Railroad car

A tank car in the Shadow Moses casting facility.

A railroad car or railway vehicle is a vehicle used for the carrying of cargo or passengers on a rail transport system (railroad or railway). Such cars, when coupled together and hauled by one or more locomotives, form a train. Alternatively, some passenger cars are self-propelled in which case they may be either single railcars or make up multiple units.

Peace Walker Incident

Main article: Peace Walker Incident

Freight cars were used to transport bananas and coffee beans and offload them onto trucks at El Cadalso, Costa Rica. During the 1970s, they were later used as part of a drug trade route by the KGB and FSLN. While the CIA group Peace Sentinel continued to use the railroad as part of the drug route, railcars were ultimately used to transport nuclear weapons to further the Peace Walker project.

Tank car

A tank car, or tank wagon, is used to transport liquid objects, largely flammable fuel. Although they are mostly relegated to railroads, they can also behave as pulleys in certain environments.

Shadow Moses Incident

Main article: Shadow Moses Incident

Tank cars were used in the casting and rolling facilities on Shadow Moses Island. They were abandoned following the Shadow Moses Incident.

World Marshal Incident

See also: Raid at World Marshal, Ambush in Africa, Abkhazian Coup, Investigation in Guadalajara, Raid in Denver, and Operation Tecumseh

During Desperado's ambush in Africa, Desperado leader Sundowner, alongside Samuel Rodrigues, utilized a moving train as their rendezvous point, with Raiden boarding it in pursuit of Sundowner, as the latter had abducted the Prime Minister, N'mani with the intention of killing him. Raiden was ultimately unable to save N'mani, and was later seriously wounded by Sam in a fight that also damaged the train due to Sam igniting one of the tank cars to set his sword alight.

Behind the scenes

Railroad cars first appeared in the non-canon game Snake's Revenge, as part of an area where the player has to travel through to locate John Turner. The passenger cars were rigged with traps and possessed several guards. The main boss of the train is an imposter posing as Turner (the real Turner's fate has never been revealed). Besides the Turner impersonator, another boss enemy encountered on the train is the quarterback enemies from earlier, although they are completely optional. After defeating the imposter, the train will slow to a stop.

In the Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty comic book's zero issue, Solid Snake was shown to have infiltrated a railroad car, and then disposed of a soldier named Yuri while conducting what was presumably a mission related to Philanthropy, also destroying the train in the process. This particular sequence was never included in the Digital Graphic Novel version.

Trains later return as a playable level in Metal Gear Acid 2, another non-canon game. In it, Snake, Venus, Lucy, and Dr. Takiyama have to utilize one of SaintLogic's train terminals to reach the secret bunker where the Lucinda File was located at, although they are ambushed by several enemies in the process. In addition, they also end up having the train derailed by Metal Gear Chaioth Ha Qadesh, piloted by Dr. Koppelthorn. A train would later appears in the canonical game Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, although actually playing on a train system does not occur canonically until Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance as part of the prologue chapter, where Raiden has to fight Sam. Concept art included in the Peace Walker Official Art Works book, however, implied that the train was considered to be a playable level and possibly even a boss fight, and storyboards also indicated that the train would have been blown off the tracks on a cliff.

Although railroad cars themselves don't appear in Metal Gear Survive, the concept for Lord of Dust was based partly on a railroad train on the Yamanote line.

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