If you’ve spent even a few hours hauling heavy cargo across Death Stranding 2’s sprawling, BT-infested landscape, you’ve probably already daydreamed about a way to skip the muddy slopes, broken highways, and hostile MULE camps entirely. I know I did, after my third failed trip up the mountain to the Weather Station where my truck got stuck in timefall and half my medical cargo degraded before I could reach the hub. That’s exactly what the Death Stranding 2 monorail delivers: a fast, low-effort way to move large loads across huge swathes of the map without wasting resources on truck repairs or avoiding timefall storms. I’ve spent over 40 hours testing the monorail network across multiple playthroughs, and I’ve found that using it correctly can cut your average delivery time by more than 60% for long-haul routes. It’s not perfect, though, and there are a lot of common mistakes new players make that turn this game-changing feature into a frustrating waste of materials.
How to Unlock the Full Death Stranding 2 Monorail Network
You’ll get access to your first monorail segment early in the Central Region arc of the main story, after you complete the mission to help the UCA transport engineers repair the test line between Lake Knot City and the South Distribution Center. Don’t expect the entire network to open up right after that mission, though. You won’t unlock the entire monorail network by just completing the main story – most segments require you to donate chiral crystals, metal, and ceramics to individual station terminals to connect them to the chiral network. Each station you connect adds a new stretch of track to the system, and you’ll get a notification every time a new line becomes available for use.
Some remote segments in the Edge Region won’t even show up as available to unlock until you complete side quests for local porter hubs and prepper settlements. I skipped these side quests on my first playthrough, and I didn’t get access to the full monorail network until 30 hours after I beat the main story. That’s a mistake I won’t make again. Prioritize connecting stations that sit between high-volume delivery routes first – for example, the line between the Mountain Knot City and the Weather Station will save you hours of tricky climbs through timefall-prone terrain, even if it costs a little extra in materials to connect.
Key Benefits of Using the Monorail for Cargo Deliveries
The biggest advantage of the monorail over other transport options is that it’s completely elevated, so you don’t have to worry about any ground-based threats messing up your delivery. BTs can’t reach the track, MULEs don’t have tools to hijack cars from the line, and rough terrain or flooded roads won’t slow you down at all. I’ve run dozens of deliveries through areas with active BT outbreaks and heavy timefall via monorail, and I’ve never lost a single piece of cargo to those threats when I stayed on the track.
You also get way more cargo capacity with the monorail than any other vehicle in the game. You can carry up to 4x more cargo on a single monorail trip than you can in a fully upgraded truck – that’s a huge plus for bulk deliveries of construction materials or fragile medical supplies that you’d normally have to split across multiple trips. The monorail car also uses far less energy than any ground vehicle, only needing a single charge at a station terminal to cover 300km of track. That means you don’t have to carry extra battery packs or stop mid-trip to charge, even for cross-map deliveries.
One underrated benefit I don’t see many players talk about is that monorail trips let you step away from the controller for a few minutes if you need to. Once you set your route, the car runs automatically, so you can grab a snack or answer a text without worrying about crashing or running into threats. That’s a nice touch for players who don’t have hours of uninterrupted time to play in one sitting.
Common Monorail Mistakes to Avoid for Smooth Travel
Even though the monorail is pretty straightforward to use, I’ve seen dozens of players waste hours and materials because they skip small but important steps. The most common mistakes I’ve noticed across my playthroughs and community playtests include:
- Forgetting to check if your entire route is connected before loading cargo: If there’s a gap in the line, you’ll get stuck halfway and have to abandon your load or call in a porter to help you finish the trip, which adds at least 20 minutes to your delivery time.
- Overloading the monorail car with unbalanced cargo: While it can hold a lot of weight, lopsided loads can cause the car to derail if you hit a high-speed section of track, and you’ll lose all your fragile cargo in the fall to the ground below.
- Ignoring station maintenance alerts: Every station needs small amounts of chiral crystals every 10 trips to keep the line running, and if you skip these contributions, the line will shut down temporarily for repairs, blocking your route for 30 in-game minutes.
If you do end up derailing, don’t panic – you can call a recovery drone from any nearby terminal to pull your car back onto the track, though you will lose 10-15% of any fragile cargo you’re carrying if it fell from the car. You can also avoid most derailments entirely by checking the load balance meter on the station terminal before you depart, which will flag any lopsided loads before you start your trip. Also, don’t try to use the monorail for very short trips under 5km – the time you spend loading and unloading the car is longer than just taking a bike or walking the route yourself.
How to Customize Your Monorail Route for Specific Delivery Needs
Once you have the core network unlocked, you don’t have to stick to the default routes the game gives you. You can adjust your route to fit the type of cargo you’re carrying, which will help you get higher delivery ratings and avoid unnecessary damage. For example, if you’re moving fragile medical supplies or ancient artifacts that can’t handle bumps, you can choose the low-speed track option that avoids sharp turns, which cuts your risk of cargo damage by 90% even if your load is a little unbalanced. The low-speed option only adds 10-15% to your total travel time, which is more than worth it for high-value fragile cargo.
If you’re moving time-sensitive cargo like emergency vaccines or temperature-sensitive food, you can unlock high-speed track upgrades by completing the transport engineer side quests. These upgrades increase the monorail’s top speed by 40%, and they let you skip most of the slow speed limits around sharp turns. I used these high-speed lines to complete a 250km emergency vaccine delivery in 18 minutes on my last playthrough, which got me a S-rank delivery and a bunch of rare upgrade materials as a reward.
You can also add custom cargo stops near remote prepper shelters if you regularly make deliveries to those locations, which saves you from having to walk the last mile from the nearest official station. Custom stops only cost 200 metal and 100 chiral crystals to build, so they’re a great investment if you’re working on raising your connection level with preppers to unlock rare items and upgrades. Just make sure the stop is within 1km of an existing monorail line, or you won’t be able to connect it to the network.
At the end of the day, the Death Stranding 2 monorail is one of the most useful tools in the game for any player who wants to spend less time fighting the terrain and more time completing deliveries and progressing the story. It takes a little bit of work to unlock the full network and learn how to use it correctly, but the time and resources you’ll save over the course of your playthrough are more than worth the initial effort. Don’t rush to unlock every segment at once, start with the routes you use most often, and build out from there to get the most value out of the system. You’ll wonder how you ever played the game without it once you get used to how fast and reliable it is.
