Band Of Brilliance

Call Of Duty : Modern Warfare 2

The map is one of the largest maps included in Modern Warfare 2. It is however smaller than the DLC map "Fuel". The map takes place in the surroundings of a train derailment, in a snowy environment which is in Russia. The map is mostly open land, separated by train tracks, including a bridge, as well as large warehouse buildings in the center and a strip mall at one end of the map.

Derail is often considered a sniper-orientated map, though it can easily accommodate many different styles of play. Close quarters fighting occurs in the large buildings in the middle of the map, whereas long range fighting suiting assault rifle or sniper rifle users will take place across the fields and on the roof of the larger warehouse. When sniping, although useful on other maps, thermal scope is a bad idea, as the enemies blend with the snow.

A common strategy is to defend the center building, as it provides a good field of vision over the rest of the map.
The trees on either side of the map provide excellent cover for flanking. It should also be noted that the bushes make the player nearly invisible to the enemy.
A common way to get first blood on Derail is to rush to the center building and instead of going inside the player goes towards the side of the building next to the trains.
This map provides several high vantage points ideal for placing Sentry Guns. This includes the parapet out of the warehouse in the back, looking out of the windows in the central building (provided the player's team controls it), on top of one of the rail cars, or on top of one of the single story buildings near the Task Force 141 start.

Since this map has many secluded points and a rather large space, players should not worry about opponents stealing their crates if they are quite a distance away from the carnage. However, don't let your guard down as enemies can be anywhere at anytime.
On this map, the AC-130 circles around the map but leaves some areas where the weapons cannot aim to. Use this to great advantage to quickly take out any enemy AC130s that are called in. The best way to take down an AC-130 or Chopper Gunners is to have the Cold-blooded perk and fire a Stinger from one of the windows of either warehouse (the player will be very hard to see indoors), then quickly relocate to another window as the gunner will see the smoke trail and fire again. In the case of AC-130s, however, there may need more than one person with Stingers, a Javelin or the Scavenger perk.
Because of the vast distance that players are placed from the opposing team's spawn, it is recommended to have Marathon or Lightweight perks to reach the enemy quickly. One can also use the Marathon andLightweight combo to flank the enemy quickly at the start of the match.
Within the ground floor of the rail-yard warehouse, there are stacks of boxes which provide well-covered vantage points for camping objective B (for Search and Destroy and Demolition) and also make an easy job of camping the main entrance of the warehouse.
Scrambler Pro helps when trying to take the center building as the enemy will almost always have claymores set up. Tossing flashbangs or stun grenades can temporarily stop claymores from detonating allowing for an easy pass.
Going prone with an LMG at one of the corridors in the center building can help thin out rushing enemies.
The multi-story buildings in the back of the town can provide shelter for players who want to use their killstreaks. It is also a good place to plant a Tactical Insertion on Capture the Flag if the enemy flag is by the TF141 spawn point (for Team Deathmatch).
Because some of the train cars are open, the player can run and jump up in the cars to use user-activated kill streaks.
Players can get on top of most of the train cars using the ladders along the sides of them. This is also possible on the engine on the western edge of the map.
The Arctic Ghillie suit found on snipers contrasts with the insides of buildings, increasing susceptibility to being spotted.
Using any colorful camouflage makes weapons extremely visible against the snow.
The Thermal Scope is very ineffective because enemies will be hard to distinguish against the snow, however an enemy with Cold-Blooded will stand out.
Despite the massive distance between spawns on this map, it is very easy for the defense team to wipe out the attackers before they even reach them. To cover the bridge side, a sniper with Marathon can run all the way to the third floor of the back warehouse and bust the windows to access a snowy parapet that offers a perfect and shady spot to pick off attackers before they cross the bridge or run past it towards the northern flank. The southern approach is also easily defensible. The best method is to climb the snow-covered boxes next to the cargo containers near the central office structure. From the top of the container, one can then jump back to the highest box and from there jump left to another container which overlooks the entire southern flank, and the fence provides decent concealment with some fine adjustment of position. This particular spot is also out of line of sight from the infamous town rooftops which usually allow the attackers an early advantage. Having two skilled snipers to use these two spots forces the enemy to approach the rail-yard directly, which is an extremely uncomfortable position.
Snipers may tend to wait in the windows of the main building on the side facing the town, this can be extremely dangerous to the player, as the long run straight from the town to the main building provides very little cover until the tree line, and even then it is still easy to get pinned down. However the walls facing the town can easily be penetrated by light machine gun fire, killing the snipers, and possibly others inside.

Trivia

The locomotive on the map has the number 1337 on it, also known as l33t or leet.These same markings can be found on the Call of Duty 4 map Backlot.
On the flatbed car of the derailed train there is a part of a satellite that is seen in the hangar during the campaign mission "Cliffhanger." It is possible that the premise for this map is a TF141 sabotage mission on the Russian train.
Also, several of the train cars and containers have the words "Kriegler" (Lead Map Designer) on them making reference to the name that is seen on many levels including "Highrise", "Suspension", "Crew Expendable", and "Mile High Club".
Some of the trains have the letters "IW" and a few numbers, referring to Infinity Ward.
There is a teddy bear in the central building in a file cabinet; it can be opened by hitting it.
In one of the garbage cans in the main office, there is a sticker of Santa.
The power line towers can be heard creaking in the wind.
Weapons, when viewed through first-person, appear to have frosted over. This is easiest seen with Urban or Red Tiger camouflage. On guns where the camouflage cover most of the gun and are metallic, appear to have Blue Tiger on them even though no camouflage is applied. This is most noticeable on the AK-47.
More than likely the map is actually set in the state of Alaska because written on the couplers is AAR which stands for Association of American Railroads and the locomotive itself (an EMD GP9) and the cars are of American origin.
In one of the buildings, the player can find a small sign saying "Roycewicz Storage Company", referring to the Infinity Ward employee Roycewicz.
In the building with all the shipping creates there are multiple pictures of a Russian woman with a Thompson.
Around the computers in the main building there are horse pictures and children's drawings.
In the forest, it's possible to hear snow falling from trees. However, snow never falls from any trees.
The term "Derail" means that a single train or many trains are not on the track, or have fallen off of the track. The trains in this map, as the player can see, are all wrecked and derailed.