Railroad
| Railroad | |
|---|---|
| Type | Location |
The Railroad is the strip of land north of the Mountain, and it opens itself: early in the first Summer an earthquake shakes the valley overnight and clears the blocked pass, and a message about it is waiting on waking. What is up there justifies the walk. Trains run through on random days and spill coal, ore, wood, stone and geodes onto the ground for anyone standing there to watch. The Spa sits in the south-west corner and restores energy and health for nothing. A cave north-east of the platform eventually leads to the Witch's Swamp, and a staircase in the north-west corner goes up to the Summit for a farmer who has finished everything else. It is also the one place in the game where standing in the wrong spot will knock a farmer out.
Area
The Railroad runs east to west along a set of tracks with a platform north of them. The platform holds an empty box used in the Mysterious Qi quest chain, and Harvey's ten-heart scene plays out on it, which is the hot air balloon ride.
The Spa is the building in the south-west, and it is the reason most farmers come up here at all in the first year. Standing still in its pool restores energy and health quickly and free of charge. Penny's ten-heart scene happens there. In the little pond against the outside wall an Ornate Necklace can be fished up after the right secret note has been read, and a painting called Vista comes out of the same water, though neither is reachable in Winter when it freezes over.
The cave north-east of the platform is sealed at first. Entering the Railroad for the first time after the Community Center or the Joja form is finished triggers a scene that starts the Wizard's chain of quests, and finishing those opens the cave as a permanent route to the Witch's Swamp.
The staircase in the north-west is blocked by a boulder that nothing will move. It clears only when Perfection is reached, and beyond it lies the Summit, which is the game's closing scene rather than a place to work.
Foraging
The Railroad grows the mountain's seasonal forage, with Daffodils, Dandelions and Leeks in Spring, Sweet Peas, Spice Berries and Grapes in Summer, Wild Plums, Blackberries and Hazelnuts in Fall, and Crystal Fruit and Crocuses in Winter.
There is a catch worth knowing. The spawn points are few and most of them start the game buried under weeds, sticks and rocks, so a Railroad that has never been cleared will produce almost nothing. Clearing the debris once turns the area into a modest but reliable forage round, and the ground is covered in enough rock, wood and weeds to make that first clear-out worth the energy on its own.
Artifact spots here are narrower than most and all the more useful for it. The Prehistoric Tibia is the only artifact in the pool, so a farmer who needs that bone to finish the Sloth Skeleton in the Museum knows exactly where to dig. Digging also turns up Clay, Stone, Copper Ore, a Lost Book, and in Winter the Winter Root and Snow Yam, and Winter brings slightly more spots than the rest of the year.
Notes
Trains are the Railroad's real business. One can pass on any given day between the morning and the early evening, and the only warning is a whistle and a message that a train is passing through Stardew Valley. The window is short, roughly an in-game hour, so a train noticed from the farm is usually a train missed. The message only appears while outdoors.
A train is a locomotive and anything from eight to two dozen cars, and roughly one in ten is a double-length run of up to about four dozen. Several special types turn up at random. A Joja train is all dark grey freight. A passenger train and a prison train both move at twice the normal speed, the prison cars marked by barred windows. A coal train is mostly resource cars. In Winter a Christmas train can appear, all red cars loaded with presents.
The open-topped resource cars are the ones to care about, because they spill their cargo on the ground as they pass. Coal cars drop Coal, metal cars drop Copper, Iron or Gold depending on their colour, wood cars drop Wood with the occasional Hardwood, brick cars drop Stone, and rock cars drop geodes, which become Magma Geodes partway through the second year and Frozen Geodes in Winter. Present cars very rarely drop a Mystery Box. None of it falls unless the farmer is present and the train is in view, so the whole thing is a reward for being in the right field at the right time.
There is a rarer prize hidden in the same mechanic. Any resource car that tries to drop something has a small chance of dropping Leprechaun Shoes instead, which works out to a handful of chances per car, and cars loaded with grass, hay, packages or compartments can still drop the shoes even though they never drop anything else.
The train is dangerous. Standing in front of one as it comes, or swinging a tool or weapon at it, costs health and knocks the farmer backwards. Worse, it is possible to get wedged between the train and the platform or inside the right-hand side of the tunnel and take that damage over and over until the health bar empties and the day ends. Opening the menu until the train has gone by prevents it, and pausing does not stop the train rolling.
All Locations
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
