I’ve played all the Half-Life games a lot. I already knew that there were a few trains in the series. But I had no idea just how many trains are jammed in games like Half-Life 2. And I also had no idea that many of them are based on real trains.
Luckily, Youtuber Amtrakguy365 created a lovely video going over every train that has appeared in a Half-Life game. Of course, he covers the obvious ones, like the train you start Half-Life 2 on. But he also finds all the trains in the background of levels, trains you would just run by and never notice. Not only does he find them, but he also goes into great detail about them.
For example, the loud train horn you hear in Half-Life 2 is a real horn. You probably guessed that, but Amtrakguy365 knows exactly which train has that horn in real life. (It’s a British Columbia Railway Nathan K-5H.) Another fun fact: That horn sound in HL2 is used for all trains, which is wrong and in the video he shares what the real horn for one of the trains in the game would sound like.
Another little detail that I’ve never noticed is that some of the cargo trains in Black Mesa use the wrong flatcars. In the US, most cargo containers are stored in well cars, not flat cargo cars. I won’t be able to play Half-Life: Blue Shift again without noticing this small, incorrect detail.