.''

[[folder: Literature]]
* ''TheRailwaySeries'', aka ''ThomasTheTankEngine''.
* In ''The KeysToTheKingdom'', Grim Tuesday had a personal train with [[SpikesOfVillainy SPIKES]] all over it.
* China Mi?lle's ''Iron Council'' has the Perpetual Train, [[spoiler: later home of the titular council]] which was initially crawling along laying its own rails as the forefront of an expanding railway network - it has carriages containing everything needed to keep the community of workers building the lines alive and well fed, from an abattoir to a church. [[spoiler:It later goes rogue, and the Council organise its rails to be taken up behind it as they are laid ahead of it, so it essentially becomes a giant, moving LaResistance town.]]

* Blaine the Mono from ''TheDarkTower''. Insane riddling supersonic trans-universal pink monorail train. Finally defeated by [[spoiler: {{Dead Baby Comedy}}]].
* The Kinetic City Express in Emily Lloyd's books is gigantic, needs no rails, and fits anywhere the Crew need it to go. It also has a talking computer system whose name the editor doesn't remember at the moment but which was designed by Alexander Graham Cracker.

* Does the [[HarryPotter Hogwarts Express]] count?
* Tootle, the eponymous character from the "Little Golden Books" series is an aversion since the fact that he's a talking train is not really the point (the actual point is the story's "[[AnAesop Aesop]]" which [[YourMileageMayVary depending on how you look at it]] has gone somewhat [[FamilyUnfriendlyAesop out of fashion]] over the decades (and I stress "somewhat").
** Although, "The Little Red Caboose" (which is part of a train) from the same series is a somewhat (I repeat: somewhat) more straight example (because of its CrowningMomentOfAwesome...well, by the series' standards anyway).
* The HarryHarrison science fiction novel ''Wheelworld'' features an [[PlanetOfHats agricultural colony]] on a planet with very extreme seasons where the entire population of the colony escapes the brutal summers twice each (longer-than-Earth-normal) year by picking up and moving from one of the planet's poles to the other. This is done by jacking up the colony's main buildings on wheels, forming them up behind the colony's nuclear power plants (now transformed into enormous locomotives) and making the 12,000-mile trek to the other side of the planet. No tracks--the "trains" run on roads--but the effect is definitely train-like. (The book is actually the middle third of a trilogy called "To the Stars", but there are no trains or train-like things in the first and third books, ''Homeworld'' and ''Starworld''.)
* In Julie Priests third Clockwork Century novel, "Dreadnought", the main character must travel upon a Union war locomotive, the aforementioned Dreadnought. It is used by the Union to terrorize Confederate rail traffic, as most characters acknowledge its power. Basically, its a warship on rails, with heavily armored engine, and plenty of automated guns and a compliment of troops on board. Also, its involved in a cross country chase to Washington State, involving Confederate spies, Texas Rangers, bushwackers, mad scientists, and zombies.
* Iain M. Banks' TheCulture/{{Consider Phlebas}} has a Planet of the Dead, on which has ancient, subterranean three-story miles-long trains that were used as mobile command centers by the extinct builders. [[StuffBlowingUp Then one gets to moving...]]

[[folder: Live Action TV]]

* Team Bullet Train in ''TransformersRobotsInDisguise'' had the ability to create rails wherever they needed to go... or just drive on land. And due to this series respecting scale more than usual, they towered over most other Transformers, and could [[CombiningMecha combine]] into Rail Racer. In one episode they become quite attached to a steam train, even though it's not sentient.

[[folder: Music]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* The large-scale ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' spin-off games ''Titan Legions'' and ''Epic 40,000'' featured a unit for the Squats (space dwarfs) called the "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Land Train]]." Each car had its own weapon system or upgrade, ranging from mortars to a gyrocopter landing pad, but then the Squats were [[DroppedABridgeOnHim removed from the 'verse]] and gamers were left with marginally less ridiculously over-the-top HumongousMecha and [[TankGoodness Super-Heavy Battle Tanks]] to wage war with...

* The [[{{Magitek}} lightning rail]] from the ''DungeonsAndDragons'' setting ''{{Eberron}}''.
* the Crayon Rails game ''Iron Dragons''

[[folder: Toys]]

[[folder: Video Games]]

** In fact, the box art for the game was "borrowed" from ANOTHER example; [[http://www.rodneymatthews.com/main.htm a painting by Rodney Matthews depicting an epic-looking giant train from another world.]]

