Riddle on the rails: why it doesn't make sense

[darksharcoux]

Hi all ! This is a great game. Though, the more I think about the missing train quest, the more I think it doesn't make sense at all. Let's see how the scene should have take place according to me, and then how it did according to the game, and let see what you think. (in advance, sorry if I make English mistakes)


SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL SPOIL ! You've been warned

According to me :

The Mexicans had grudge over the Chilians and the mines. Knowing that the whole board of director of the Chilian company would be on the same train, they decided to plan their death to teach them! As they wanted the mines so much, they would be burried beneath!

What they needed to succeed was first to take some material to fix the railway near the mines. They carried it by boat from the south-east station to the north beach. There, they could use the rails to bring it to the mines.

Once that was set, in order to make sure that no one would ever find the Chilians, they needed to make people belive that the train vanished a few station later. Otherwise, it would be too easy to deduce that the train just took the switch to the mines. To do that, first, they needed a fake train to carry them from Chesterfield to Evesham. Then, they needed to send the messages that the train really passed by.

For Chesterfield, it was easy. They got the station manager drunk in order to get rid of him and be able to build the fake train. They could, then, send the message that the train really passed by. But they don't know Morse code, that's why we found the Morse code alphabet near the telegraph in the station. As they don't speak english very well and sending telegrams definitly isn't their job, they kinda messed that up and the final message is hard to read.

For Doncaster, they sent a guy to spy on the station manager. They discovered that he needed money, so they offered him a deal : "we give you money if you can just say that a train passed through the station between 01h00 and 01h30. Nothing really dangerous. Fair deal, right ?"

Finally, they could start their plan, explode the mines, and all was set. I suspect that Mr Robinson was also part of the plan. He got money from the insurance and also from all the exclusive contracts that he signed !

According to the game :

The Mexicans decided to kill the board of directors of the Chilian company by sinking the train into the lake.

So they got everyone to go down at Bridlington (why not Chesterfield then ?)

They got the station manager drunk to be able to build their fake train (but at that moment, they have also the real train in the station...)
The station manager, completely drunk, notice that a train is there and remembers that he is supposed to send a telegram. But, despite being manager for a certain amount of time, and sending the same message over and over again for every single train passing in his station day after day, he still needs a Morse code alphabet to send the telegram. Only this part is weird already, but it gets worst.

100 meters before Doncaster, the train takes left and rushes into the lake. Basically, a train is 100 meters long. So imagine the scene from the point of view of Duncaster's station manager : near 1 am, he starts hearing a huge "ploof" and sees in front of the station the train rushing into the water, making huge waves and all ! But no problem, he stays calm, and starts writing "yeah, the train passed here at 1am, and sun... herr... I mean left at 1h30 am"
Of course, I guess that being paid for telling that a train passed by, and covering up for killing the passengers of a whole train is totally the same and he never occured to him that, maybe, he could call the police, or at least tell you that he kinda heard weird noises during the night and saw huge waves!

And to make all this even more stupid, the Mexicans decided that killing the whole board of directors was not satisfying, and that they really had to destroy the mines to make it fair. Even if it is risky and totally useless...

In the end, tell me if you agree or if I totally misunderstood the case.

[LordStuff]

Same as most people here, I went with the mine as it made the most sense to me.

I was really bugged and kinda felt like it is with almost every case in here, that there is some ambiguity and I don't know whether I like it or not.

Maybe they wanted to destroy the mine AND kill the Chileans... and the Morse table was indeed because he's a drunkard.

I'd prefer if all the clue searching and talking would lead me to a solution rather than having to guess at the end. Same goes for other cases..

[X]

First of all the mines are Chilean territory, and there's a no trespassing memo you can read. Should the Mexicans ride the train to the mines they'll be stopped before even getting there. Furthermore, blowing up the mines to trap the train would also trap the Mexicans, unlike in the quarry where they can jump or swim away.

Secondly there is noticeably more effort in the quarry. If the train wasn't drowned there then why did they set up camp in a beach located in the other side? The presence of the Mexican in Doncaster further give a clue and the fact that the train station denying the presence of the Mexican when he's the only person in the station. That alone makes it suspicious.

