Hold up before you get the pitchforks and torches this is a legit question I thought of when watching a few movies. With a lot of movies using tours operations or railroad museums as they're more open to being used as film location then a working class one this question does apply to this forum.
Two movies that come to mind are Unstoppable, and Disaster on the Coastliner. A lot of those those were legitimately filmed on trains that were under power on the main line, and running around on top of freight cars and jumping between them while the train is moving is definitely forbidden under FRA, NORAC G-Core etc. So when Hollywood wants to film the movie hero fighting the bad guy on top of runaway boxcars and jumping off into a pile of hay just before the boxcars run into a gasoline truck stuck on a crossing how do you go about getting permission to break all those rules?

You don't break them. You go around them. Generally, the easiest way is to take the track out of service. There are different ways to do that, and often the more involved methods are used since there are often other operating rules that govern OOS track under normal removal for maintenance. Those rules need to be suspended - above normal/dispatcher-level rule procedures - to fully remove the track from service.

Once the track is fully removed from service, it's just steel/wood/concrete/etc. laying on the ground and you can do whatever with it. Of course there are other considerations that still need to be covered, like insurance, grade crossings, and any other real world items that need to be protected.

This isn't just for Hollywood productions, it's often used for testing of extreme experimental/new equipment that can't be tested under normal operating rules, like NYC's M-497.

I gotta wonder what regulators think when they watch the railroad stunts of charlie chaplin.

"Two movies that come to mind are Unstoppable, and Disaster on the Coastliner. A lot of those those were legitimately filmed on trains that were under power on the main line, and running around on top of freight cars and jumping between them while the train is moving is definitely forbidden under FRA, NORAC G-Core etc."

Though most professionally operated railroad operating and safety rules would prohibit this type of activity by railroad employees, I am not aware of any FRA regulations that prohibit this?

MD Ramsey

Two things to consider...
1, is that more and more of this is all done with special effects and CGI. The live action may be on stationary prop (not real, made by the crew) cars in front of a green screen with fans blowing. Or in many cases, it's all done by computer.

2, many laws get 'overridden' one way or another. Think of all the firearms laws, or explosives laws....the list goes on forever......

For Unstoppable a lot was done in camera. https://youtu.be/PFrIH0X8J6o?feature=shared

Then, there was the train that was wrecked for the Fugative, which is still there.

Well, first, you involve the FRA. You tell them what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. The last thing you want is an inspector showing up and shutting things down when a 200-person crew and a quarter million dollars are being spent on property every few hours. Oh, that dragging equipment, you see, we meant to do that.

Next, you amend your rulebook to include a series of general orders and bulletins governing the operation of the movie train. As mentioned above, isolating the track can be part of it, and portable derails can often do the trick, too, depending on the scope of the work. Your timetable can specify what guidelines and parameters the movie train can operate within. You can assign restrictions, guidelines, special speeds or handling instructions, etc. This is a fairly formal way. There are others.

For the aforementioned stunt work -- i.e., running across moving trains, leaping from car to car etc., consider that they aren't actually doing what you're seeing. They may be practically doing it, but the performers (actors or doubles) are in harnesses, wearing a kind of fall protection that is digitally removed in post-production. For every rule against a "thing" -- the argument can be made that you can either amend the rulebook, or that you're not doing the thing, you're simulating it. Is it a real grade crossing accident? No, it's a planned, controlled collision. Are you actually dragging equipment? No, it's simulated. Is it a real derailment? Yes, but where's the law forbidding you from derailing a train? If there was one, think of how much trouble we'd all be in.

None of this is done in a vacuum either, because there are safety plans, company-wide job briefings, on-site rail coordinators, and all of this is done under the auspices of a dozen different departments, crafts, medics, etc.

Hollywood sometimes just ignores the rule like the camera person killed in Georgia

I could never watch Stand by Me all the way through because of that scene on the trestle. At least some of that scene with the child actors running on bridge timbers had to be real, which is nuts, even if they had placed plywood down in the gauge or such, there still is a big chance to trip and knock out all of your teeth on a rail.

When our company (Rail Transportation Management Specialists) was contacted by Netflix to support the filming of the derailment sequence for "White Noise", it absolutely involved "violating" FRA rules.

