Hey there, thanks for watching the video and the amazing support on it! I just wanted to clarify something regarding the control stand and me mentioning the engineer "mixed up the controls". A few people have commented that 8888 had a combined throttle+brake handle and they weren't separate as I showed in the video. In my research I don't recall reading anything about the engine being equipped with a combined handle. If I did, I assumed it was an error as I thought combined handles weren't a thing on locomotives like an SD40-2, I figured those were reserved for desktop style controls on newer or widecab locomotives. In other words, it wasn't that the engineer mixed up the controls in a panic as I mentioned in the video, rather he didn't properly set the brakes with the combined handle. That's my mistake if I was wrong, sorry about that!

The sheriff attempting to shoot the fuel cut-off system is the most American way to stop a train.

i like the part when they said "the train is......... unstoppable" and then chris pines unstopped all over the place

I do want to point out that the engineer did not use the wrong handle in applying the dynamic brakes, at the time of the incident 8888 was fitted with an older style of control stand where the throttle was also used as the dynamic brake selector, where the dynamic brake handle is now there was a manual transition lever which aren't present at all on modern locomotives, the engineer failed to properly transition into dynamic braking mode, which given the time pressure and finicky nature of the transition lever(they don't have notches, but instead move one position for each movement of the handle all the way forward or backwards and in order to move to the next position you have to recenter the handle and move it all the way forward or backwards again) is understandable, in the aftermath of this incident all CSX locomotives still fitted with the old control stands having a manual transition lever had their control stands replaced with more modern ones having separate levers for throttle and dynamic brakes

I loved unstoppable, but I saw it in theaters with my locomotive engineer dad. When it got to the S curve part my dad was like I can’t take this anymore. He then proceeded to explain what would really happen in that scenario.

Its a shame that 8888 was converted into a Sd40-3 because I would've really liked to see the locomotive that inspired one of my most favorite movies of my time 😮‍💨

One of the best mini documentaries of the 8888 incident i've seen. Good editing and narration as always! I need to watch Unstoppable again. Good movie.

I remember hearing about this story and watching the movie unstoppable! Pretty scary situation but I’m glad it was able to end well.

Unstoppable has been my favorite movie ever since I was little. I never knew it was based off a real incident

No matter how many times I hear the story, it’s always fascinating

My dad actually rode former locomotive star 1206 since he’s an employee for the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway that helped make the film!

Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the CSX 8888 incident. Great video of this event back in May 15th 2001. Also I have seen the movie Unstoppable back then that was inspired by this event in 2010.

Hello Amtrak guy this is Terry Forson hard to believe it's been 22 years ago. I am still working for CSX. Jesse is retired and so is John. Good vidoe

"What shall I do? I can't stop! Help!"

Correction: The Dynamic Brakes and Throttle were controlled by the same lever. There was a switch to change the setting between Braking and Accelerating.

Engineer of 40 years here. Good explanation and almost correct about how the throttle and dynamic brake are linked. Close enough for the average person. What irks me about the Unstoppable film is that they used a later model loco with entirely different controls that can't do what the engineer on 8888 did so they had it take itself out of DB and into power all by itself, as if moved by an invisible hand, after 'Dewey' was out of the cab. Why not just use the correct type of loco and have Dewey do what the real engineer did? They can't say they didn't have one available because the chase loco was of that type.

I remember this very well, I used to work in a manufacturing plant along this CSX line. I can remember the plant manager telling everyone to evacuate the building. I remember he came into the area I was working, said to evacuate and as he was telling me this the train went flying by. We looked at each other. I asked if I still had to evacuate… lol.

Excellent video and just for the CSX 8888 Anniversary day. I hope you will also make a video of the forgotten 1962 New York Central GP-20 Runaway Train incident , which was the inspiration for the 1985 film Runaway Train.

Imagine sitting on the siding as the runaway train barrels past you, realizing that you have the opportunity to do some extremely cool shit.

The Crazy 8s story is one of my favorite stories to hear from railroad KZfaqrs, so seeing your take on the incident really perked me up! It’s obvious how much thought you put into your videos, from scripting to visuals. What I’d like to see is a behind-the-scenes on your workflow for video creation, especially your camera work in Trainz. It’s super eye-catching and immersive, almost like a basic animation production. Keep up the great work!

This story was the inspiration for Unstoppable

22 years crazy. Great video

You should do more rail incident documentaries like this!