As for the Chesterfield station the station master may be a drunkard but he's an honest man. I first thought of thinking that he's just hallucinating but he's able to remember the people who used the digging equipment, so there's still the semblance of perception left in him.

I was thinking of the prototype being stolen by the Chileans, but I set it aside because of the presence of the exclusive contracts. The Chileans are not aware of the other contracts and with their own contract they think they already have the prototype in the bag, so why bother stealing it?

That pretty much lead me to the conclusion why drowning the train into the quarry would make the best sense.

[Full Cotton Jacket]

I agree that this case does not make much sense. I ruled out the "drowned" conclusion immediately. Why go through the trouble of making a fake train if you're going to send the real train steaming into a lake right next to a public train station? Trusting that no one would notice this seems like a wild gamble.

Since the water should be fairly shallow at the edge of the flooded area the train would be very likely to come to a stop or be derailed before making it far enough for its wagons to be submerged completely. Not to mention all the debris from the train that should float to the surface.

The (incorrect) conclusion I came to instead was that they sealed the train inside the seemingly desolate mine and took the prototype by barge over the flooded lake. That theory had some holes in it too, but not as severe as the "correct" solution.

[Witek]

I think that programmers designed it so that almost every solution fits, which makes no sense and there is no proper solution.

1. If the train was sunk, why are the screws remaining on the tracks near the mine, but they are not by the lake??
2. Why are there no traces of a heavy cart next to the mine if there are no tracks?

1 and 2 are mutually exclusive and both are true.

Lazy programming - thanks to this, the player will always feel that he is smart, because he "correctly" solved the case and will buy another game.

[Castigo PixaPixa]

Blowing up the mines had a reason. To bring the entire head of directors to the same place. they needed to grab their attention. Then they sunk the train and killed them. Grabbing the rails in Evesham, taking them to the beach and taking them by boat to the flooded quarry.

[Kebabs]

I can see the quarry-option making most sense. Here's the order of happenings, from the pov of the mexicans:

1. steal the train tracks from the shed, and transport them to the beach where the barrage is waiting.
2. fasten the stolen train tracks onto the barrage, so the train can be driven onto it.
3. sail the barrage over the broken dam and across the quarry.
4. take control of the train and drive it to the edge of the flooded quarry, outside of Doncaster, where the barrage will be waiting for them
5. load the train onto the barrage
6. sail the barrage over the quarry, and drop the train off. I imagine this would have to be done in multiple steps.

that has to be how the devs imagined the scenario unfolding. At first this explanation didn't make sense to me, since i thought that the quarry was flooded AFTER the train was stolen. But apparently it happened some weeks beforehand. Also, it's not at all obvious that the train was supposedly transported on top of the barrage before being dropped off into the quarry (i can see from this thread that some people think that the train drove straight into the lake), so this could definitely have been communicated better.
There are still some unanswered questions though:

1. Why did the mexicans remove the last few train tracks at the section outside of Doncaster? Leaving them intact would be less conspicuous.
2. Why did the mexicans bother to completely tear down the shed that contained the train tracks they stole? The game makes a point of emphasizing how weird it is, but it is never really explained why they did it. To gather wood for constructing the tracks?
3. What did the mexicans use the shovels from the Chesterfield storage for? I can see why they would use drills and hammers (for the tracks), but... shovels?

[darksharcoux]

Kebabs님이 먼저 게시:

it's not at all obvious that the train was supposedly transported on top of the barrage

A train on a barge? Was this supposed to be a toy train for children? I don't see how a train can fit on a barge. But even if it could, I'm curious about how you make it ride on it without no one noticing. I don't think that it is an easy operation. And worst, I don't see well how you sink the train without sinking the barge. It seems a bit too heavy to just "throw it offboard".

[Pietrosilius + Zwackelmann]

Kebabs님이 먼저 게시:

2. Why did the mexicans bother to completely tear down the shed that contained the train tracks they stole? The game makes a point of emphasizing how weird it is, but it is never really explained why they did it. To gather wood for constructing the tracks?

