In the Fallout universe, West Virginia’s eastern side is littered with the ruined structures of an elevated monorail with suspension-type tracks. The structures holding up the rail are large cement pillars with a circular opening for the train to pass through. There are occasional pillars with stairways leading up to the cars, perhaps for breakdowns or emergency exits, like if it just happens to be Oct 23rd 2077 and the conclusion to an ongoing war was nuclear devastation that demolishes a great deal of the US. Fortunately, the stairs themselves are metal and, while rusted, are still capable to be climbed to give us this nice shot.
To digress from my frustration over this entire system, I do appreciate the photomode available in FO76 as it has given me an opportunity to play with photography without worrying about my tremors, or looking like a fool, and has actually bolstered my real life photography skill. It is admittedly still rather shaky, but there have been marked improvements.
Regardless, here is a wider shot of the car in the first picture with some warping at the edge of the image from an increased field-of-view. Also a note, the pictures are going to get darker as my arrival to the elevator itself was at night, then I wandered this way for a better shot of the monorail system as the sun rose.
This entire railway spans an enormous part of the playable map, but the section that we’re going to focus on is the elevator itself. Here’s a (not great) video trailing the track into Watoga, to the platform above, then up to the elevator. In reality, Watoga is an unincorporated community nestling next to the Watoga State Park — I’ve never wanted to go camping more in my life than this moment. Glorious. In the game, Watoga is built up to a large city that houses folks with money and otherwise serves as a consumerist playground. It was designed to be the City of the Future, run by the variety of robots that exist in the world. Upon entering it from the west, you are greeted by a sign that states the population is 1 — this used to be 0 before Wastelanders brought human NPCs into the game — and it will tick up as you enter. Beneath this on the sign is a ticker with the robot population, which varies. Prior to the Great War, Watoga would routinely choose a new human mayor for a random amount of time, and as the nuclear event happened, it was adjusted by the the standing mayor at the time to allow any new person to become Mayor for a Day. The benefit to this quest is that the robots in the city are no longer hostile, whereas the drawback is that any daily challenges that require a certain amount of robot deaths is easier to do elsewhere.
Exiting Watoga, the railway waves a bit before heading toward the elevator. Damnable thing.
It is not without inspiration, even the pillars themselves are highly reminiscent of the Falkirk Wheel’s track. So, too, does the design of the elevator take some notes from the Wheel and make them Bigger. Impossibly so, and this is where the frustration comes in. It could be argued that the metal techniques and nuclear energy used makes this impossible creation work, but ultimately it took so much of my time staring at this fascinating, enormous creation, only to come to the conclusion that it simply could not work.
The train itself enters the elevator from the bottom and…ends up at the top. That’s it, that’s the only thing that can be explained without some degree of speculation.
The train then continues its roll to the west toward a tourist attraction built nearby, or atop, Spruce Mountain (referred to as “Spruce Knob” prior to Wastelanders, now “Foundation”). None of that is depicted in any picture or this video I took approaching and climbing down to the bottom of the elevator, then taking an elevator on the elevator, an ele-elevator if you will, to the top, and only serves as further confusing information for this absurd construction.
As you will be able to make out, there are four interlinked things that lift the train. Maybe we call these things pylons, but then one has to realize that the “pillars” from earlier should be pylons, and now this is a mess. It is already annoying. I am annoyed. Carrying on, these Interlinked Pylons have a central rotation point composed of this enormous metal cylinder. The two east-most I-Pylons are tilted slightly, suggesting either skewing during/after the nuclear devastation, or individual section movement that, in theory, should allow the elevator to raise and lower two trains simultaneously. Given that the most complete trains include the ‘front’ of the car on both sides, this would suggest that they could go from Watoga to Spruce Knob, or Spruce Knob to Watoga. That being said, car orientation may not be applicable to this as there is a water park on the west side of the map wherein the carts to a splash ride suggest one goes into the cloaca of this poor crocodile and then out of his mouth.
In theory, the I-Pylons would also work in tandem, allowing the movement of a particularly long train (as seen at the top of the elevator). Granted this could also be its only intended function and the Pylons are skewed as mentioned. Who knows!
So let’s make the argument that this impossibly large structure works because it is powered by ̶m̶a̶g̶i̶c̶ Nuclear Energy. Okay, fine. How does it work? Do the pylons simply rotate on their central axis to the side? there is not a single chance in hell or on this planet where this structure can hold up that adjustment in weight. Since there are connection points interlinking sections of the pylons with more cylinders between them, is there another mechanism at work? Do the pylons dance as they bring a train up? Does the whole thing fold up as tightly as possible to reduce the forces on the central cylinder and structure to move the trains?
Then we have to address the rails! Am I supposed to believe that this strange device with separate tracks just so happens to link up with the top and bottom rails perfectly?
How does it work?!
When first laying eyes upon this impressively huge mechanism, it blew my mind. Even playing on a system that allows for better render distance than I am used to, the giant thing still refuses to load fully, although admittedly with far better texture on it than on Xbox One.
On the plus side, unlocking this location on my map does allow me to get the best view of a nuke being dropped on Fissure site Prime, so while this descent back into the madness that this preposterous concept brings to me, it is at least fortuitous.
All hail the Monorail Elevator, you impossible, ridiculous, cursed thing.
