When Snowpiercer first left Chicago, she was supposed to have Wilford on her. Instead, Melanie left Wilford behind as we learned over time. Wilford had a plan up his sleeve with Big Alice, but what was the original intention for the train in Snowpiercer?
As we get further into the final season, Wilford has just wanted to get his revenge on Melanie and Layton and get his hands on Big Alice again. Big Alice is important to him. Granted, it was his survival for seven years before joining with Snowpiercer, but it seems more than that to him.
Wilford always has a plan in Snowpiercer
Wilford doesn’t trust anybody, and it’s clear that he never has. He made it clear that his trains are his children. He created them from scratch. That means Big Alice was always important to him, even when Snowpiercer was the train he was supposed to be on.
He likely had some sort of plan for the train. There is no way he would have just left it behind and let it freeze. What if he was going to head out to get Big Alice and connect it to Snowpiercer at some point. This would allow him to have two engines and a world of spare parts for when Snowpiercer started to fail. He likely knew that Snowpiercer was going to fail at some point. Parts only last for so long.
When he was left behind, he had no choice but to use Big Alice in another way. He had to retrofit it to support life, but there were flaws, leading to the cull.
Could Big Alice have had a minimal crew?
It’s possible that maybe there wasn’t an intention to join the two trains together, but Big Alice wouldn’t be left motionless. What if the train was always supposed to have a skeleton crew that would keep the train moving. It could go ahead of Snowpiercer on the track to clear it, while carrying supplies and extra parts if and when needed.
The original train likely could have housed a few people to just keep the train on the go. Maybe there would have been a plan for some engineers or individuals to switch over between the two trains. There has to be a reason the two trains were designed to couple and uncouple with each other.
It’s certainly possible that Big Alice was more of an afterthought; a twist to keep viewers on their toes. However, even afterthoughts can be built into the plot, and it would be nice to know what Big Alice was supposed to be used for if Wilford had been on Snowpiercer from the start.