I been workin' on the railroad

[fragger]

I don't know if this has ever been posted about before, but I found something cool (for me at least).

I was at the Weapon Shop in SW Leboa when it occurred to me that there is a railway line leading due south of the shop. I'd never explored it, assuming it would just lead off the map and peter out into the desert, and if I went out there I would do the passing out thing and find myself back in the main play area sans vehicle as per normal.

Here's the railway line in question (the one on the right), looking south from the Weapon Shop:

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As it turns out, you can go down there - it's the same stretch of railway line that eventually intersects the checkpoint at the start of the road to Bowa-Seko. As you start down it you'll see it disappearing under the sand, but stick with it, it re-emerges further along.

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After a shortish trip it curves to the left and as you can see in the above pic it takes you close to the burnt-out bus with the diamond case in it (which you can go and get) and if you keep following the railway all the way to the end you can get the diamond case from the wrecked caboose (watch out for the patrolling AT midway). When you reach the checkpoint you'll see the line has been ripped up as it curves to the right - stay to the right of the train wreckage there to get past easily. I never realised that these diamonds were getable during the first half of the game, I've only ever picked them up after the mid-game sandstorm sequence while enroute back north to do the dirty on Kouassi/Gakumba.

On further investigation I found that you can actually go south off the map anywhere to the west of the Leboa-Bowa road (where the bus stop is)and pick up the railway line, but if you go south off the map anywhere east of that road you'll suffer a blurry vision attack but you can still make it to the wrecked caboose. However if you try doing this any appreciable distance further east of the wrecked caboose's location you will pass out and lose your vehicle.

There's a tall pinnacle of rock near the burnt-out bus which can be climbed. Start with the smaller rocks and run/jump from one to the next as shown here:

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This rock provides a great view of the surrounding area, as well as a neat place to snipe at the patrolling AT.

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The next five views are all looking from the top of the pinnacle and are progressing clockwise, starting with the view looking due north (the Weapon Shop is behind the central rock massif) and ending looking south towards the perpetual sandstorm that prevents you from going to Bowa-Seko too early. You can actually see the location of the "Jackal Hut" in that last photo but if you try to get there you'll pass out and end up back near the bus again with your vehicle still visible but tantalisingly out of reach down the road.

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[Art Blade]

very nice, fragger  :) New to me is the climbable rock, never tried that out. Sweet spot indeed  :-() :-X

[mandru]

Nice pics fragger.  It's cool that your still finding useful stuff.  :-X

This is the route I always use after leaving the Jackal's hut having been given the assignment to go back North to kill the remaining faction boss.  By skirting to the West of the abandoned bus it allows a chance to avoid the ATP (if you want) and it has the weapon shop right there conveniently on the way to reequip for the job at hand.

[PZ]

Indeed - never tried that spot up the rock before  :-X

Funny how different people play the game differently - this was the only way I knew to go south until about 5-10 plays through when I followed the tracks south from the bus stop.

[TheStranger]

Very nice! Didn't know that route although I thought I was driving all railroads in the game.

[Binnatics]

I knew about the railroad tracks (I was searching for a way to early access the second map) and the early findable diamonds there. They tricked me, because with D_B's maps I was counting all diamonds I collected in Leboa, and it turned out I had too many  :D It was the few I collected there at the boarder.

The rock gives a marvellous view on the area. Never 'saw' the sandstorm ^-^ Great find :-X

[TheStranger]

Very nice! Didn't know that route although I thought I was driving all railroads in the game.

I have to correct this: I collected all diamonds in the game but I didn't know that great sniper hill and the approach to it. ;)

[PZ]

I'm playing through again (just started over completely), and ran into a GP that I normally attack from a different approach.  This time I found a good sniper position, one that I'd never seen before.  I suspect that there are quite a few positions that many of us are not are of, while others are.

[fragger]

I'm sure that's the case PZ, there are just so many approaches to many situations. I seem to find something new just about every time I play.

[PZ]

That's the beauty of it - when I find myself going by the same method as usual, I have forced myself to enter via a different approach, or something to see new things.  Invariably I encounter something that is new and different.  My problem in the past has been that I am a creature of habit, and tend to do things the same way each time.  :-()

[mandru]

Is it insanity if you keep doing the same F**k'n thing over and over but the game always makes different s#*t happen?   >:D

[TheStranger]

That sounds like a Jackal tape  ;D

[Binnatics]

Is it insanity if you keep doing the same F**k'n thing over and over but the game always makes different s#*t happen?   >:D

Does that make it an insane game? ;)

[mandru]

That sounds like a Jackal tape  ;D

:(

And here I was trying to capture the essence of Vas from FC3.   ::)

[TheStranger]

Hehe I hope the Jackal appears in FC3.

[Dweller_Benthos]

I used that route sometimes myself, depending on where I'm going to/from.

There's also a less useful track at the northern edge of the north map, to the east. The tracks just head off into nowhere and stop. Guess they ran out of funding.

The strange thing though, is the set of trains half buried in the sand to the west of the first outpost in Bowa. There doesn't seem to be any track that connects to the main lines for them to run on.

[PZ]

There's also a less useful track at the northern edge of the north map, to the east. The tracks just head off into nowhere and stop...

The only good thing is the scenery and the Jackal tape

The strange thing though, is the set of trains half buried in the sand to the west of the first outpost in Bowa. There doesn't seem to be any track that connects to the main lines for them to run on.

That truly is a strange place for the developers to put a train; after all, how did it get there without tracks.

[fragger]

Maybe the implication is that it's a much older branch line that has completely disappeared under the sand - who knows. Those trains look like they've been deteriorating there for a much longer time than the other wrecked and abandoned trains around the place.

I like how you can follow the railway line all the way from one end to the other - from the end D_B mentioned in north Leboa to where it stops at the closed-off tunnel east of the railway bridge in Bowa (once you've unlocked the southern district, of course). There are a couple of side branches in Leboa - one to the Slaughterhouse and one to Claes Products (chemical dump). It's a neat bit of level design.

That line leading north out of Leboa does actually go somewhere, ostensibly. If you drive a vehicle up it you'll get the dizzies, but if you keep going until you pass out you'll see that the line makes a couple of turns around the rocks before disappearing around yet another bend in the distance. This makes sense as it's the same line that the Gurkha sends his train down before it gets wrecked during the subverted Railyard Tanker mission (unless you don't do your buddy's secondary mission, in which case the train never appears), so evidently it leads to some place where trains are still running. But it apparently this line hasn't been used for quite a while, as evidenced by the cactus growing up through the middle of it before it makes its first turn around the rocks.

You can actually get a good ways up the line before you faint if you drive an AT up there, but don't expect to be able to get your vehicle back after you regain consciousness. You won't even be able to see it any more, it'll be behind the rocks.

[PZ]

Good analysis, fragger - you sound like a rail buff  ;)

[fragger]

I do like trains, there is something intriguing about them. I'm not the type to sit by a railway line and spot them all day or anything :-() but they do fascinate me in some unfathomable way. I guess I've always been impressed by powerful machines. Sometimes coal and freight trains come through the town near where I live and they can be like a couple of miles long and take six or seven minutes to get past the road crossing. How much power is required to pull all that weight along the tracks, even if it is all on wheels? A pretty impressive amount, I'd imagine.

[TheStranger]

This makes sense as it's the same line that the Gurkha sends his train down before it gets wrecked during the subverted Railyard Tanker mission (unless you don't do your buddy's secondary mission, in which case the train never appears), so evidently it leads to some place where trains are still running. But it apparently this line hasn't been used for quite a while, as evidenced by the cactus growing up through the middle of it before it makes its first turn around the rocks.

Hmm which Gurkha?  :-\\

But very interesting analysis, I thought that a couple of times too - they have very good level designers at Ubisoft :)

[PZ]

I do like trains, there is something intriguing about them. I'm not the type to sit by a railway line and spot them all day or anything :-() but they do fascinate me in some unfathomable way. I guess I've always been impressed by powerful machines. Sometimes coal and freight trains come through the town near where I live and they can be like a couple of miles long and take six or seven minutes to get past the road crossing. How much power is required to pull all that weight along the tracks, even if it is all on wheels? A pretty impressive amount, I'd imagine.

I recall visiting family in Germany when I was young (10).  There was a single line that went through the small village and I remember as if it were just yesterday when a steam locomotive thundered down the tracks.  Moving relatively slowly, the ground shook, the engine hissed and bellowed, metal clanged, and to a child was as fascinating as if a fire-breathing dragon had just come to town.  I'd never seen anything like it in my life, and have rarely seen such since.  Today's engines are so smooth and quiet in comparison.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Maybe the implication is that it's a much older branch line that has completely disappeared under the sand - who knows. Those trains look like they've been deteriorating there for a much longer time than the other wrecked and abandoned trains around the place.

I like how you can follow the railway line all the way from one end to the other - from the end D_B mentioned in north Leboa to where it stops at the closed-off tunnel east of the railway bridge in Bowa (once you've unlocked the southern district, of course). There are a couple of side branches in Leboa - one to the Slaughterhouse and one to Claes Products (chemical dump). It's a neat bit of level design.

That line leading north out of Leboa does actually go somewhere, ostensibly. If you drive a vehicle up it you'll get the dizzies, but if you keep going until you pass out you'll see that the line makes a couple of turns around the rocks before disappearing around yet another bend in the distance. This makes sense as it's the same line that the Gurkha sends his train down before it gets wrecked during the subverted Railyard Tanker mission (unless you don't do your buddy's secondary mission, in which case the train never appears), so evidently it leads to some place where trains are still running. But it apparently this line hasn't been used for quite a while, as evidenced by the cactus growing up through the middle of it before it makes its first turn around the rocks.

You can actually get a good ways up the line before you faint if you drive an AT up there, but don't expect to be able to get your vehicle back after you regain consciousness. You won't even be able to see it any more, it'll be behind the rocks.

Yeah, I kinda wondered about that train in the south, seems like it's more passenger oriented, maybe from a European colonial period, late 1800's probably. The other trains are more freight oriented and utilitarian from a time of a young African country's early independence. Or something like that. Too bad the trains didn't run anymore in the game, though. Would have been cool to have to chase one down or blow up the tracks or something. More than the train wreck mission that already exists, though.

I think I used cheats to get way past the pass out point on the tracks in the north. As I recall, they follow a narrow canyon through a few twists and turns and just end way past the point you'd normally be able to go in game.

As for real trains, the tracks run right behind the building I w@&k in. Freight trains run up and down them all hours of the day and night. I'm guilty of putting a few coins on the rails to see them flattened now and then.

[fragger]

@PZ, I love the old steam locomotives. They certainly are as noisy as the devil but that just adds to their charm :-D There was still one running not that far from where I live up until relatively recently as a tourist thing but sadly it has truly become a thing of the past now.

@TheStranger, I made a bit of a boo-boo when I said a Gurkha "sends his train" - he's actually supposedly on the train. The Gurkha is mentioned when you take on the mission to destroy the gas tanker at the Railyard and your best buddy is Josip. When you meet him at the safehouse, he says:

"(Blah blah blah)... Man in charge of troops is former Gurkha, legendary warrior..."

"...After you kill man at cattle ranch, blow up fuel train. Troop train will respond and crash. Then, I will fight Gurkha warrior. Will need your help afterwards escaping..."

I can't recall whether any buddy other than Josip mentions the Gurkha during their conversation.

@D_B, I see - now I get it :)

[PZ]

I enjoy this speculating about the railroad system in FC2 - adds to the mystique of the game  :-()