I think that maybe demolishing the shed made the tracks easier to access and faster to steal.

Kebabs님이 먼저 게시:

3. What did the mexicans use the shovels from the Chesterfield storage for? I can see why they would use drills and hammers (for the tracks), but... shovels?

Maybe they where just looking for an excuse to make the station manager drink with them

[twitch oLui]

What I really don't get is:

1 - Why did the Mexican say he was Chilean and was "waiting for his fellows that were boarding the MISSING TRAIN", if the station master was literally BRIBED by THEM to say the train passed the station? Why would he confirm the train in fact did not pass, even though they BRIBED A MAN TO TELL THE AUTHORITIES OTHERWISE?

2 - Why would he STAY ON THE STATION AFTER THE JOB WAS DONE? And please don't say "to make sure the station master wasn't going to snitch" the dude literally snitched himself.

3 - What is the purpose of removing the tracks on the mine? Honestly, how would that make ANY difference in getting away with the crime?

4 - Why are the textures from the removed tracks inside the water so misaligned from the actual tracks?

5 - WHY ARE SOME TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE DIALOGS MISSING?

6 - Last but not least: WHY DOES WATSON BLOCK THE DOOR EVERY TIME I TRY TO GO THROUGH IT?

This riddle was super difficult, but not in the pleasant "oh wow how did I not think of that" way, but more like the "this is the most subjective ♥♥♥♥♥♥ puzzle I've ever seen, and I can't believe I put this much effort into it"

This puzzle is so bad, I actually got all clues to be blue without a conclusion. Try it, in this riddle It's actually possible to have no diverging assumptions and still arriving at no conclusion,

So you arrive at a reasonable logical conclusion, and it turns out it isn't even an option. Then you break your brains trying to make sense of the chaos of information they provide you with, and it turns out the right answer had no actual objective information to make it stand out from the falses.

Solving this puzzle is like arriving at the right answer by accident on a math class.

This puzzle is so chaotic, it's like if I asked you "what's my mothers name?" before giving you a bunch of information about flowers, then when you guess "Daisy" I say "no stupid, it's Jeniffer" and calling that a "hard riddle".

It's not a hard riddle, it's a stupid riddle. Difficult not by the amount of information, but by the lack of information that's actually related to the conclusion.

It's like saying your wife has big breasts, but she has them because she's obese.

Or saying your car is fast, but because it's falling off a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ cliff.

This riddle misleads you so much, even when you get it right it doesn't feel like you actually took evidence to get to it.

This riddle feels like those numerology conspiracies where they arrive at this absurd conclusion by adding and subtracting numbers and associating them with letters. It feels just as stupid as that.

For real, I hope the next one isn't as bad as this one.

[Saint Fredolaus]

This thread probably puts more thought into the case than the developers did


Another theory (the timeline is still a little odd - why are the tracks from the stolen rails still perfectly visibile after two weeks?):

- The mine would have to be sabotaged (or purposefully closed) earlier, so the mexicans had to do their shipping adventure on the lake
- The explosive still worked fine, so it didnt rain, might be a reason for the tracks still being visible
- To lure out the chilean company? This is far fetched and required some serious foresight.
- The mine may actually have been worthless and was shut down?
- Doesnt explain what happened to the rails at the mine entrance, unless it was decommissioned.

- Doesnt really matter if the drunk or a mexican sent the message full of errors.

In order for the stolen rails to be useful:
- The mexicans didnt sink the train - at least not right away. They outfitted their barge with rails for trainnapping or to at least to create a temporary bridge into deeper water. A serious accomplishment for 1800 engineering, but whatever.
- By taking the train they get hold of the chileans (and the prototype generator)
- According to the map, the quarry did have a little rail line before, i doubt the train company dug them up from the lake. This means someone tampered with the rails into the quarry - the mexicans, in order to attach their ship to the railway.

This conclusion very much relies on the heavy tracks found at Evesham and the beach.