* The Forever Train on Macbeth from ''StarFox 64'' is a GIANT futuristic example, which you destroy car-by-car until there's nothing left but the engine.
** [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Which you then crash into a factory.]]

** The BigBad has one too - that ''flies''. Suspiciously, the front looks like Ganondorf's face.
* Mega Man has a couple of examples: Charge Man's in [[Game/MegaMan Classic]], Slash Beast's in [[MegaManX X]], and the Neo Arcadian supply train in [[MegaManZero Zero]].

* TeamFortress2 - Payload variant map "Frontier", where the bomb cart is replaced with a train with an awesome face painted on the front. Anybody caught in the train's path [[OneHitKO dies instantly]].

* [[HalfLife Half-Life 2]] gives us the Razor Train: a fleet of tall, black, intimidating diesel engines who haul prisoners and soldiers. One of them comes at you at high speed, at Bridge Point. Want to try ramming into it? Go ahead, watch what happens to [[StuffBlowingUp your]] [[EveryCarIsAPinto car]].

[[folder: Web Original]]

[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ThomasTheTankEngine is made of this trope. Almost every character is a CoolTrain

* [[{{Transformers}} Astrotrain]] transforms into a space shuttle....Oh wait, '''and a train'''!
* Dinosaur train? Now there's a PBSKids series called ''{{Dinosaur Train}}'', featuring one. The train travels through time tunnels taking its riders to various periods within the Mesozoic Era.
* One episode of ''JusticeLeague'' has the team slip into an alternate-universe Fascist dictatorship led by Vandal Savage. Surveillance is everywhere on the streets, so local freedom-fighting Batman uses a rocket powered subway car to get around.
* During the New York episode of XiaolinShowdown, Jack showed up with a train that turned into a mecha. Dojo shapeshifted into a dragon train during the same episode, but it's not a form he likes to take (apparently, the third rail really chafes). A couple of seasons later, Jack took this even further by showing up with a flying train.
* An episode of the GIJoe cartoon featured the Cobra Bullet, a bullet train Cobra used to take away the gold they stole from Fort Knox.

[[folder: Real Life]]

** How could you forget about the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastech_360 FastTech 360]], which looks like something right out of a classic Japanese science-fiction manga/anime, and the two production-version trainsets they inspired, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E5_Series_Shinkansen E5 Series]] and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E6_Series_Shinkansen E6 Series]]? The prototype version even had air brakes that pop out of the top of the train, looking like cat ears (but were sadly not incorporated into the production versions). For extra cool, check out the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JR–Maglev JR-Maglev MLX-01 MagLev Train]], and the future production version of it, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L0_Series_Shinkansen L0 Series]]. These are ''maglev'' trains, the prototype version is ''the'' record holder for the fastest train in the world (at 581 km/h), and the production version will run at up to ''500 km/h''. The production version also has an extra long nose for extra coolness points.

[[folder: Musical]]
* StarlightExpress. All characters appearing on stage are either locomotives or train cars. Most of them cool.
[[/folder]]

<<|VehicleTropes|>>
<<|LuxuryTropes|>>
<<|TravelCool|>>

* The city on rails in Christopher Priest's spooky novel ''Inverted World''. It is located [[spoiler: on world with a mindboggling topography that shifts, so the train city must move to stay in a habitable zone. However, all "good things" have an end.]]

* Locomon, seen [[http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/Image:Locomon.jpg here]], is a [[{{Digimon}} Digimon]] that is itself a cool train. It also evolves into the even cooler and decidedly more badass [[http://digimon.wikia.com/wiki/GranLocomon GranLocomon]].

* southern Pacific Railroad's "cab forward" steam locomotives.

* Link and Zelda ride around in one in TheLegendOfZeldaSpiritTracks.

Midnight Train by Journey

* ''LeagueOfExtraordinaryGentlemen'' Vol 2 has a Secret Black Government Train. It's engine number is .007, which isn't a reference to [[JamesBond Campion Bond's family]], but to Kipling (see below).

* MegaMan has a couple of examples: Charge Man's in [[MegaMan Classic]], Slash Beast's in [[MegaManX X]], and the Neo Arcadian supply train in [[MegaManZero Zero]].

* From 1965 to 1977 the French were experimenting with a ''[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aerotrain.jpg jet-powered hovertrain.]]''

* ''The Railway Series'', aka ''ThomasTheTankEngine''.

Midnight train by Journey

* During the New York episode of XiaolinShowdown, Jack showed up with a train that turned into a mecha. Dojo shapeshifted into a dragon train during the same episode, but it's not a form he likes to take (apparently, the third rail really chafes).