Rail transport

Rail-based transports such as trains, trams, monorails, railway tracks and train stations are recurring themes throughout the Half-Life series. At numerous points in every one of the games (excluding Portal), the player encounters one or more moving or stationary engines, lone carriages, or full-length coupled trains. There are also several instances where the player must cross or follow railway tracks, either on foot, non-rail vehicle, riding in or on the train itself, or by use of an electric monorail, the latter a prominent feature in the original Half-Life game.

Half-Life and its expansions

 * The monorail is the type used in the Black Mesa Transit System. It comes in two varieties, passenger and freight.
 * Regular trains are used among the Black Mesa Research Facility to bring supplies. Train cars can be seen in Blue Shift, among others.

Half-Life 2 and its episodes

 * The Combine heavily use the existing railway. They mostly use it for troop and Stalkers transport in Combine-designed Razor Trains. Also, old existing human trains are used for Citizen transportation among the Combine-ruled cities. This is in that kind of train Gordon Freeman wakes up at the start of Half-Life 2.
 * The train using the railway linking Combine outposts located in the Wasteland is called the "Wasteland Train".
 * Train tracks can also be found in Ravenholm. A track-mounted Zombie defense is also present in a small mining section between the town and Shorepoint.
 * The train in which the player arrives at City 17, particularly the locomotive, has a blue and red/white livery which is is identical to the TEP-70 0047 locomotives that operated in and out of Prypiat and Chernobyl on the Ukrzaliznytsia railway.
 * In Episode One, Gordon and Alyx leave City 17 on a regular train as the Citadel Core explodes. In Episode Two, their train has crashed in the White Forest.
 * The White Forest Mines feature an old mining network where rusty carts can be found.

Railways as a literary device
Railways, along with roads, rivers, and other paths, have long been used in literature and visual arts as a device representing a journey taking place, such as the railway in the film Stand By Me, or the River Congo in Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness.

Valve may well have not intended this consciously when developing the environments with which the characters interact, but the effect of the motif's appearance throughout the series is a constant symbol and reminder of the long and often difficult journey each character is making as the games progress. The implications of these journeys often include an "inner journey" that each character undertakes parallel to the physical one, emerging at the end having gained something metaphysical, like a greater sense of self, a broader understanding of the world, or inner and outer strength.

In the Half-Life series, Gordon Freeman, because of the circumstances he find himself in, is forced to be brave and strong, and endure tasks he was not prepared to undertake. In this way, he follows a "path" throughout his experiences, and is a stronger person for it.

What is known is that the player's path through the train station was meant to play a role similar to that of the train ride in Half-Life, i.e. reveal the story setting to the player. In Half-Life 2, the story would unfold at the player's own speed, rather than on a fixed rail, and come about through interaction with the characters naturally found in that setting.

Behind the scenes

 * An elevated railway for the Razor Train bringing Citizens into City 17 was to cross the Combine Factories.
 * City 17 was originally to feature trams. One tram can be found in the E3 map " ". Tracks and shelters are still visible is some parts of the city, notably in recycled parts of the map " " found at the end of the Half-Life 2 chapter "Follow Freeman!". An early test map, " ", featured a boulevard with trams going in both directions.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life
 * Half-Life: Opposing Force
 * Half-Life: Blue Shift
 * Half-Life: Decay
 * Half-Life 2
 * Half-Life 2: Raising the Bar
 * Half-Life 2: Episode One
 * Half-Life 2: Episode Two