Rail Racer (RID)

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This article is about the Robots in Disguise Autobot combiner. For the Universe Railbot combiner, see Rail Racer (Universe){{#switch:{{#sub:Rail Racer (Universe)|-1}} != .= ?= .

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Rail Racer is an Autobot combiner from the Robots in Disguise continuity family.
Train, train, take me on out of this town....

Rail Racer is the combined form of Team Bullet Train. He's basically kickass and you can't hope to beat him.

Rail Racer is composed of:

Fiction

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Cartoon continuity

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2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

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Voice actor: David Lodge (English), Shōji Izumi (Japanese){{#if: Mikhail Tihonov (Russian), Jorge Ornelas (Latin-American Spanish)|, Mikhail Tihonov (Russian), Jorge Ornelas (Latin-American Spanish)}}
Optimus shows Rail Racer the secret combiner handshake.

Team Bullet Train formed Rail Racer for the first time to fight Megatron after saving the Linear RFG train. As the Autobot Brothers watched in awe, Rail Racer proceeded to see Megatron off, stating that he can't stand anyone who blows up railway tracks. Bullet Train to the Rescue Rail Racer saw Megatron off again when the Predacon leader attacked Metro City, although on that occasion it turned out that the attack had been a diversion while Sky-Byte carried out a mission elsewhere. The Secret of the Ruins

Team Bullet Train formed Rail Racer for the highly important task of watching Grandpa steam off into the distance. Secret Weapon: D-5

When Rail Racer attempted to fight the Commandos, they responded by forming Ruination, much to the surprise of all Autobots present. Ruination quickly took the upper hand, but the Autobot Brothers lent a hand and Rail Racer was then able to use their Ultra Blast to blow Ruination apart. Commandos

DOOJ!

Rail Racer also defended a power plant against the Decepticons, The Fish Test but the second time he faced Ruination was when the Commandos stole some energy from the East Power Station. While the pair were grappling, the Build Team siphoned off the stolen energy and let Rail Racer know it was safe to retreat. The Decepticons were not pleased. A Test of Metal

After the Autobot Brothers had been taken hostage, Optimus was led to a remote location, where the Decepticons told him his troops were being held. Predictably enough, it was a trap, and the Decepticons attacked the Autobot leader once he was alone. Team Bullet Train rushed in to help their leader, combining into Rail Racer once on location. However, Scourge warned that if the Autobots were to resist, harm would come to the three brothers. Rail Racer was forced to do nothing as he and Optimus took the full brunt of the Decepticons' assault. Thankfully, Ultra Magnus rescued the brothers and came in to help fight Megatron and his troops.The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus

"I can't see my own feet."

Landfill and Rail Racer finally fought side by side in order to protect Fortress Maximus from the Decepticon forces Fortress Maximus and later fought Ruination at length while the Build Team hid the giant robot in Metro City. Koji Gets His Wish They again fought a protracted battle when the Decepticons located Cerebros and activated Maximus. The Autobot forces were finally able to see the Decepticons off when Koji Onishi commanded Maximus to halt. Maximus Emerges

"Wait, is that an explosion or just streaky anime lines?"

After the Decepticons located the Autobot base, they were lured to a predetermined location where the entire Autobot force was waiting in ambush. The arrival of the "Megastar" turned the tide in favour of the Decepticons, and Rail Racer attempted to attack it from below but was blown back by a barrage of missiles. Surprise Attack! His attempts to prevent Galvatron drain energy from Fortress Maximus also failed, and Team Bullet Train separated in order to beat a hasty retreat. Galvatron's Revenge The final formation of Rail Racer came when the Autobots moved to defend Optimus Prime from the Decepticons. They were able to shield Optimus from Galvatron's paralysing ray long enough for their leader to recover and return with reinforcements. During the decisive battle between Omega Prime and Galvatron, all of the Autobots were held in a paralysed state by the Decepticon leader, but were freed when Galvatron was defeated by Omega Prime. The Final Battle

Dreamwave Robots in Disguise comic

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Rail Racer was seen via T-AI's viewscreen, presumably on a mission since the Autobots had spread their forces thin. Ultra Magnus...to the Rescue?

Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity

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The events of the Robots in Disguise cartoon occur in Japanese continuity as noted above, except that they take place in the world of the original Generation 1 cartoon where the Transformer cast are time travelers from the Beast Era to Tokyo in the year 2000{{#if:|, and is}}{{#if:| a character separate from }}{{#if:| named ""}}.

