Rails & Ties is a 2007 American drama film directed by Alison Eastwood and written by Micky Levy. It tells the story of a young boy and his mentally-ill widowed mother who commits suicide in her car by parking on a railroad track. The boy confronts the train engineer who accidentally killed his mother, urging him and his wife to raise him after escaping from an unkind foster mother. The two agree to raise him; however, it is later revealed that his wife is dying of breast cancer. Kevin Bacon portrays the train engineer, Marcia Gay Harden plays his sick wife, and Miles Heizer portrays the boy.