This makes the movie even more enjoyable to me. It was already in my opinion the best Runaway Train movie ever made and I've seen quite a few but this fact just knocked it out of the park for me going to have to watch it again

I swear if I see a "only in Ohio" comment am going to cry

I retired from KCS after 38 years of service. I started off as a track laborer and then switched cars and finally spent over 20 years as an engineer. I remember when News broke on the crazy 8 runaway. The part that made it unbelievable is the fact that he got the Dynamic brake level mixed up with the throttle. Even if it was a throttle dynamic brake combo lever, when in throttle the lever clicks from one through 8, in dynamic the lever moves smoothly as does a Rheostat switch, no clicks. I think the guy was trying too hard to make a quick day, trying too hard to cut corners, and got off and line the switch and figured he could just catch the front of the engine as it passed the switch. I think he missteped the the step and fell, then was unable to attempt another boarding. He had that many years of experience and mixed up the controls.? Doubt it. All they had to do when the guy chased down the train to the rear was climb aboard the rear car from the engine and big hole it at the brake valve. Why it took so long to devise a plan to chase down the train also stinks of bad train master thinking. That train should’ve been stopped shortly after it left the original yard. 9:30

I did not see this coming. This is probably the most crazy eights filled video Amtrak guy has ever done!

I genuinely didn’t know that movie was based off of a real event. That’s actually cool af. Great video!

The "real" Unstoppable train

Every 10 year old in the comments: "OmG OnLy In OhIo CaNt LiVe iN oHiO!!! 🤡"

CSX was all like "we don't want out massive blunder to be preserved for the rest of time, so no you can not perches it. We'll go even further and rebuild it just to rub it in"

This was great! I'm glad i clicked. It was a thrill ride, great storytelling. I appreciate any and all who put in the time and effort into creating quality content like this. So i thank you.

I saw the movie and it looked reasonably credible. (Unlike many movies involving trains). The one thing I thought slightly absurd was trying to shoot the loco but - whaddaya know - that really happened.

Retired brakeman here, never heard of or saw an engineman get off an engine to line a switch. No good deed goes unpunished.

I was thinking of that movie before you mentioned it. Glad it was based on reality. CSX seems to often be in the news lately for all the wrong reasons.

I can't get over the absolute giga-chad energy of going "yeah I guess we can chase down a runaway train and couple to it to brake it." That's just actually incredible.

Well this is just crazy! Thanks for sharing the story of the 8888!

That’s minds me from fictional movie 2010 "Unstoppable."

I'm gonna say no one outside of the Canadian TSB is making content like this, the sim to recreate footage is Mayday level of b roll, incredible stuff

Great video and tutorial of the Runaway Train! Definitely quick thinking on the parts of so many to prevent a disaster! Several HEROES that day to save many innocent lives! Cheers from Laurel, Delaware USA.

Man, this video is right on track!

I was only 5 years old when this happened.

Awesome job on this documentary story !! The animations that you created were really terrific. James.

THEY MADE A MOVIE ABOUT THIS.

If you haven’t seen the movie “Runaway Train” rent it. It is great and very different from Unstoppable.

Lived along this (ex-NYC) line near Columbus and remember this line yesterday. This was the inspiration for the film Unstoppable. Being familiar with locomotives it killed me that I couldn’t assist- by the time I would’ve reached Kenton area it would have been stopped.

It's funny you made this video today because earlier today I saw CN 8888 in Port Huron. I can't wait to watch this short documentary!

One of the hilarious parts of unstoppable is the obvious fact that the writer had never visited Pennsylvania. They'd call out "Southern Pennsylvania," as a geographic location. Pennsylvania is over 300 miles wide. That's a rather unspecific area.

Fun fact, the director of the movie "Unstoppable" was inspired by this disaster. There is even a reference to it in the movie

Interesting video. I wasn't aware there was an actual event that the movie was made from. Thanks for doing this! Greg in TN 😀

this story never fails to intrigue me, no matter how many times i hear it.

The reason that the engineer lost the train was because the dynamic brakes and power settings were consolidated to one throttle and there was a selector and he had the selector on power instead of dynamics which is why he lost the train not because he mixed up the levers

Very interesting, I never heard of this one. Thanks for sharing!

Wow. Never knew about CSX 8888's story till I watched this video. Nice job.

Quite an interesting runaway train story. Might use this as inspiration for a future Bear and Rebecca story in my series after a few more seasons.

