Engineering Department

The Engineering Department

	Melanie Cavill Bennett Knox Javier De La Torre Miles Peter DiMarco †
	Joseph Wilford Alexandra Cavill
	Melanie Cavill Joseph Wilford
	Bennett Knox Javier De La Torre Alexandra Cavill
	Peter DiMarco †
	Miles

Engineers have the most stressful jobs on the train, their jobs entail:

1. Driving the train.
2. Monitoring, designing, and building life support systems.
3. Monitoring rail infrastructure, weather and train conditions.
4. Monitoring, repairing, and operating The Eternal Engine or Big Alice.
5. Distributing electricity and keeping the train at speed so that electricity can be provided to all cars.
6. Up until the mutiny the engineers would act as the leadership of the train.
7. Designing and maintaining the train sometimes even personally fixing the train, especially integral parts like the wheel assemblies or life support systems.

Snowpiercer Engineers:

• Melanie Cavill - Head Engineer - Melanie has multiple jobs such as the head of hospitality up until the mutiny. Melanie has final say in all engineering matters and can overrule a decision made by other engineers, we also see that before the mutiny she had supreme power over the train acting as a head of state type figure under the alias of Mr. Wilford. We see her rarely drive the train as she acts more as a maintenance worker, she performs hands on repairs inside and out of the train, she has breach skills and a perfect understanding of every system on the train. But when she does drive the train she is very skilled at it, in Mr Wilfords words she is the best driver he's ever seen. She has an ability she learned over time of how to "feel the train" where she can place her hand on a surface in the train and feel any anomalies in the train's mechanisms and track conditions. She designed the majority of the train and says it is as much her project as it is Mr Wilford's.
• Bennett Knox - Senior Engineer - Bennet Knox is one of the original designers and engineers of the train, he acts as the Mechanical Engineer on the team. He is the engineer who primarily drives the train, he is also a stickler about the passing of command rule, he will always say "you have the train" or "I have the train" when switching engineers. But besides from that he also has duties much like Melanie, he makes hands on repairs on any train systems that need in-depth knowledge to repair, he also designed the train and is the second in command of Snowpeircer. He knows every line of track on the route and every piece of infrastructure in the train.
• Javier De La Torre - Senior Engineer - Javier De La Torre acts as the Computer Engineer, he has advanced know-how of how technology works, he can hack into government satellites, remotely switch track points, and program weather balloons. He is very skilled in weather predictions and calculating terrain and track conditions. He can properly predict whether the train will cause a avalanche, a track breakage, and even calculate when a train car will reach a certain point in the track.
• Peter DiMarco - Engineer - Not much is known about Peter, we never saw him drive the train and his only appearance was in Trouble Comes Sideways where he was killed by a bogie motor he was repairing. From what we can infer he acted as the Electrical Engineer.
• Miles - Engineer Apprentice - Miles is a unticketed passenger who worked his way up from the tail to the Engine thanks to his superb intellect. He only recently became an Engineer but is already doing important work, he has driven the train a multitude of times, he aided the tailies in the rebellion, and he along with Bennet Knox authorized the disconnection of 7 cars. In the 4th episode of season 2 he stated that he was working as the Life Support Engineer designing machines and mechanisms to make life outside the train more comfortable.

Big Alice Engineers

• Joseph Wilford - Head Engineer - Mr Wilford rarely drives the train or acts as an engineer should, he sits around all day and acts more like a King than a Driver. The idea for the train was his and he designed parts of the train, he affectionately calls Snowpeircer "my train". He taught Alexandrea how to drive and owned the train well before it was retrofitted to withstand extreme cold.
• Alexandra Cavill - Senior Engineer - The second in command to Wilford we see that Alex has the same skill as her mother for driving the train, she knows the inner workings of the train and is skilled in precision driving. She is so precise in her driving of the train to the point where she feels she is able to regulate speed and distance well enough that that she was able to pull in behind Snowpiercer only inches from the docking car. She was able to accurately regulate speed to connect to Snowpiercer whilst driving the train in reverse on slick track without derailing.

Requirements of Engineers

Engineers need to be skilled in mathematics and mechanical engineering, they also need to be good with computers and electronics. They need to have extreme skill in diving the train and be able to spend hours a day whilst driving.

Protocols

• The Engineers of Snowpiercer sleep in the engine so they have immediate access to the train's controls if need be, whilst the Engineers of Big Alice sleep multiple cars away from the Engine.
• There must be one Engineer driving Snowpiercer's Eternal Engine at all times with another Engineer on call. Big Alice is more lax about these rules with the locomotive going without a driver for hours on end.
• When switching control of the train, Engineers of Snowpiercer must say this: the old acting driver says "you have the train" while the new acting driver says "I have the train". This protocol is used in real life trains and other vehicles, primarily used in the military. We have seen this protocol be skipped over before though. And we have never seen it happen on Big Allice.