Coal Train

The Coal Train is a vehicle and location in Final Fantasy VII. The trains travels along a track that leads from the Corel Reactor to North Corel. The trains are used to transport a Huge Materia during the game's events.

Story
Shinra Electric Power Company tries to transport a Huge Materia out of the Mt. Corel Reactor, only to have their train captured by the party as led by Cid Highwind. Depending on the player's actions, the town of North Corel can be saved or destroyed.

Pursuing Train
This is the train that Cid drives to pursue the train with the Huge Materia.

To catch up with the train Cid should alternate between levers, [Directional button Up] and [Menu] (or and  in the PlayStation version). The quicker this is done the faster the train is caught up with.

If the player catches up to the train the party will leap the cars of the Huge Materia train. If the player fails to catch up withe train then they depart in the Town area of North Corel.

Cars
This screen on the Huge Materia train contains four cars. The player enters the screen after leaping from the pursuing train. Each car has an encounter occur when the player runs over them. They are:
 * 1) Gas Ducter
 * 2) Gas Ducter x2
 * 3) Wolfmeister
 * 4) Eagle Gun

Exiting off the left side of the screen takes the player to the engine part of the train. If the train gets to North Corel before the player stops them then the train crashes into North Corel and the player appears in the Inn.

Engine
An engineer driving the train is found here. The party will encounter him as an Attack Squad. After that the player will attempt to stop the train to prevent it from crashing into North Corel.

After this the player will find themselves in the Town area of North Corel. If the train does crash then they will instead find themselves in the Inn of North Corel.

Mt. Corel Huge Materia
This Huge Materia quest is undertaken after dropping off Tifa at Mideel when Cid as the party leader. It may be done either before or after the Fort Condor Reactor Huge Materia quest. The result of this quest decides the state and items available at North Corel.

The quest is started once the party approach the Corel Reactor on Mt. Corel. The sidequest ends with the party in North Corel, so traveling from Mt. Corel is the quicker route. Alternatively, if the player has a Chocobo that can travel over mountains, once can park the Highwind outside North Corel and then travel over the mountain and depart from the Chocobo at the entrance to Mt. Nibel and enter through there.

A battle against two Shinra soldiers starts (a pair of Attack Squad enemies), then a train with five cars exits the reactor. Cid then enters the reactor and exits with a train with a single car. While on the pursuing train, a ten minute timer is given and instruction to alternate levers to catch up with the train is given. The pursuing train is moved through alternating button presses of [Directional button Up] and [Menu] (or and  in the PlayStation version). The longer it takes to press the buttons the more times the player will have to press them as the pursued train gets further away. Should the timer expire before the party catching up with the train then the Huge Materia is lost and the Ultima Materia never becomes obtainable.

Once the player has caught up the party will jump onto the cars of the train holding the Huge Materia. On each of the four cars the player will encounter a battle (detailed here). The time continues to run down in these battles. Once the player has approached the other side of the screen they get to the Engine, where they encounter the engineer, a single Attack Squad enemy.

After defeating the engineer, the player must slow attempt to slow down the train. The player is then told to input buttons, although whatever they do the train will speed up. If the player gets past this point with time left then they will successfully stop the train and get the Huge Materia. In the following scenes the player will be given the Ultima Materia. If the player runs out of time at any point after boarding the Huge Materia train they will crash into North Corel. The player loses out on the Huge Materia, the Ultima Materia has to be bought for 50,000 gil, and North Corel's General Store becomes unavailable.

The Catastrophe item becomes available from a standing woman in the Rundown Hut in North Corel. If the Fort Condor Reactor Huge Materia mission has also been completed, the Ultimate Weapon at Mideel story event becomes available.

Cars

 * Gas Ducter (Boss)
 * Gas Ducter x2 (Boss)
 * Wolfmeister (Boss)
 * Eagle Gun (Boss)

Engine

 * Attack Squad (Boss)