Olga

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Olga (aka the original Snowpiercer) was a luxury train built by Zheng Industries, until it was retrofitting with a perpetual propulsion engine to serve as a lifeboat for humanity. The train was described as being fully autonomous, and was the first of the ten trains to be built in the Graphic Novels. It is also the primary train used in the first volume, The Escape.

The train is 1001 cars long, and appears to be at the same scale as a regular train.

The train was designed with the ability to break through snow and ice by ramming it at high speeds, however the train began to slow down over time due to age. Eventually the tail of the train was cut off, which caused the engine to speed up once again. The cars on the train tend to vary in design, with the cars at the tail appear to be regular cargo cars, and the cars near the front being more like passenger cars.

History

Prior to the comics, Olga was used as a luxury train built by Zheng Industries, and was designed to run for 20 days without stopping, where it would run on a custom built track. At some point, Zheng Industries invented a Perpetual Propulsion Engine, which could only work on a small scale at the time, when Mr Zheng predicted a cataclysm however, the company attempted to make the engine work on a larger scale, where due to the help of Alec Forrester, they succeeded on making the engine work on Olga.

During the final days before the freeze, Zheng Industries created an application program, which allowed people to sign up to try get a place on the Snowpiercer, where they would be selected by Mr Zheng based on their skills to humanity. When a person was selected, they would be given a virtual ticket, and a station for them to wait at to be picked up, where it was up to the passenger to make their own way there. Once everyone had been selected, they began driving the train around the world to pick up as many ticketed passengers as they could, however many without tickets would riot at the stations, and attempt to break onto the train.

Known passengers

• Alec Forrester (Driver)
• Mr Zheng (Owner)
• Proloff (The tail)
• Adeline Belleau
• The Doc*
• Sergeant Briscard
• Al (1st Class Historian)
• The President*
• Poitrinaud
• Brochard (Soldier)
• Martin (Soldier)
• Dalevsky (Soldier)
• Sergeant Druckmann
• Little Old Man* (The tail)
• The Priest*
• Rabinoff
• Colonel Krimson
• Baki
• Reverend Krawczyk
• Unnamed Gardener*

* - Name unknown.

Technology

The engine of the train is fully autonomous, and can run endlessly due to being perpetual, however it still required a driver present in order to function. The front of the engine has a slot which appears to suck in any snow laying on the tracks, presumably to supply water to the whole train. In The Escape, it was mentioned that the train used to run on a custom built track, however in the prequels, Mr Zheng said that the train can run on any railway network in the world, meaning it may have similar tech to the Track Scaler from the TV show.

The train is shown to have multiple food supplies, where there's around 11 agriculture cars containing fruit and veg, which all classes have access to. While the 1st class have access to meat from a small variety of animals, such as rabbits and mice, the lower classes instead have access to a form of lab-grown meat, which is referred to as The Mama, which is a large slab of synthetic meat suspended in a nutritious fluid, where the more you cut away, the faster it grows more.

It is shown that the passengers have a form of kronole, a drug made from toilet cleaner. Multiple ways were described on how kronole is used on the train, one example being a spray up the nose.

Known cars

• A swimming pool car was shown in the prequels
• A bar car was passed by
• Several Agricultural cars
• 1st class dining
• An observation car with a large glass dome was shown
• Several animal cars run by Rabinoff were shown, where they bred animals such as rabbits and mice
• The Mama car

Trivia

• Despite being used as a luxury train long before the freeze, the train was still known as Snowpiercer at the time.
• While the train is fully autonomous, the engine needs to 'feel inhabited' to be functional, as mentioned by Alec Forrester.
• The design of the engine appears to be quite different in the prequels, where the front is more slanted, and the entire train appears to be much larger in scale.
• Despite being run by Mr Zheng, he doesn't appear anywhere

Gallery

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  Clear view of the engine

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  Passing through an old station

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  One of the greenhouse cars

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  Prior to the freeze

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  The Icebreaker salvaging Snowpiercer

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  Olga as seen in the prequels

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  Front view from the prequels