| “ | She's low-torqued. We can outrun her. | ” |
| — Melanie Cavill | ||
Big Alice is a prototype[1] of the Engine Eternal used as the locomotive for a secondary supply train. It carries a 40-carriage long train containing spare parts for Snowpiercer. It was built by Wilford Industries.
History
Very little is known about Big Alice, other than that it was a prototype built sometime before Snowpiercer. It served as a testbed for the "Perpetual Motion Engine" used by the luxury liner. Before The Freeze, it was connected to a 40-car long supply train, that was intended to carry out supply runs to Snowpiercer should it need them along its journey.
When Melanie Cavill carried out her coup against Mr. Wilford, she abandoned him at boarding. Leaving Mr. Wilford no other alternative than boarding Big Alice in order to survive. Alexandra Cavill was with her grandparents and was meant to arrive at Snowpiercer at boarding, but did not arrive, she then somehow found her way to Big Alice and survived.
Population
Unknown, at least two.
- Mr. Wilford - CEO of Wilford Industries.
- Alexandra Cavill
Cargo
According to Bennett Knox, Snowpiercer is falling apart, there are no perpetual motion parts and Big Alice is packed with parts, such as bogie-motors, bovine cultures, a full genetics lab, enough to keep them going.
Technology
Despite having only 40 cars, Melanie believes Snowpiercer could outrun the prototype if all power is pushed to the motors. Eventually, though, Big Alice chased Snowpiercer down and managed to attach itself to the Docking Car of Snowpiercer using a massive connection mechanism concealed within its own car. This mechanism also possesses some form of welder, as it almost immediately begins cutting through the Tail hatch once connected.
Big Alice also has some form of 'jack' system, which is used to connect to Snowpiercer and began shutting down individual systems before finally gaining control of the Engine, and engaging the emergency brakes, bringing the train to a screeching halt.
Exterior
While built on the same rail gauge as Snowpiercer, Big Alice is much larger and taller than Snowpiercer itself. It is also significantly darker in coloration, and adorned with bright orange caution stripes, in contrast with Snowpiercer's shiny all-chrome finish. She has two cockpits, one facing the front of the Engine, the other facing the back.
Its cars seem to be similar in design to Snowpiercer's albeit more utilitarian rather than designed for form. However, unlike Snowpiercer, Big Alice's locomotive is large and boxy, more similar to a modern diesel locomotive, and is still extremely powerful while pushing the train to connect with Snowpiercer. It is also ridiculously large compared to its own train cars, rather than being flush to the profile like Snowpiercer. Like Snowpiercer, she is also adorned with the large 'W' logo of Wilford Industries in various places.
Based on the concept art by Alex Nice, the train is even larger than Snowpiercer, being 10.8 meters wide, 13.3 meters tall (18.1 at the engine), and 88.2 meters long per car (70.8 meters at the engine). This would make the 40 car train exceed a length of 2.2 miles or 3.5 km. This is probably the closest to the actual dimensions however, the scale used during the set is downscaled.
Appearances
- Season One
Trivia
- Big Alice may be analogous to Icebreaker from the graphic novels, though this is unconfirmed.
- The Engineers seemed aware of Big Alice's existence but were surprised to see it moving.
- Carrying 40 carriages, Big Alice has 954 fewer carriages than Snowpiercer.
Gallery
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Prepering to Connect
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True size
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All 40 cars
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Catching up
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Chicago
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Comicbook Version
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Docking Car of Big Alice
