Midnight Express (RID)

This article is about the Robots in Disguise Autobot. For the Universe Micromaster Railbot, see Midnight Express (Universe).

Midnight Express is an Autobot originally from the 2001 Robots in Disguise continuity family.

Yes, he has legs, and yes, he knows how to use them.

Midnight Express is a member of Team Bullet Train, a trio of Autobots who patrol the railways. Fussy and easily flustered, he has a habit of getting lost and separated from his fellow trains. Of the three members of his team, he has the most empathy with other trains, often treating them as sentient entities even when it's clear they're not.

Fiction

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

Voice actor: David Lodge (English), Naomi Matamura (Japanese), Vladimir Gerasimov (Russian), Leonardo García (Latin-American Spanish)

Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

When Team Bullet Train was called in to help protect the Linear RFG, Midnight Express was at a location eight hours away, about to haul a private wedding party. Rapid Run was not impressed with his plan to slow the bullet train by coating the tracks with glue, but the team was able to link up and stop the train before it plunged over a bridge destroyed by the Predacons. They then merged into Rail Racer in order to see the Predacons off. Bullet Train to the Rescue

The team was called into Metro City to thwart another attack on the part of Megatron and his Predacons. Negotiating the city streets was not easy for the large Bullet Trains, and at one point Midnight Express started down the wrong street. After a pitched battle with the Predacons, the team merged into Rail Racer and chased them off. Although as it turned out, the attack was a diversion while Sky-Byte investigated some important ruins. The Secret of the Ruins

Such villainous nonsense

Midnight Express seemed to believe that "Grandpa", a steam train which the Autobots were protecting, was somehow alive; he referred to it as "he", admonished Rapid Run for calling it an old crate and claimed the steam train was mad at the insults of the other bullet trains. When Slapper attempted to commandeer the steam engine, Midnight Express knocked him off and beat him to the ground. You do not want to get Midnight Express angry. After Grandpa dropped off his passengers, the Predacons hijacked him and Midnight Express set off in pursuit, continuing to plead with Grandpa to put on the brakes. He followed the old steam engine off a cliff into the ocean, hauling it out of the sea and out of Megatron's clutches. Secret Weapon: D-5

Midnight Express and the rest of team Bullet Train was standing idle at Autobot headquarters when Koji voiced his concern that the Predacons would attempt to steal the world’s largest ruby, currently on display in the city. Mirage's Betrayal

Team Bullet Train helped to try to track down Skid-Z after the Autobot scanned a racing car and was possessed by an urge to engage in races. They entered the Great Race, but were halted partway by a rock slide they were unable to pass. Skid Z's Choice

Where's Jim Cornette when you need him?

Called in to help scare the Predacons away from the Cave of the Dragon, Midnight Express provided the lower half of a statue to Optimus Prime's upper half. It did not go well—Midnight Express overbalanced and brought the guise crashing to the ground, but the Predacons were able to be frightened off anyway. The Ultimate Robot Warrior

After practising their link-up manoeuvre, Team Bullet Train returned to the Autobot base to review footage of previous adventures in an attempt to find the Predacon base. Hope for the Future Following the creation of the Decepticons by Megatron, the team was sent to Sherman Dam, where they combined into Rail Racer and fought Ruination. Commandos They would subsequently spend a lot of time using the Global Space Bridge to arrive at locations under attack from the Decepticons and fight them off, often forming Rail Racer to do so. Such as the instance when they arrived at Pier 7B just in time to dissuade the Decepticons from taking on the Autobots, after they had rampaged across the countryside following Side Burn. Attack from Outer Space

With the Autobot Brothers having been “duped” by Sky-Byte to go to the Bayshore power plant while the Decepticons attacked the Crestline power plant instead, it was up to Team Bullet Train to take on Scourge and the Commandos. Midnight Express, Railspaike and Rapid Run combined into Rail Racer shortly after their arrival at the plant, and drove off the aggressors.The Fish Test

The Autobots' ability to get to remote locations quickly did not go unnoticed by the Decepticons, who managed to sabotage the space bridge, depositing Team Bullet Train on a busy motorway. Midnight Express was terribly unsettled. A second attempt to use the space bridge left him dizzily trapped in a loop. Once the space bridge was repaired, the three bullet trains arrived at the North Energy Research Facility and prepared to form Rail Racer. They were stopped by Wedge, who asked them to let the Build Team defeat Megatron as a matter of honour. Landfill

In between all their adventures, the Autobots still had to perform some of the more menial tasks, such as regularly testing out the global space bridge. Lessons of the Past

On another occasion, the team formed Rail Racer to prevent the Decepticons stealing some energy, and kept Ruination busy while the Build Team recovered the stolen energy. A Test of Metal They were also sent looking for the Autobot Brothers, who had disappeared while tracking Ultra Magnus, a recent arrival to Earth. They were approached by Magnus himself, who informed them that Optimus was being led into a trap, and the three trains rushed to help the Autobot leader. The Two Faces of Ultra Magnus

Hey, a Mini-Con!

