Not to Be Confused with Railroading or Underground Railroad.
All Aboard!
Tropes:
- Afterlife Express: A train that takes souls to the afterlife.
- Cars Without Tires Are Trains: Cars are able to drive on railroad tracks when they don't have their tires on.
- Chained to a Railway: A character (often a Damsel in Distress) is tied up to the tracks and left to die.
- The Chikan: Men on crowded trains who grope women.
- Cool Train: A locomotive (fictional or real life) gives off an impressive appearance.
- Dingy Trainside Apartment: A character lives in a dilapidated apartment next to a railway line.
- Ghost Train: A train from beyond the afterlife (usually the ghost of a wrecked train from long ago) appears to haunt the tracks.
- Handcar Pursuit: The characters attempt to chase after their quarry using a handcar.
- High-Speed Train Reroute: A character is able to get a train to switch tracks to avoid danger at the last second.
- Hobos: Inextricably linked to the US rail network and 'riding the rails'.
- Just Train Wrong: Writers with scenes involving trains make factual errors about them.
- Locomotive Level: A video game level involving a train of some sort.
- Multi-Track Drifting: Trains somehow end up on multiple tracks at once.
- Off Bridge, onto Vehicle: Someone who's on the run jumps off a bridge at the right time so that they land on a passing vehicle, in this case a train, and escape.
- Orient Express: The famed European passenger train that is often used in fictional works.
- Painted Tunnel, Real Train: A character paints a tunnel to trick their target, but a vehicle (often a train) randomly appears as if it was a real tunnel.
- Racing the Train: A character attempts to catch up with (or outpace) a train.
- Rail Enthusiast: A person who loves trains.
- Rail-Car Separation: A train's carriages are uncoupled in mid-transit.
- Railroad Baron: The often unscrupulous and morally shady head of a railroad empire.
- Railroad Employee Roundhouse: The various characters behind the scenes of day-to-day railroad operations.
- Railroad Plot: A story in which a railroad tries to expand, only to get blocked by something and use dirty means to get its way.
- Railroad to Horizon: The tracks lead over the horizon to end a scene or story.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom: Any time the characters approach train tracks, a train appears to run them down.
- Runaway Train: A train loses its brakes and barrels out of control.
- Sinister Subway: The subway system looks rather creepy and often nightmarish.
- Steam Never Dies: Despite the plot being set in the modern era, steam locomotives are still in everyday use.
- "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: Random characters who don't know each other get caught up in a murder mystery.
- Subways Suck: Subway systems are depicted as grimy, dirty, vandalism-heavy rats nests.
- Thriller on the Express: A luxury train suddenly becomes a hot-spot for an intriguing thriller.
- Track Trouble: A train derails because the tracks are sabotaged or otherwise damaged.
- Train Escape: Characters use trains to disappear and avoid pursuit.
- Train Job: The characters attempt to rob a train's high-value cargo.
- Train Problem: A common math problem in which a character is forced to determine where and when two trains moving in opposite directions at different speeds will pass each other.
- Train Song: A song involving a train, railroad, locomotive, or other aspect of railroads.
- Train-Station Goodbye: A romantic couple (typically) says their goodbyes as one of them boards a departing train.
- Trainstopping: A character forcibly brings a train to a stop with their own strength.
- Traintop Battle: The characters come to blows on the top of a train.
- Vehicle-Roof Body Disposal: A train is often used for this.
Useful Notes
- Amtrak
- Deutsche Bahn
- High Speed Rail
- Long Island Rail Road
- Metro-North Railroad
- New Jersey Transit
- National Rail
- Tokyo Train Lines
- World Subways
- Berlin U- and S-Bahn
- Budapest Metro
- Copenhagen S-Tog and Metro
- Delhi Metro
- Hamburg U And S Bahn
- Hangzhou Metro
- The London Underground
- Le Métropolitain
- Moscow Metro
- Munich U- and S-Bahn
- Nuremberg U Bahn
- Prague Metro
- Stockholm Metro
- Sydney Trains Metro And Light Rail
- Tokyo Subways
- Toronto Subway
- Tyne And Wear Metro
- Subways of the United States
- Vancouver SkyTrain
- Vienna U And S Bahn
- Warsaw Metro and Urban Rail