My CSX local's motive power for the past few days has been SD40-2 8881, so im always thinking of Crazy Eights everytime i see it. Funnily enough, it's on the same line, just further down

I like the use of the 'trainz" footage to simulate the scenarios. Very nice ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Never heard of this incident. Thanks for posting a great video!

He actually did everything right by setting the throttle on max and he did in fact set the dynamic brake, but if I recall he kept the train in gear which was the kicker.

6:33 didn't 8888 have a Dash 1 control stand with the throttle and dynamic brake selector handle at time?

Even if there's not much to it, I'd love to see you do one on the Strasburg Railway construction equipment crash.

Bravery of this level is usually expected from military personnel not railway employees. These people prevented many deaths by their brave acts and quick thinking Worth watching

So the script for unstoppable right here nice

Imagine this you and your family are at a railroad crossing, and your son and daughter are bickering back and forth over something, and everyone is yelling at each other while, in the meantime, a diesel locomotive goes flying past the front of your car and then everyone in the car stops yelling and looking at each other like what in the world just happened.

Man, Ohio cannot catch a damn break.

The movie Unstoppable was very exciting. Didn't know it was based on a real event. Washington and Pine had great chemistry.

So glad to see the actual news footage of this

The real Unstoppable

6:15. The throttle was not what you were shown. It had a combination throttle/dynamic brake that wasn’t set properly. They don’t use that combination throttle anymore

Aaaaaaaah! So this is where the movie “Unstoppable” got its inspiration from!!!! Went from engine 8888 to 777

One of my Favorite videos of all times keep this up dude!

This is perfect for all the train accidents in Ohio.

What surprises me (as a foreigner) is that there were no safety features to prevent that from happening - nothing stopping the train from accelerating with the dead mans switch off, no signalling that stops the train... But maybe, that was just switched off for the mode of operation the locomotive was in?

35 years down the drain. That is unaccusable

35 years of experience and you still manage to make a dumb mistake. Goes to show we're all human at the end of the day.

I had the opportunity to meet Jesse Knowlton in person last year. My friend Grant and I saw Unstoppable in theaters in November 2010.

Fun fact: I share my birthday with the anniversary of this incident

5:33 8392 you're a hero! You truly are a really useful engine! Kerry Shale (Sir Topham Hat voice): HEY THAT'S MY LINE! THIEF!!!! CSX: Uh oh, not another runaway.

I am a local and got to watch them make some of the movie. The scene where the train is on a elevated track with a chopper in chase was filmed in Weirton WV. The whole town watched as it was a big deal for all to see a movie filmed in our small town…. “Movies 8” was filmed here as well. That was a trip to see military shooting guns in urbanized neighborhoods with jeeps and a tank

I think there may be a slight error regarding the accident cause, in another video 8888 was said to have a combined throttle and dynamic break handle, with the engineer not operating the handle correctly, but that may have been an error on the part of the other creator.

Since no lives were lost, no one was injured, and no property was damaged, this can hardly be called an infamous incident. I hope the engineer did not lose his job for making one understandable mistake in a rushed moment.

Norfolk Southern: Hold my roller bearing

honestly really interesting how accurate the movie portrayed some of the things that happened, and even though some people don't like how exaggerated it was, i like it personally. its an action movie that has (almost) 0 guns in it, and no insane combat shots. really good movie