Rail Racer's adventures with the Dimensional Patrol continued under the command of Devil God Fire Convoy. Epiloge

Ask Vector Prime

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In some universal streams, such as Viron 704.31 Epsilon, Dominus Trannis was the result of Rail Racer being reformatted by the Robo-Smasher. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/07/30

Toys

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Robots in Disguise (2001)

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I'm the Hasbro guy, not the Takara guy. I got a proper name and all.
  • J-Five (2000) / Railspike (Mega Class, 2001)
  • Takara ID number: C-012
  • J-Seven (2000) / Rapid Run (Mega Class, 2001)
  • Takara ID number: C-013
  • J-Four (2000) / Midnight Express (Mega Class, 2001)
Robots in Disguise Rail Racer is the combination of the three Team Bullet Train toys: Railspike forms the upper torso and arms, Rapid Run is the mid-torso and backpack, and Midnight Express forms the legs and hips (thus his weird individual-robot-mode proportions). He carries Rapid Run's shield/launcher, as well as a large cannon formed from both Railspike and Midnight Express' weapons.
There are significant differences between the Takara and Hasbro versions of Team Bullet Train. The Takara versions have several portions of their train modes cast in transparent plastic to give them clear windows, requiring extensive paint applications to blend in. The Hasbro versions released in 2001 replaced most of the transparent plastics with opaques to cut back on the sheer amount of paint needed to complete the train modes; on top of that, there are versions of each train with both painted and unpainted windows (or in Midnight Express's case, gray-painted windows and metallic-blue-painted windows). There were also numerous other, smaller changes made to each of the individual components for the Hasbro releases, detailed on their individual pages.


  • JRX (Multi-pack, 2000)
  • Release date: August ?? 2000
  • ID number: C-015
  • Known designers: Yuichiro Hira (TakaraTomy){{#if: |, {{{2}}}}}
In Japan, JRX was available both by purchasing the individual components, and as a complete box set. However, this set only came with the bio card for JRX, and did not include the individual components' bio cards.
JUSCO stores offered the Super Indy Heat toy as a freebie with the purchase of the JRX box set.
Sonokong also released this gift set in Korean markets with no differences to the Takara release other than the packaging.


Notes

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  • The Takara versions of the Bullet Trains appear to have had a particularly bad run of quality control regarding the paint applications, with many having sloppily-applied decos. While the individually-packaged Bullet Trains came in clear-window packages to see the toys, the box set was completely windowless, so it was kind of a crap shoot as to the quality of paint you got with the set.
  • Reportedly, the Bullet Trains, which were developed with Takara's very flexible pricing structure, really did not fit into Hasbro's more rigid existing price-points, budget-wise. They cost too much to be sold as Deluxes, but weren't really up to Mega-costs.
  • Rail Racer's head design seems to be based on the title mecha from Blue Comet SPT Layzner, which also has its eyes behind a green glass dome with a blue frame.
  • In the cartoon, Rail Racer sometimes refers to itself as "we", which opens up questions on how much of an emergent personality this combined form has compared to previous Generation 1 combiners.
  • His individual component's names (J-5, J-7, and J-4) are based on their respective bullet train models ([[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}500 Series Shinkansen|{{#if:500 Series|500 Series|500 Series Shinkansen}}]], [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}700 Series Shinkansen|{{#if:700 Series|700 Series|700 Series Shinkansen}}]], and [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}E4 Series Shinkansen|{{#if:E4 Series|E4 Series|E4 Series Shinkansen}}]]).
  • An abandoned OTFCC 2004-exclusive redeco of Robots in Disguise Rail Racer would have been named "Dominus Trannis". While not the same character as the original Trannis, his name was inspired by that character. "Astrotrain" and "Steamhammer" were decided upon as names for two of the components and "Loco" or "Cowcatcher" were considered for the third. Both Steamhammer and Cowcatcher went on to inspire names for later official toy releases.
    • In 2015, the Facebook version of Ask Vector Prime would canonize these characters in fiction.

Foreign names

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  • Japanese: JRX<ref>Acronym for "Japan(ese) Rail Express".</ref> (Jei Āru Ekkusu)
  • Korean: J.R.X (제이.알.엑스 Jei.Al.Ekseu)
  • Russian: Sprinter (Спринтер)

References

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<references />
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