The Fugitive movie starring Harrison Ford, Julianne Moore and Tommy Lee Jones is a blockbuster movie released on August, 6 1993. The prison bus and train wreck in the first part of the film was a state-of-the-art special effect. It is still a stunning scene even in this day of cg. It was done with a real train and bus at a price tag of $1.5 million dollars. It took a crew of 70 people and two months to construct one of the greatest  movie wrecks.

The film company picked this train line and tracks to film in North Carolina because five other rail lines including one in Illinois, did not want to be associated with a huge wreck. Fake or not. The engines chosen were nothing but empty shells, gutted of all usable components and purchased by the movie company for scrap value. The lead unit is an ex-CSX U18B 1901, the “slug” is a flatcar with some boxes piled on it, the third unit is an ex-N&W GP30 536. The locomotives had no prime movers or way to move themselves during the filming. To get this complicated effect, the crew had another locomotive at the rear of the train to push it along. The trains were painted in the fictitious Illinois Southern red, yellow and gray color scheme. A 200 foot spur was constructed to make the engine appear to have derailed off the real tracks. Other modifications were made to the engines including adding lights, cameras and pyrotechnics. Sixteen cameras were used in different locations to get all the angles, this included two mounted to the train and one inside the bus. Many of the cameras were done remotely for safety including a 65 mm Vista Vision camera at ground level (it was buried under 26 feet of dirt after the crash). Under the rails, pvc pipes were wrapped in explosives.The piping was detonated which caused the tracks to turn and roll and give a very fiery, explosive look.

Most of the shot was real. But, models were used when the locomotive broadsides the prison bus that Ford is trapped in. Also done on a soundstage is the footage of Ford running in front of the train.  A few test runs were done to check the tracks and the speed of the train. When the director yelled Action, it was a 60 second one shot deal.