There is a few misconceptions and misinformation in this video, but overall it was good. 1:00 What was happening here is the engineer was in the cab alone, and the conductor and the brakemen were on the ground as stated. However they were exiting one of the classification tracks, and as they were doing so while on the lead the engineer noticed one of the switches to one of the classification tracks was still thrown to that track. The engineer knew fairly well that he wouldn't be able to stop in time before running the train on the ground, so he reasoned he could hop off the locomotive, align the switch, and jump back on. This particular practice of engineers hopping off the locomotive and leaving it unmanned while it was braking was actually rather common in Stanley Yard prior to this incident, and there was no thinking it would be any different. So in order to stop the train, he fully applied the Locomotive (Independent) Brake to the full 100 Pound Application, and applied 20 Pounds to the Automatic (Air) Brake. He then proceeded to grab the Dynamic Brake Handle, and threw it into the full notch 8. However on this particular engine (And even still some today), the control stand had a combined throttle and dynamic brake function, with a selector switch to differentiate between the two. In his haste he simply forgot this and threw the throttle into Run 8 allowing 8888 to get away. In addition, by applying the Locomotive Brake to the full 100 pound application, he automatically canceled out the locomotives alerter function. Had 8888 not had a combined throttle/dynamic brake control stand or the engineer not applied the Locomotive Brake (Or done both in this case) the entire incident would never have happened. 1:55 It actually wasn't the engineer who contacted the employee. Nobody saw the engineer fall off the train. What happened was is the Conductor (assuming the engineer was dead at the controls as you stated) contacted the yard tower who saw the train leaving themselves. Jon Hosfield was not in the Yard at the time of the incident, he was actually in Toledo having welcomed some guests that had arrived on an Operation Lifesaver Excursion (That ran the same route as 8888 did). The yard master called Hosfield on the phone and told him, and it was him and another employee who chased the train down in a pickup truck. Mr. Hosfield didn't actually catch up with the Runaway Train until the small community of Cygnet, Ohio. The Conductor and the Brakemen were the ones who hopped into a CSX truck and went over to a nearby grade crossing to try and hop on board to stop the unmanned movement, but as you said by that point 8888 was moving at nearly 20 miles an hour and too fast for anybody to mount on safely 3:05 actually they didn't route it into the siding at Dunbridge, as there is no siding at Dunbridge. The first siding that is South on the Toledo Branch Subdivision is Galatea. In the Galatea siding a CSX Signal Maintainer placed his portable derailer that he had on the tracks at the North (West) end of the siding. As you said though derailers are only effective at slow speeds, so when 8888 passed over the derailer it dislodged it and threw it clear of the tracks. 4:08 Actually Train Q636 didn't enter the siding at speed at all. Q636 entered the siding normally without issues as they got there about 30 minutes before 8888 actually showed up. 4:18 This is a little vague. There were three spots on that 8888 could've derailed at. The first was in the city of Kenton, which was their immediate concern. If 8888 made it passed Ridgeway and traveled South onto the Scottslawn Secondary, the second spot it could've potentially derailed at is the curve in Marysville, Ohio between N Cherry Street and Delaware Avenue. If 8888 made it through Marysville, the final place it would've derailed at is at N. Soulder Avenue in Columbus to the West of LM Cabin right were a Chemical Plant is located. To avoid this, the Dispatcher ordered the crew of Q636 to uncoupled their engine and give chase. And if this plan didn't work, then they were gonna tear up tracks to avoid the train reaching Columbus at any cost. 5:33 Actually when Q636 made contact with the rear car of 8888, they hit it going 51 miles an hour. That was the fastest speed that 8888 was recorded at doing but we don't actually know if it went faster than that. 6:53 The Engineer in question who was at fault for the Incident was NOT FIRED as a result of the incident. The engineer in question was second highest in seniority out of Stanley Yard in Toledo, and as you said he had 35 years of experience. This engineer had no Demerits up until this incident, and his record was so spotless it looked like it was cleaned with Mr. Clean. The engineer in question would receive two week suspension after the event, and then went back to work for CSX for a number of years before he hired out and retired. I can personally confirm this as I know a vast majority of his fellow coworkers. 7:08 President Bush at the time did more than just meet the three heroes. He actually was notified by his staff about the ongoing situation and watched it live as they were broadcasting live nationwide on CNN.

only in Ohio bruh (overused joke)

Great job getting it stopped!

Man made real sure not to screw up that switch no one wants to fix a broken switch XD

I see unstoppable borrowed more elements from the actual event than once thought...

I worked at Blanchard when crazy 8's rolled by that day... ah the good times

What an incredible story, and your narration did it more then justice. Great work!

The use of the yakuza music. I see you are a man of culture.

I saw 9777, the locomotive painted up as 777, she was back in her Canadian Pacific livery

Oh my gosh. You told a documentary that Thunder did years ago, but did it better! Omg! Is AmtrakGuy365 the new Thunderbolt 1000 Siren Productions?! …nah. Very well done, and I look forward to more awesome videos like these in the future.

Thanks so much for not using the runaway theme at any point in the video

When your last name is "Bomback," you are either destined to be an action movie director or a bomb technician.

With some of the inacuraces between real life and the movie, I still love the movie Unstopable...

That wouldn’t be the only crazy incident to happen that year…

A similar movie was also made in 1983-84 (or perhaps earlier) where the runaway train was actually stopped by an engine that chased it and coupled up from behind before applying the brakes and managing to stop it just a few feet from the buffers at the last station

Much better than Train Of Thought's video on it. He only showed images and was much shorter. This showed actual video and is such a detailed video and this is the 2nd time I've watched it

At least Crazy 8s still survives and is still serving CSX