RDC-X

I greet the new owner of RDC-X.

One of the commenters on the video for Le Grand DEFI noted words to the effect that it was good to see an RDC that wasn't being used for alien autopsies and such as he had seen on the X-Files. I didn't know any RDC had made a guest appearance on the X-Files so I used the commenter's hints and went to look for the episode.

An image from episode '731'. The RDC is a lab carrying a human-alien hybrid.

It turns out RDCs featured in a 2-part story in Season 3: episode 9, 'Nisel', and episode 10, '731'. According to the story there appears to be two RDCs in use. The one in 'Nisel' has the number 82594, and the one in '731' is numbered 82517. I suspect the tv show production crew used the same RDC for both, but switched car numbers as necessary?

An image from 'Nisel'. This one had a lab that seemed to be the site of an alien autopsy 

I don't know what RDC variant they used on the show other than it appears to be an all passenger one as there aren't any cargo doors on the car. I didn't have anything similar on hand to build my own version, but I did have this:

The Athern RDC-3 before conversion

It's the Athern unpowered RDC-3 brush painting victim. In the show the RDCs never appear as the self-propelled vehicles that they are; they're always seen being pulled around like any other freight or passenger car, which makes the unpowered Athern a good choice as the candidate model. I speculate the show's team picked an RDC because it's an odd looking car and seems a bit weird to most people, so turning it into an alien lab I guess wasn't much of a stretch - being self propelled was probably irrelevant. And there must have been an old, broken down one rusting away on a siding somewhere that would be cheap to convert. Well, at least make over its exterior. I assume the interior scenes were shot on a set.

I decided mine would merely reference styling cues of the X-Files "prototype" instead of being an exact replica since I didn't have an all passenger version on hand to bash and didn't want to buy one. The above picture of the conversion is fairly self-explanatory, but I'll note I used 0.040" thick styrene sheet for all the interior filler panels and 0.020" on the exterior ones. I also panelled over the unsightly notch in the body that secures the chassis - that's the panel beside my thumb in the above photo.

The prototype's ends appear to be in different styles. To make things easy I decided to fill in the side windows and leave the door's window a window. Once the body was painted I glued in a piece of clear plastic.

The only markings on the prototype appear to be large, black numbers on a white roof top panel. As I mentioned earlier, the numbers are different in each episode.

For those number panels I attached a small piece of 0.010" styrene to the roof. The numbers are rub-on, dry transfer items.

As for painting I sprayed the body with Krylon Fusion Metallic Silver and over coated with Testor's Dullcote after the silver had dried for a few days. The vents and grills were painted with thin applications of Tamiya Black Panel Liner. The chassis was brush painted with Revell Aqua Color Matt Black. 

I also installed a pair of Kadee couplers so RDC-X could be used with the rest of the fleet. Er, well, used with its cousin the Space Hopper.

The disturbance in the force caused by these two popped the roof off the lifeguard station!

The writers ended the 2-parter a little too E. L. Moore-like in my estimation. Similar to the way Moore concluded his Cannonball and Safety Powder Works, the RDC "blowed up real good" as they used to say on the Farm Film Report:

Rest assured this will not happen to RDC-X.

Well, who knows what my grey friend has in mind :-)