Eleven strangers ride a luxury transcontinental train connecting the West Coast and East Coast. The ride lasts five days with few stops. Each passenger is reluctant to socialize. The evening of the first day aboard, everyone introduces themselves to the other. They get to know each other though some remain reticent, hiding their thoughts with a smile and small talk while others keep their distance. The next morning one of them winds up dead, hanging by his neck from a rope tied to the top of the train. Was it murder? Suicide? Each passenger has a theory, though none are sure of what could be true and what could be a conspiracy. As the ride progresses, stranger and stranger things begin to occur: passengers grow further detached, passengers grow oddly close, romance blooms, the train momentarily breaks down, and the chef staffing the train continues to provide salads for every meal. Each passenger struggles to find meaning behind all of it in light of the possibility that not every one of them will make it to the end of the line.