[MarmaladeEffect]

I'm writing an adventure in which the PCs may attempt to smuggle something valuable out of Seattle on an automated hazardous waste train (run by Renraku, but with space rented to the other corps) that leads to a facility near the border with the Salishe-Shidhe. They'll be ambushed by other runners, and a three way battle will develop between the two groups and anything that gets unleashed in the process. I want to have a lot of interesting stuff on the train - any ideas?

I've already decided to include some experimental "smart nano-lubricant" that's both highly toxic and seeks out the sites of greatest friction, and can't tell the difference between a hinge and an elbow joint, some experimental weapon salve (that may or may not work -- basically, it's an old hermetic magic potion that heals wounds if placed on the weapon that created them, based on some real-life superstitions), some bagged murder evidence that a corp wants incinerated (and is evidently such routine waste they've started outsourcing it), and a scary-looking but harmless biological construct, Obviously there should be something related to either toxic magic or HMMVV, but I don't want it to be too predictable; if they know they're on a hazardous waste train and a sludge spirit or a bunch of half-dead ghouls crawl out of a locker, they'll have seen it coming from miles away. I've said "hazardous", not toxic, so the waste could include magically hazardous stuff, rogue machinery, or anything else that presents some danger in disposal.

[farothel]

Spent uranium rods from a nuclear power plant.  Pretty hazardous I think (I've seen the National Geographic docu on how they transport this and I doubt they would do all that if there wasn't any danger).

[All4BigGuns]

Used condoms, pre-chewed bubblegum and used feminine hygiene products.

[farothel]

Another option is to look up some nasty sounding molecules that can be in the waste.
"Yes, you have hacked the manifest.  You see dimethyl ketone 2-propanone, sodium tetraborate, potassium ferrocyanide, 3,4,5,5-tetramethylhex-2-ene and 2,6-diphenyl-2-hexene.  Now what?"

[DaveDaveDaave]

Shiny Shiny boxes full of Rating 5 unprotected Agents preloaded onto slot and play chips running AOL Online 2073. Of course these are off to be incinerated, of course these are on a hazardous waste train, where else would you put them?

[All4BigGuns]

Shiny Shiny boxes full of Rating 5 unprotected Agents preloaded onto slot and play chips running AOL Online 2073. Of course these are off to be incinerated, of course these are on a hazardous waste train, where else would you put them?

In the mailboxes of Lofwyr, Richard Villiers and Damien Knight?

[DaveDaveDaave]

I could see G.O.D hunting the players like dogs through the streets for uploading AOL onto a public database, the lengths they would go to make examples of people slipping themn into "celebrity" inboxes would class as war crimes.

Thought of something else just nasty to have on the train. Dead bodies in a plastic sealed warded shipping container stacked so high and tightly no more can fit in. Lots of people have quite franky bizarre beliefs IRL about how their body should be disposed of ie an Irish 3 day Wake in Shadowrun is just asking for trouble.Then all the people who die on cruiseliners, rest homes with missing records, greyhound buses, John Does, all those unclaimed bodies/unprotected have to go somewhere to be disposed of in line with due procedure.

[TheHug]

Freight car filled with massive quantity of flubber.
(Fictional substance from old movie that, once bounced, only gains speed/energy instead of losing it.)

Except maybe in Shadowrun it's flammable.

[Mithlas]

The issue is that dumps tend to be sorted at least somewhat. You'll have radioactive, chemical, bio-hazardous, and possibly waste nanotech if you think that would be getting its own dumps in Shadowrun instead of specialty incinerators. With pretty much no exceptions (unless you figure the world's gone that way in ~50 years, which doesn't seem likely given humanity's love of sorting), you'll only find one of those hazards in a single waste dump, but once you pick one you can decide whether they'll have spent Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulators, aging tanks of chlorine, waste organs from failed gene-treatment experiments, or Universal Solvent nanites.

Even if Shadowrun might have them all thrown into the same cesspot, I'd still pick one to make it easier to decide what kinds of hazards are there. Plenty to pick from (at least with the nuclear/chem/bio trinity).

[MarmaladeEffect]

Oh, I intend for them to be sorted. And reasonably well labeled, too, except maybe for the incriminating evidence. It only makes sense that the corps will take reasonable safety measures, and the tension should come from having to survive while wiping out the enemy runners, not uncovering total deathtraps out of morbid curiosity. Like Food Fight, but instead of food mess from collateral damage, hazardous waste.

[All4BigGuns]

Oh, I intend for them to be sorted. And reasonably well labeled, too, except maybe for the incriminating evidence. It only makes sense that the corps will take reasonable safety measures, and the tension should come from having to survive while wiping out the enemy runners, not uncovering total deathtraps out of morbid curiosity. Like Food Fight, but instead of food mess from collateral damage, hazardous waste.

Don't shoot the enriched uranium crates...

[Aryeonos]

Why not a train full of Kane's ex-partners and other various leavings.

[All4BigGuns]

Train of 'failed' (read: uncontrollable) Cyber Zombies. 

[GiraffeShaman]

You could throw in some trid pirate journalists, perhaps in a copter or something, on a lead about something being transported on the train. Not really dangerous, but both the PC and NPC runner teams might find it annoying to be filmed.

[Mirikon]

Feral ghouls dosed with K-10. The latest in biowarfare.