[Akhlys]

Late to the party but I totally agree. I'm not further in yet but the game seems to think that collossal coincidences are a normal thing.
First case, The harpunist just happened to come in the middle of the night instead of at day when he (unlike the lover of the wife) couldn't even know he had the habit of spending the night there. And the boy just happened to be there the same night and just happened to drop his notebook, without having anything to do with the murder, sure.
Second case.. Robinson sold the invention to several parties, so if it didn't go missing he'd be in deep ♥♥♥♥ as he would be sued into the ground by those companies.. But he had nothing to do with it disappearing? Really? He just lucked out and sold it exclusively several times without having any plan?
They just built tracks to the mine to put explosives in or something, when the explosives could be carried by hand easily? And blow up the mine so the chileans couldn't have it, which they wouldn't anyway because they're dead? When the whole head of a company dies, surely the company has bigger things to worry about and let the mines go.. Vengeance is a very weak motive here.
also such an explosion would be loud, so why can't we ask anyone when it happened?
Why would the barges even be needed if the rails arrived by wagon at, say, the mines?
Why would the mexican hang around the train station? There's no reason to it.

personally I would have favored robinson being guilty, as he has the strongest motive for the train disappearing. He had no motive for the chileans tho, but the chileans refusing to leave the train as planned seems less of a coincidence than the rest.
Train go off to the mines to be buried, fake-train from then on. Drunk dude sees headlight and hears whistle, think it is the train, next dude is bought. Fake-train rides until where it "disappears", sets back as such trolleys can do, takes diversion to the lake, sinks. And being rather small it made sense not to be heard. Mexican is really chilean as he claims that likes mexican cigars and waits for his colleages.
Best motive, most logical execution, least lose ends, no requirement for insane coincidences and illogical behavior.

I quite like the game but the fact that you can't arrive at the correct conclusion without some enormous coincidences bugs me off. Basically there's no way to know the correct conclusion without looking it up, because all possible solutions have things against them

Oh btw..

darksharcoux님이 먼저 게시:

When you are drunk, do you really use a foreign dictonary to speak a foreign language?

I'm indeed drunk right now and english is indeed not my main language (I speek the language of the cheese and the chocolate) and I did indeed not consult a dictionary
But personally I think the morse code cheat sheet there was just "some new guy put it there once" without the current morser needing it. If I was a telegrammer, I'd install the morse code if I needed it or not. Just seems like something that should be there. Just like we IT guys put up posters like "a reboot is always good" even tho we all know this

[bigray1999]

Kebabs님이 먼저 게시:

I can see the quarry-option making most sense. Here's the order of happenings, from the pov of the mexicans:

1. steal the train tracks from the shed, and transport them to the beach where the barrage is waiting.
2. fasten the stolen train tracks onto the barrage, so the train can be driven onto it.
3. sail the barrage over the broken dam and across the quarry.
4. take control of the train and drive it to the edge of the flooded quarry, outside of Doncaster, where the barrage will be waiting for them
5. load the train onto the barrage
6. sail the barrage over the quarry, and drop the train off. I imagine this would have to be done in multiple steps.

that has to be how the devs imagined the scenario unfolding. At first this explanation didn't make sense to me, since i thought that the quarry was flooded AFTER the train was stolen. But apparently it happened some weeks beforehand. Also, it's not at all obvious that the train was supposedly transported on top of the barrage before being dropped off into the quarry (i can see from this thread that some people think that the train drove straight into the lake), so this could definitely have been communicated better.
There are still some unanswered questions though:

1. Why did the mexicans remove the last few train tracks at the section outside of Doncaster? Leaving them intact would be less conspicuous.
2. Why did the mexicans bother to completely tear down the shed that contained the train tracks they stole? The game makes a point of emphasizing how weird it is, but it is never really explained why they did it. To gather wood for constructing the tracks?
3. What did the mexicans use the shovels from the Chesterfield storage for? I can see why they would use drills and hammers (for the tracks), but... shovels?

No, the mine option doesn't make sense. The Chesterfield Station Master testified the train had passed that station and most of the passengers had disembarked there with the exception of the Chileans. If the train had been driven into the mines then no one would have disembarked at Chesterfield since it comes after the mine.

[araisikewai]

What I don't understand is:
Why go through all the trouble to use the shovel and keep the hand cart from the drunk station master?

