train wreck

train wreck

1. A major or total failure, disaster, or catastrophe. This project has become an absolute train wreck. We've wasted so much time and money already, I don't know how we'll make up the losses. Despite a stellar cast, the film turned out to be a real train wreck.
2. A person whose life is a complete mess or is in total disarray. I don't know about my relationship with Kevin. He's a bit of a train wreck, between you and me.
See also: train, wreck
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • get weaving
  • money down the drain
  • bottom
  • disaster
  • disaster of epic proportions
  • epic
  • proportion
  • a disaster of epic proportions
  • spend money like water
  • peanut
References in periodicals archive
Lai suggested that while some of his positions may differ slightly to Tsai, there will be no 'train wreck' or 'collision,' reports LTN.
"The part of the market that really takes the prize for pain or a train wreck, if you will, would be the reinsurance market in general - in particular, the property-cat reinsurance market.
Gillespie wrote in the Guardian: "This is a train wreck. This was preplanned cheating."
In actuality, the scenes depicting the train wreck were filmed outside Dillsboro, North Carolina, along the Great Smoky Mountains.
The Royal Scots died in a train wreck en route to Gallipoli in May 1915.
In his last movie, Tony Scott took Welles at his word while making amends (with star Denzel Washington) for that Pelham 123 train wreck. (Cert 12, 2010) ...
Critique: Exceptionally 'user friendly' from beginning to end, "Disaster Handbook" is comprehensive, profusely illustrated, practical, exceptionally well organized and presented, and is enhanced with the inclusion of and Addenda' that covers surviving a plane crash, a train wreck, a sinking ship, and even a shooting.
Spain go to Luxembourg off a tippy-tappy train wreck in Slovakia.
Washington, March 16 ( ANI ): '2 Broke Girls' stars Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs have refuted earlier claims that Lindsay Lohan was a "train wreck" during the filming of an episode of their CBS comedy.
The bill, the Electricity Security and Affordability Act, was already an anti-environment train wreck. It proposed to put an end to EPA regulations on new power plants' emissions until technologies like carbon capture and storage are proven to be commercially viable.
Emergency workers at the scene of a train wreck in the Bronx borough of New York yesterday.
o (He and his good lady wife Christine had twins last week, mum and mini McGuinnesses are doing well.) So there's this train wreck of a television show that I sat and watched in disbelief.
"After the train wreck of her brief marriage to epicene roue Russell Brand, her dazzling smiles are starting to look as artificial as those of the ageing, hard-bitten Joan Crawford" - Feminist academic Camille Paglia on pop singer Katy Perry (pictured).