In addition to all that Mr. Lynch mentioned above, the key was early engagement with the FRA, detailed planning (including but not limited to force/inertia calculations and denial of access by unauthorized persons), redundant safety procedures, and protection of the national rail network.

In particular, the scene called for a semi tactor/trailer travelling at approximately 35 mph, ramming a moving freight train (15 cars at approximately 25-30 mph), pulled by live locomotive at a grade crossing with active protection. On the train, air brake systems and couplers were modified using pyrotechnics to break the train into 3 pieces; protecting the motive power and crews, ensuring the "target" equipment came to a full stop, and any potential "runaway" cars were contained. Detailed plans and records were developed and reviewed with our local inspector, to include a full accounting to ensure the cars that were modified could never be returned to the national network.

Other filming is much more simple, such as what we did for ABC Studios on "Women of the Movement" and on WMSR for Meg Ryan's production "Ithaca". What was still difficult is keeping the movie trades people safe and orderly as they are used to artificial environments such as a sound stage where the intrinsic danger of the workplace is far, far less than on an operating railroad with moving equipment.

Mike Gresham

First, a little fun background on Unstoppable. When former State Representative Mike Veon (whose life of crime started in college, so naturally politics was a respectable way to continue his miscreant ways) lost his seat in the wake of the PA “midnight pay raise” controversy, having been once named the best dressed member of the PA legislature, he couldn’t be expected to do an ordinary job so he became a lobbyist for Hollyweird.

Along with former Governor “fast Eddie” Rendell dreamed up the infamous “movie credit” under the guise that Pennsylvania would become “Hollywood East”, and so powerful were the interests represented that Pennsylvania taxpayers financed not only Unstoppable, but another cinematic achievement up there with the greats Zack and Miri Make a Porno and Tom Corbett announced would be retained in his first budget address.

So step one is actually get the unwitting to pay for your hideous travesty that is best described in by a phrase attributed to theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli “not even wrong”.

It’s not just the idiotic stunts in the movie, i.e, trying to lower somebody onto moving train, attempting to stop a train with the independent, pacing the train with a vehicle as some guy with a wounded (crushed) foot tries to board it.

No, it’s the incorrect lingo “coaster”, the throttle notching up on its own, the butchery of physics describing horsepower and tractive effort, the bizarre idea that a yardmaster starts functioning as a dispatcher, regardless of craft or territorial qualifications and the relegation of an FRA inspector to another room while you cook up one insane scheme after another. When they tried to derail the train, would they really apply derails rather than removing a section of rail?

Was there anything right in the movie other than this dispute between the engineer and conductor? Of course this occurred in a hostile exchange that itself would violate most rule books.

Personally, I have wondered if director Tony Scott’s suicide was the result of fit of regret for making this railroad snuff film that makes every viewer dumber for having watched it.

As for amending your rule book, keep in mind that while some roads have individual books, many (NORAC, GCOR) are joint products where change is the result of committee deliberations, and all must be submitted to FRA.

Also, an interesting lesson once taught by the late Bernie O’Brien was that you never “just” break one rule, breaking one entails (in NORAC) also entails breaking General Rule S.

S. Safety; Following the Safe Course

Safety is of first importance. These rules provide for a safe and efficient operation. In case of doubt, the safe course must be followed.

Even if you were to create a situational rule book, nobody is carving out this rule.

Asking “where is it prohibited”, i.e., is it adiophora?-is the wrong way to view rules. Not everything that might be imagined to be done while listening to Weird Al’s Dare to be Stupid is or could even be listed-could be done so without creating a ponderous and unusable tome.

I don’t know how this nonsense was conducted on The Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad, but I guess whatever was done, was done because they got some sweet coin from the $100M production budget.

I hope the continued development of CGI will negate this kind of trash, to the extent that it is produced as weapons of mass enstupidification to the digital realm only, because it will surely not be relegated to the dustbin of history.

I have yet to confirm that no chickens were harmed in this GEICO commercial shot on the Fillmore & Western years ago.......

Most importantly the law of Physics is overridden.

One of you mentioned "Stand by Me". Typical in that the cardinal rule in movies is NEVER touch the brake valve! Blow the hell out of the whistle and things will work out.
Watching anything with trains (or even 18 wheelers) the whistle or horn always fixes the danger, not the brakes.
So next time you see a passenger train (ATSF) pulling out of Grand Central in NYC, know that all will be well.