Goofs

Los Angeles Union Station is used as the setting for both Los Angeles and San Francisco stations.

The hijacker sets up a 1978 Sharp Sidekick portable television to stay informed of media reports as he drives the train. The picture on the television's screen is shown in color but this model only produced a black and white picture.

At the time of the film being made there were no trains that operated directly between San Francisco and Los Angeles. After Amtrak formed in 1971 all trains serving the Bay Area were consolidated in to Oakland. This was because there were no rail connections that allowed trains traveling south or west into San Francisco to cross the bay. Only trains traveling south to north that could travel directly up the San Francisco peninsula could access the city. After Amtrak's formation in 1971 it was deemed more efficient and cost effective to consolidate all trains to Oakland's 16th Street Station with bus connections provided into San Francisco. This arrangement remains to this day.

At no point in the film does anyone instruct the crews of either train to pull the emergency brake valve handle in order to bring them to a stop. This is the most basic way of stopping a train if the train's engineer does not stop it.

When Waterman's locomotive is disconnected from the train, he starts frantically operating the controls implying nothing is working. The train would still be operable, he just would not have his train brakes since they are on each of the cars. He could have set his throttle to 0, and used the locomotive brake (or Independent Brake) to bring his locomotive smoothly to a stop. However, if he did so he would need to slow down gradually since the cars are still free rolling at over 100mph up the track behind him.

A train traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco would most likely make stops along the way. Yet the film portrays both trains as operating non-stop. Even if that was the case with an eight hour travel time between the two cities the trains would have to stop for a crew change as eight hours is to long for one crew to operate the train all the way.

The trains are supposed to be owned by a fictional railroad. However, the name "Amtrak" is visible on all the trains.

As Stuart/Peter (Shatner) yells "Hang On!" over the dead man in the river, The dead man's mouth moves.

The train is derailed somewhere between Los Angeles and San Fransisco, but after jumping off the train, Shatner was arrested by officers of the East Lyme PD, which is in Connecticut, not in California.