When the Autobots were on the verge of locating Fortress Maximus, Team Bullet Train were dispatched to the location under Metro City to protect the Build Team. Midnight Express became disoriented in the maze of tunnels, only being reunited with the other Bullet Trains when he was swept along by flood-waters released by Ultra Magnus. The trio were carried to the cavern where Maximus was located and formed Rail Racer to defend the giant robot from the Decepticons, and subsequently draw them away from where the Build Team were trying to hide him. Fortress Maximus Koji Gets His Wish

Team Bullet Train also attempted to defend Maximus from the Decepticons once his location was exposed. Scourge managed to successfully activate Maximus, but proved unable to control him. Maximus Emerges When Scourge magnified the human portion of his bio-signature in another attempt to control Maximus, Team Bullet Train was sent into the desert with Build Team and a thousand children to halt the titan. The Human Element

Gathering at a predetermined location, the Bullet Trains and the rest of the Autobots ambushed the Decepticon forces. The team combined into Rail Racer to fight Galvatron's Megastar, but the battle station was eventually felled by Fortress Maximus. Surprise Attack! After Galvatron used cyber-bats to gain control of the world's children, the Autobots were forced to retreat into the space bridge and were followed by the Decepticons. Midnight Express attempted unsuccessfully to execute a speed turn in order to face the enemy. Galvatron ruptured the tunnel during the battle which followed, flooding it with molten lava which the Autobots were only narrowly able to escape. They were promptly seized by a powered-up Galvatron. Galvatron's Revenge Team Bullet Train reformed Rail Racer in order to protect Optimus Prime, and were subsequently held in a paralysed state by Galvatron until the Decepticon leader's defeat at the hands of Omega Prime. The Final Battle

Ask Vector Prime

In several realities such as Viron 704.31 Epsilon, Midnight Express was brainwashed by using the Robo-Smasher and reformatted into Loco. Ask Vector Prime, 2015/09/13

IDW Generation 1 continuity

Midnight Express was a Camien. His religion revered the Thirteen, spurred on by his planet's recent deification of Optimus Prime, he eventually joined the Autobot leader and his forces on Earth shortly after the Ore-13 crisis. His squad, composed of equally zealous individuals from all across the Council of Worlds, took to wearing mouthplates to emulate Optimus Prime.

The new recruits were deployed to Mexico City with Aileron in the hopes of locating a cache of recovered Cybertronian technology, only to discover that an anti-Transformer mob had started a riot. While trying to quell the ensuing civil unrest, Midnight Express was shot by a human protester wielding a weapon of Cybertronian origin, Optimus deployed reinforcements from Autobot City while the fallen Rail Racer was evacuated. Back aboard Metrotitan, Aileron and Jetfire tended to his injuries. To Walk Among the Chosen

Toys

Robots in Disguise (2001)

And I'll be with him / On that midnight train to Georgia

• Midnight Express (Mega, 2000/2001)
  • Japanese ID number: C-014
  • Accessories: Linkage missile launcher, missile

Midnight Express transforms into an E4 "Max" bullet train. In this form, he can link up with the other Bullet Trains to form one long locomotive. His back-end link-section can be re-assembled to form a spring-loaded missile launcher. He can also form the legs to the team's combined form Rail Racer.

There are significant differences between the Takara and Hasbro versions of Midnight Express. The Takara version has several portions cast in transparent plastic to give him clear windows, requiring extensive paint applications to blend in.

The Hasbro version released in 2001 replaced the transparent plastics with opaques to cut back on the number of needed paint applications. An Autobot insignia was also added to the roof of the train mode, plus the yellow detail paint was replaced with a metallic gold. Early versions of the toy had gray-painted windows (the only one of the three trains to have painted windows in the first release), but later runs added metallic blue paint to match his teammates.

• More information on Midnight Express at TFU.info

• JRX (Multi-pack, 2000)
  • Japanese ID number: C-015
  • Accessories: Linkage missile launcher, missile

All three members of Team Bullet Train—J-Five, J-Four, and J-Seven—were also available in a complete box set in Japan. All three toys were identical to their individual releases.

Notes

I say, are you calling me yellow?

• Midnight's portrayals in the Japanese and English versions of the cartoon differed considerably more than those of his teammates. In Japan, he was given the voice and mannerisms of a little kid, high-pitched wail and all. For the English version, he was an older, fussy C-3PO-type with a bit of an aristocratic air. However, no matter what the version, he's still basically a doof.
  • Additionally, the on-package bio for the Hasbro toy is based on Midnight's Japanese portrayal, describing him as his team's uplifting, fun-loving junior member with a preference for colder climates.
• A version of Midnight Express (well, J-Four) with different robot mode deco appeared in the original Car Robots toy catalog. It featured significantly more yellow than the final version, along with other various color differences.
• Midnight Express's transformation and ability to form the bottom half of Rail Racer are based on that of the Earth Liner from Brave Fighter of Legend Da-Garn.
• 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 decoes. 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-class costs.
• The Turkish release of Midnight Express is completely identical to the standard European release, except that a sticker with the name "Euro Express" has been slapped on the front, as the film Midnight Express is a bit of a sore point in that country. [1]

Foreign names

• Japanese: J-Four (ジェイフォー Jeifō)
• Korean: J-Four (제이포 Jeipo)
• Russian: Express (Экспресс Ekspress)
• Turkish: Euro Express