Figuratively A disaster, especially one which is large, chaotic, and readily seen by public observers.
There is a feeling in Washington that we are gathering at the side of the track to watch a gigantic economic train wreck one of these days.1986 September 1, Hugh Sidey, “The Presidency: Colliding with Realities”, in Time, archived from the original on 21 Dec 2008:
"Your personal life has been, and is, a train wreck."2007, Mel Odom, Blood Evidence, →ISBN, page 168:
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“Hrmm. I see your stylist's been working nights.” He surveyed the train wreck of my hair in the rearview mirror.2009, Matthue Roth, Never Mind The Goldbergs:
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Figuratively Someone who is unbalanced and considered a mess, a disaster, one who is suffering personal ruin.
She may have been a train wreck, but she was a train wreck people still can't seem to get enough of. The sordid but fascinating story of her vicious, no-holds-barred battle with life is one of the most gripping, sex-soaked biographies in years.2007, Donna Hogan, “blurb”, in Train Wreck: The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith, Phoenix Books Incorporated, →ISBN:
[…] women, by and large, do not like themselves very much: their ambition gaps, their orgasm gaps, their imposter syndrome, […] their trainwrecks, and their need for trainwrecks; the enduring, self-loathing need to find someone about whom they can say well, at least I'm not that girl.2016, Sady Doyle, Trainwreck, page 24:
train wreck
verb
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Idiomatic, Informal To ruin utterly and catastrophically, to cause to end in disaster.
[…] basic fundamental communication steps must be achieved so not to train wreck the new employee.2003, Peter A. Laporta,, Ignite the Passion, AuthorHouse, →ISBN, page 57:
"I want this, too, I want you. Like really want you more than anything I've wanted in a long time. But if you force it, you're going to train wreck the whole thing in a fiery mess over a steep cliff with jagged rocks below."2011, Jaden Lane, If You Could Read My Mind, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 157:
Harmon, the fireman lodger, passing through the kitchen on his way out to work, had paused to tell Saxon about the previous day's train-wreck in the Alviso marshes, and of how the engineer, imprisoned under the overturned engine and unhurt, being drowned by the rising tide, had begged to be shot.1913, Jack London, chapter 14, in Valley of the Moon: