So there was someone working on Half-Life 2: Episode Two who cared about trains, only he didn’t work on all of the game. An odd engine turns out to be an actual russian engine.
In my review of Half-Life 2: Episode Two (HL2Ep2 from now on), [I wondered about the locomotive you see before you go into the mines for real](/articles/halflife2episode2#outsidethemine), and whether that was a real russian locomotive, or something invented.
The style with open walkways (known as hood unit or road switcher) is very popular in the USA, but not unheard of elsewhere, either. So there were two choices: This was either a russian (or soviet) diesel engine, or someone made that engine up, based on what he knew about american and russian locomotives. Now, by accident (doing research for the currently unfinished [Tomb Raider Legend Review](/articles/tombraiderlegend)) I found an image of the real locomotive on [RailPictures.net](http://www.railpictures.net/). You can find the image at http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=154112&nseq=91.
To be honest, I don’t know if it’s really that locomotive, or [another one that looks exactly the same](http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=157028&nseq=80), but it’s close enough for my purposes. If you played the game and took the time to take a closer look at the locomotive, you’ll see it’s the same (only not green).
Isn’t it nice when a video game can make you happy, even though you aren’t playing the game at the moment?
*[HL2Ep2]: Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Posted October 27th, 2007, 14:23