Trope Talk: Train Fights!

Everyone pack your bags, do your hand-stretches and file this one under "trope talks that could easily be bingo cards"! Today let's talk about that oh-so-spectacular staple of setpieces, the marvelous Train Fight!

MUSIC: Kevin Macleod, "Scheming Weasel"

Our content is intended for teenage audiences and up.

[birdbird]

Me, on the train, luggage stowed, settled down in the comfy-ish seat, connecting to the wifi: "Wonder what Red has posted, should be good train ride entertainment..."

[Metal_Maoist]

Fun fact about Eberron (that's where the example picture for fantasy trains was from for anyone wondering): The fantasy trains were written into that setting specifically to facilitate train fights

[Nyhilist_]

Me fighting a rat in the NY subway: "Ah yes OSP taught me about this"

[fiascotherd]

Fullmetal Alchemist has a surprisingly low number of train fights for the amount of time the cast spends on trains.

[michaelcherry]

I think "Train To Busan" is a perfect example of how narrow and claustrophobic a train battle can be. Especially when zombies are involved!

[Just_Some_Guy_with_a_Mustache]

You know you've made it as a mode of transportation and a trope when you've become a part of the modern parlance to describe other tropes:
"This has gone off the rails."
"Something's been sidetracked."
"Some other third thing."

[danidm]

So, now we know Red never watched Bullet Train, because it's an entire movie built entirely on the list of tropes she discussed, and would have fit perfectly as an example multiple times.

[Burred]

One thing I will add about the "Why Trains" question:
Trains is one of the only forms transportation that is both linear with a nearly set destination, and also entirely impersonal, IE it doesn't need someone to drive it. Take out the driver of a car: and the car will crash. Take out a planes pilot and the plane will crash, but take out a trains conductor and the train will still reach it's destination, unlike a ship, which will just float around without it's crew.

Which again, proves that it's perfect for that multipurpose narrative structure, it will be tense and it will get you somewhere.

[UndeadGhostGirl]

Fun fact; decoupling the cars requires older models of trains, as modern trains are designed so that if *any* car disconnects mid-transit, *every* car's emergency brakes will automatically engage. If you want to have the decoupling trope in a newer train, you have to have someone or something compromise that safety feature in some way *first.*

[BladeLigerV]

Casual reminder that the ocean and pirate based anime One Piece has a series of episodes that are train fights and a train chase. On the open ocean. And it's a GREAT TIME!!

[Kastrounaras]

Trains literally railroad the plot. They have one way to go, keep all plot elements tightly packed together and give enough freedom to the characters that other vehicles do not. Buses are too unstable, airplanes are too tight etc.

[valdonchev]

Don't forget the sibling trope of Minecart Fights! Basically, you get to take a train, make it into a roller coaster, and put it in an especially dangerous or cool environment. Plus, with minecarts you're more likely to have multiple minecarts riding in parallel within fighting distance, or hop-over-before-yours-crashes distance. I'm a huge fan of the Animation vs. Minecraft episode "Cave Spider Roller Coaster".

[Banter]

NEW TROPE TALK, time to learn how I fucked up that one train fight I wrote

[Double_D__]

I think trains are so ripe with Trope potential because they are arguably the first vehicle humanity ever built that really moved under its own power, as they were made before steamboats, and we wouldn't create the combustion engine for cars decades after. Trains are big, lumbering steel behemoths that scratch the same brain itch as *_dragons, _* and they've been with us since the dawn of the 1800's.

[carriethejoyful]

“Woman as temptress: canceled” has got to be my new favorite sketch gag

[theanimeunderworld]

If you're going to fight on top of a train, wear eye protection.
My source, Sterling Archer

[robertprueter]

Red's obvious bias towards trains is objectively correct

[aceofspades]

"You've fought on top of a train?"
"...You haven't?"

[calebpeters]

One notable exception to this is FMA: Brotherhood. The only common mode of transport in that universe is trains, so the story constantly being derailed(haha) whenever the characters go on a train would just drag the story down.

[MeliesCinemagician]

Another cool train fight trope: LITERAL train fight, i.e., fighting a train. Kind of like the train heist, except instead of breaking into the train to get the McGuffin before the bad guys can get it somewhere, you decide to just take out the entire train. Usually, this involves driving alongside the train on some other vehicle - car, motorcycle, horse, airplane, whatever - while a whole bunch of bad guys on all the different train cars are attacking you. Maybe they even have heavy artillery on the train that they turn on you. And when you finally DO take out the train, it's a HUGE spectacle.