The Bridge to Nowhere is the 79th main story mission in Red Dead Redemption 2 (RDR2). This walkthrough will guide you through all objectives of The Bridge to Nowhere Main Quest including all Gold Medals for 100% completion.
The Bridge to Nowhere is unlocked after completing The Delights of Van Horn after an hour of in-game time passes.
Quest Giver: John Marston
Chapter: 6
Region: New Hanover
Gold Medal Requirements:
- Plant the dynamite within 1 minute 35 seconds
- Escape the oncoming train within 19 seconds
Starting Location: Bacchus Station, New Hanover
Talk to John Marston
Join John Marston near Bacchus Station to rig the nearby bridge to blow up. After loading up a hand cart with high explosives, it’s time to wheel out to the bridge. Carefully.
When you reach a point just past the ladder, Marston will tell you to stop. Grab a box of dynamite off of the hand cart and walk over to the railing just to the right of the ladder.
When in position, press 
/ 
to lower it over the side…
…then alternate between 
/ 
and 
/ 
to lower the box down to John. Once he has the first crate, repeat the process for the second crate.
Immediately climb down the ladder and prepare for a really tight time limit.
- GOLD MEDAL: Plant the dynamite within 1 minute 35 seconds
Grab a bundle of dynamite and plant it on one of the three bridge supports marked with a waypoint. You need to hit / the second you’re in position to plant the dynamite.
Quickly run back to the crates to get your next bundle, and repeat the entire process for all three supports.
Make sure to do them in order from closest to furthest away, because once the third dynamite is planted, you immediately start a cutscene and are teleported to the bottom of the ladder, meaning that you only have to cover the distance to the furthest support once, rather than there and back. There is virtually no margin for error to get this task completed in 1:35, and every little bit helps.
Climb back to the top and run for the hand cart. As soon as you’re near it, hit 
/ 
to drive the handcart.
- GOLD MEDAL: Escape the oncoming train within 19 seconds
Then when Arthur’s side is up and the icon in the lower right lights up, hold 
/ 
and release it as he raises it. Its critical that you get this rhythm down, and release at the correct moment or you will lose speed. And if you thought the previous time limit was tight, this one is downright ridiculous.
Once you’re clear, Arthur and John will leap to safety as the train speeds past.
Follow John down to the plunger and blow the bridge up to end the mission.
This finishes The Bridge to Nowhere main mission in Red Dead Redemption 2. Now the next quest Archeology for Beginners starts.
Next Up: Archeology for Beginners
For more Walkthroughs with all gold medals, check out the complete Red Dead Redemption 2 Story Walkthrough.
bd says
Yet another dumb totally unecessary mission with an impossible time limit which can just be done with a simple cutscene. Either John gets in your way or the non existant controls make you spend a minute trying to readjust your position to grab the next dynamite roll.
RSB says
i keep seeing comments from you complaining about missions that could be cutscenes. would you rather just not have a game to play? If you had your way and the game was only 4 missions long you’d complain it was too short.
bd says
Dude also has a turning circle of a boat. Picking up dynamite is also conveniently the same as the jump button, so you’ll be jumping over the railing a lot. It’s almost like the guy who designed this crap is trying to troll you and wants you to have as little fun as possible.
Well, at least it’s not a 5 min horse ride with endless incessant chatter prior to doing this god awful crap.
Chimax says
A horse ride with character building dialogue is bad? Sounds like you should go play Call of a Duty.
Sam says
Chimax, the dialogue is not the problem. The problem is being forced to spend 5 minutes trotting on your horse listening to dialogue, when you’re trying to complete a mission that has a time limit of 7 minutes.
P4F says
Apparently after patch 1.03 developers changed some requirements because my quest log says the first one are 3 minutes 35 seconds.
Sorry me for my English.
PoisonJam says
Thanks for the info.
PoisonJam says
Don’t know what you’re talking about buddy, because it’s still 1 minute 35 seconds. None of the gold medal requirements were changed in patch 1.03.
wjabf says
Yesterday, I played this mission, and found if your temporary horse is near the mission point, and it will automatic walk to the hand cart. When you stop the hand cart first time, you will find your temporary horse will walk to you and even you never call it. If you let it run away, it will also appear close to you when you drive the hand cart for escape the train. Because the bridge is narrow, and your temporary horse will be killed by train. So be careful of this bug.
wjabf says
And I found the best way is leave your temporary horse far enough form mission point. Or hope you have good luck call it run away and it will not be hitted by train.
EK Pilot says
I used first person much easier to navigate
Chris says
I tried this mission, on the first attempt got the bronze, as I failed to complete both requirements for gold, i replayed it immediately and on my second attempt felt I did much worse, even had the train crash into me and had to restart from checkpoint. Finished the mission to my surprise gold medal popped up. Maybe the restart from checkpoint helped me somehow? I’m not sure.
kenteki says
After a dozen frustrated retrials, I have found a trick to do it easier – once you have lowered the dynamite, instead of climbing down the stairs, climb over the handrail to drop down. Just be careful not to drop down the valley. This saves you a few precious seconds.
David Lo Pan says
Thanks, I was able to get gold after using your “jumping over the railing” trick, also get killed by the train and restart the checkpoint, like people below stated.
Lee says
I finally did it thanks to you. Thank you my good sir.
Pulling my hair out says
Gold on a fourth attempt but it was on a replay of a bronze rated mission. I was able to handle the mission in two chunks. I got to the third stick of Dynamite before John could tell Morgan he’s going up. If you crouch and walk past him on the left you can then break for the third and farthest pillar. For the Cart challenge I would let the train run us over and then hit Restart Checkpoint which when done correctly I was able to achieve a gold. So really like nine attempts on the cart. Good luck.
Pulling my hair out says
Edit* On the left is in reference to the left side of the body for John Marston.
RedDead69 says
Yep that’s exactly how I did it. Retrying the checkpoint is the trick.
David Lo Pan says
The re-try checkpoint worked for me, I died on my 1st attempt (couldn’t get rhythm right of the cart) and the re-try I got the 0:19 second requirement.
arekkusu_kidd says
On top of the tip to restart at checkpoint (this works for both sections), I found this to be one of the rare missions best done as a replay. After you regain control each time, hit left, highlight the mission, then navigate to the mission checklist. This way you can tell whether you’ve successfully passed each part without having to redo the whole mission over and over again.