They already bribed the gambler station master and judging from his reaction to Sherlock claiming he solved the case, the gambler station master was very involved in the whole scheme.

Why not just use the gambler's station for everything? His station is closer to where the hand cart would be needed for alibi. Placing the hand cart in his station would shorten the time and reduce risk of them being seen. There would have been lesser risk by involving lesser people. As a matter of fact, they should have made sure the drunkard actually do his job properly and witness the train passing his station, therefore not giving him any drinks.

And why did they remove the tracks again after drowning the train? More importantly, how they remove the track after drowning the train? They really don't have much time because it all happened in 1 night. While the sound of passing train wouldn't be unusual at night, I imagine the sound of dismantling train track would carry far in middle of night, and would be suspicious in a small village.

[originalkildi]

What i like the most about this case, is how Holmes is chill with the the disappearance of the mine's security detail and workers.
The chillean company fought tooth and nail for the mine and after acquisition specifically instructed their employees to keep the mexican company off the property.
Now, is there a mass grave in the collapsed mine and Holmes is ok with it?
Or did the mexicans disperse everyone quietly?

HOW MANY "MEXICANS" WERE THERE?
In one night, they
1. Stole and foundered a train in a foreign country to kill a bunch of dudes, where several bullets would do. Hid the barges and the rails. Probably cleared their beach camp
2. Disassembled the tracks on Doncaster station, but only a few lol.
3. Partied with the drunken master at chesterfield, assembled a fake train, rode it to Evensham, rode it back to drunken master, disassembled it, returned the tools.
4. Hit the mine: collapsed it, burned some houses, cleared out the workers without leaving a blood trail, disassembled the tracks, BUT AGAIN ONLY A FEW LOL
[if mexicans hit the mine prior to this night, they would not have to steal the rails from the railway company, and would have alerted the chileans, so yeah, they hit the mine after killing the directorate]

so how many were there????
AND WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE "MEXICAN" LEFT?????

Clearly, the right solution is inaccessible in the final deductions and it rhymes nicely with Devil's Daughter, where the second case is likewise botched up by Holmes ["your murder will never be solved.....he failed.....so sad" - as one of the characters comments it later on].
I guess, second chapters are there to tell us even Holmes is fallible

[bigray1999]

originalkildi님이 먼저 게시:

What i like the most about this case, is how Holmes is chill with the the disappearance of the mine's security detail and workers.
The chillean company fought tooth and nail for the mine and after acquisition specifically instructed their employees to keep the mexican company off the property.
Now, is there a mass grave in the collapsed mine and Holmes is ok with it?
Or did the mexicans disperse everyone quietly?

HOW MANY "MEXICANS" WERE THERE?
In one night, they
1. Stole and foundered a train in a foreign country to kill a bunch of dudes, where several bullets would do. Hid the barges and the rails. Probably cleared their beach camp
2. Disassembled the tracks on Doncaster station, but only a few lol.
3. Partied with the drunken master at chesterfield, assembled a fake train, rode it to Evensham, rode it back to drunken master, disassembled it, returned the tools.
4. Hit the mine: collapsed it, burned some houses, cleared out the workers without leaving a blood trail, disassembled the tracks, BUT AGAIN ONLY A FEW LOL
[if mexicans hit the mine prior to this night, they would not have to steal the rails from the railway company, and would have alerted the chileans, so yeah, they hit the mine after killing the directorate]

I think 10-15 people could have done all these easily in one night. But if I recall correctly, the mine had been abandoned long before before the mine collapsed. That's why

so how many were there????
AND WHY IS THERE ONLY ONE "MEXICAN" LEFT?????

Clearly, the right solution is inaccessible in the final deductions and it rhymes nicely with Devil's Daughter, where the second case is likewise botched up by Holmes ["your murder will never be solved.....he failed.....so sad" - as one of the characters comments it later on].
I guess, second chapters are there to tell us even Holmes is fallible

I think 10-15 people could easily have performed all of these tasks over night. And if I recall correctly, the mine had been abandoned long before they blew it up. That's why the explosion didn't raise any suspicions.