Railway Rifle (Fallout 3)



The Railway Rifle is a Fallout 3 weapon. It is one of the weapons that can be assembled from Schematics found in the game world. It falls into the Small Guns category. When fired, its report is followed up with the sound of a train whistle.

The gun fires Railway Spikes at enemies. Though only moderately damaging, it is very effective at dealing limb damage, being able to outright cripple many foes' limbs in one shot. It should be noted that its the only weapon other than the missile launcher that can cripple a Super Mutant's Right Arm (gun hand) in one shot (normal, xbox360). On the killing shot, a railway spike fired from the gun may tear off the struck body part and pin it to whatever wall was behind.

The Railway Rifle deals moderate damage, and has accuracy comparable to the Assault Rifle. However, its shots have a slower velocity than bullets, making it more effective at short to medium ranges, and most effective in VATS where its limb-destroying effects can be put to precision use.

Like all constructed weapons, obtaining more than one copy of the schematics will upgrade the plans. Two plans makes the condition of the weapon equal to your repair skill (as opposed to half your repair skill with just one blueprint). Three plans will net a condition of 125% of your repair skill at construction.

It should be noted that while VATS glitches aren't uncommon, the Railway Rifle, specifically, has roughly a 6% chance of completely crashing your game with every shot, freezing the screen and causing the controller to vibrate violently until the console is turned off. This bug affects both the XBox 360 and PC versions. It can cause freezing glitches in the PS3 version of this game. UPDATE: Turns out the rifle can crash the game while firing in free-aim mode as well.

Construction
Components:
 * Fission Battery
 * Pressure Cooker
 * Steam Gauge Assembly
 * Railway Rifle Schematic
 * Crutch

Easy-to-find component locations:
 * Fission Battery: RoboCo Plant, Robot Repair Center
 * Pressure Cooker: Minefield Homes, Super-Duper Mart
 * Steam Gauge Assembly: Minefield Homes, Super-Duper Mart, RoboCo Plant, Robot Repair Center, Bethesda Offices West, Metro Tunnels
 * Crutch: Minefield Homes, Pinkerton's lab, Our Lady of Hope Hospital, Hamilton's Hideaway (In Bandit Room), drainage chamber to SE of Signal Oscar Zulu

You can find all components in Fort Constantine

Schematic Locations:
 * Tulip (General Goods Vendor) Underworld
 * Control Room (On the Workbench) MDPL-13 Power Station
 * Reward for Stealing Independence from Abraham Washington

Appearances
Railway Rifle appears only in Fallout 3.

Laszlo Radford uses the Railway Rifle, he is a random encounter who can be found at any random place in the wastelands at any random time.

Laszlo also appears nearby the AntAgonizer's lair and can be randomly encountered in places, just like Mel and other random NPC encounters.

At Lvl 18+ you have a 2% chance of encountering a Talon Company Merc Carrying a Railway Rifle.

Glitches
The reloading animation for this weapon only shows the Wanderer placing one Spike into the chamber, yet it will load up to 8.

MAJOR GLITCH: It has been observed by multiple players on different consoles that using the Railway Rifle, especially with VATS can result in freezing.