In Red Dead Redemption 2, robbing trains and stagecoaches can be a way to supplement your income between larger, story mode jobs, and in the post-game. However, the only way these are worth the trouble in RDR2 is if you do them right. Below, we’ll tell you how to rob a train and stagecoach the right way in Red Dead Redemption 2.
How to Rob a Train in Red Dead Redemption 2
Robbing trains in RDR2 has the potential to be quite lucrative. Unfortunately, it’s also incredibly easy for it to end in disaster, and for the price, you earn on your head to outweigh any take you get from performing the robbery.
The key to pulling off a good train robbery is preparation. First, you need to grab some dynamite for any safes located on the train, then you need to stake out a location. When planning to rob a train in Red Dead Redemption 2, you’ll want to find a nice, secluded area. This can be tricky as you want it to be far from towns, but still, have enough open space that you can get your horse up to speed.
Once you’ve found your spot, you’ll need to wait. Trains run pretty regularly in RDR2 so it won’t take too long, and you can easily spot them by the billowing clouds coming from their smokestacks. How you proceed once you’ve found a train depends on how much time you want to spend on the robbery. The more time you spend on the train, the more likely you are to accrue a bounty and the more likely you are to be caught in a firefight.
When robbing a train in RDR2, the best paths in order of risk are:
- Just hit one mail car safe.
- Head straight to the safes in the mail cars
- Rob the passengers and hit the safes.
The layout of a train in Red Dead Redemption 2 can change, but will roughly be:
- Engine
- Tender
- Mail Car
- Luggage Car
- Passenger Car
- Passenger Car
- Passenger Car
- Mail Car
- Caboose
The two safes on the train are located in the mail cars and are typically where you’ll find the biggest take.
To assault a train, you’ll usually find the best approach is to hit it from the rear. You’ll almost always see a single guard here, standing watch from the back of the caboose. To take them out without triggering the other guards you can approach from the rear of the train on a horse. Make sure not to approach directly from behind, as this will lead to the guard warning you off and eventually firing on you.
When heading towards the train, don your mask, and do so from one of the sides so as not to alert the guard and use your lasso to snatch them off the caboose. Alternatively, you can use the bow for a stealth kill. Once they’re down, you can jump onto the caboose from your horse and move to the back of the train and enter through the rear door.
Once you’re on the train, don’t go straight to looting. There are typically guards stationed in the mail car, so you’ll need to observe their placement and attempt to take them out with stealth. This can be tricky, as they’re usually situated in a way that they’re very close to one another. You also risk having a passenger in the next car see you kill them.
This is usually the point where things tend to fall apart during a train robbery. You have to make a choice here whether you want to try and remain stealth or go in guns blazing. Sometimes you can lure a guard into the caboose by whistling and stealth kill them with your knife, but it’s tricky.
Regardless of the outcome, your next move will alert the rest of the NPCs on the train that you’re there. If you’re playing it safe, you can head into the mail car after dealing with the guards and target the one safe. It can be opened by using dynamite to blow open the door. Depending on your luck there could be either a pittance or several hundred dollars here.
You could also choose to skip the safe for now and rob the passengers. Again, this is a situation in which you’re at the mercy of the RNG. If you manage to rob all the passengers, you may get a healthy take, but you’re almost sure to get a bounty. At this point, you can jump off the train and hightail it or go all in and take out the second mail car. There will usually be two or three guards stationed here to take out if they didn’t funnel into the passenger cars to try and stop you. Once they’re taken out, the passengers and engineer have likely fled, and lawmen are on their way if they haven’t arrived already.
At this point, your best move is to take control of the engine and move the train. Just keep going until you lose the bounty aura around you and the wanted warning disappears. I usually like to stop the train on a bridge or some other terrain that is hard for the NPCs to navigate. They’ll never board the train from another car, at least not in my experience, so as long as you can keep them from easily getting to your exact location, you just need to worry about gunfire.
Once the train is stopped somewhere appropriate, you can search the train for items at your leisure and blow the safes in the mailrooms. With some luck, you’ll have taken cash and items worth more than your bounty.
How to Rob a Stagecoach in Red Dead Redemption 2
Robbing a stagecoach in Red Dead Redemption 2 is a bit less work than taking on a train. Because there is less risk involved, it can be more worthwhile to target wagons and stagecoaches, even if the take is smaller.
Like trains, stagecoaches take a specific route which you can see on the map. Also like trains, you’ll want to find a secluded area to attack in. Once you’ve found a location, you’ll need to wait for a coach to come. Stagecoaches are the big wagons pulled by a team of four horses and are always carrying goods or cash in a lockbox on the rear of the coach. However, many of the wagons you meet also contain chests and lockboxes. The covered Conestoga wagons in particular almost always have something good in the back.
Regardless of what type of wagon you decide to go after, the robbery process is mostly the same. You need to choose whether you want to kill the driver and passengers or let them live. The drawback to shooting them is that you’ll lose honor points and if the bodies are discovered, you’ll have to deal with the witness. If you just knock them out or throw them off the wagon, you’ll almost certainly get a bounty as well.
The best way to deal with the occupants of a stagecoach, to put it brutally, is to kill them. If you’re in a secluded area, you can take them out, loot the bodies, and be gone before any witnesses arrive. If by chance an NPC wanders by, you can just add to your take by killing and looting them as well. Once you have control of the stagecoach. Drive it out of sight of the trail, and you can break into the strongbox at your leisure.
If you’re far enough along in the game, you can get some extra cash by selling the coach as well. If you’ve been introduced to the wagon fence in Emerald Ranch, you can get around $20-40 out of a stagecoach by selling it to him.
