Two trains are about to collide and Lloyd Bridges is in the control room trying to sort things out.I am a 1970s disaster movie lover, and I finally saw this long lost film on YouTube in 2012 or 2013. I think it has been taken down now. I remember being thrilled by the screening.The thing that lingers in the mind is the amusing Airplane-type character played by Lloyd Bridges. Shatner is funny as well.Being a TV movie, don't expect any lavish special effects, just enjoy the ride and the funny quirks of the people in the film.

Since this rare Shatner gem hadn't been available for sometime, I was thrilled to see it available for streaming on Netflix. This is a fun "Made for TV" movie with some great stunts and decent special effects.There seemed to be a rash of "celebrity" filled disaster flicks in the late 70s and early 80s. However this movie definitely gives some of the cheesier films a run for their money. And any movie that allows more Shatner Toupological studies are just fine with me. And my goodness there were some great feats achieved by Bill's toupee during this opus!And surely that wasn't fishing line wrapping all around that engine during the final crash. Yes. Yes it was. And don't call me Shirley.

In 1978, when this movie was shot, I lived in East Lyme, CT and I was an extra for this movie (the big crowd at the railroad crossing, waiting for the train to come - I was paid $35, a fortune to a 14 year old in 1978). I got to meet Shatner at the New London Outlet Mall (yeah, I'm sure he remembers THAT), and my friend's father was the town cop who hauled the bad guy away in the police cruiser at the end of the movie.The funny thing is that the continuity person let a detail slip through. The action was supposed to be taking place in California, yet the police cars all have Connecticut plates. Guess they were outsourcing.I watched the movie when it came out (and again when it ran in reruns about a year later) and from what I remember it was typical shlocky '70s action-adventure stuff -- actors trying to either start a career or resurrect one, a suspenseful moment every fifteen minutes or so to allow the director to fade to black and go to commercial, horrid disco-inflected "Charlie's Angels"-ish soundtrack, etc. It was pretty bad, but I got to see myself on TV for a fraction of a second.And now, when my kids are a little older, I can tell them their dad was in a TV movie with William Shatner, and they can say "A what with who?" And then they will go back to using nanotechnology to build robots that will automatically clean their rooms, do their homework, and stop their terminally uncool dad from ever mentioning the 70s again.

Disaster on the Coastliner is quite exiting and on a quality level far above most TV-movies. The various physical stunts and special effects are the most exiting parts of this movie and probably the best I've ever seen in a TV-movie of this kind. Lloyd Bridges doesn't really do anything though.