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 Posted - December 02 2011 : 7:44:17 PM
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Well, sorta... 
As some of you may know, while I realize Tyco's "interpretations" of railroad stuff were often best taken with a fully-loaded Morton Salt car, I still couldn't help pondering the "yeah... but what the heck were they thinking, really?" question on a few. Like the Blue CP Rail boxcar: indeed, the most common CP Rail car Tyco made, never actually existed... and Tyco even made the correct colors (green, yellow, even red) also, just not as many.
Well a few days ago a bunch of referrer logs on my site showed up from a CPR Yahoo Group. There was a discussion on the origins of the CP Rail "Multimark" and resultant paint schemes. Someone posted my Tyco Boxcar Guide as a link, also making fun of the White and Blue versions - and in the discussion, a couple answers appeared:
1) CP Rail also rostered a larger number of yellow / orange 50' boxcars... with the traditional black triangle in a white semi-circle. The photographic negative of one of these would appear pale blue, with an inverted (white triangle / black semi-circle) multi-mark....
2) Robots! There really *were* blue CP Rail "boxcars" after all....!
/tyco/forum/uploaded/spiderj76/20111202193722_CP Robot 18-1.jpg
/tyco/forum/uploaded/spiderj76/20111202193739_CP Robot 22-1.jpg
/tyco/forum/uploaded/spiderj76/20111202193753_CP Robot 25-1.jpg
/tyco/forum/uploaded/spiderj76/20111202193806_CP Robot 28-1.jpg
From: http://www.mountainrailway.com/CP%201000%20Page%203.htm
OK, so the multimark triangle is red, but if you look at the wiped-clean roadnumbers on #22 , the shade of blue almost works...
(And wait a minute... a red, white, and blue CP Rail car? Tyco made one of those as well (if completely wrong, but still.... )
Oh, but Tyco did pay some strange amount of attention to things. Like the road number "56767" on the majority of their CP Rail boxcars, including all the yellow, 40-foot ones? That was from the very first 40' boxcar Canadian Pacific repainted into the new "CP Rail" scheme for a PR/demo train in 1968. Oddly enough though, the real one was... red. Oops.  http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/photos/cpr_diesel/4242.htm
Edited by - spiderj76 on December 02 2011 7:48:36 PM
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 Posted - December 03 2011 : 12:57:15 AM
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so what exactly was this car used for?
just me Ray... and just because I have Tyco doesn't mean I am not a model railroader
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Posted - December 03 2011 : 09:19:05 AM
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yeah what is car used for & why haven't I found the common blue CP Rail boxcar? 
I do love that saying, rgcw5 Its 100% TRUE!
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Posted - December 04 2011 : 02:20:47 AM
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As I understand it, they were used in conjunction with "Locotrol" radio communication systems, to control mid-train helper engines via radio signals from the lead units. The cars stored gear and I presume acted not so much a "robot" as much a as a sort of transmitter / repeater, probably in terrain where signal integrity would otherwise be problematic.
CP Rail mostly built these out of old baggage and passenger equipment, and IIRC from the links, even an Alco FB unit or two. BCR also built a few, some of which wound up on the BN. Some of CP's cars went to CN.
Oddly enough I first learned of this radio-control concept just a couple weeks ago, by way of a Southern RR model I saw at a show, custom built to match the prototype in the same era.
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Posted - December 04 2011 : 8:22:12 PM
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| So Tony...Will finding these help you sleep better at night!? I wonder if the comment about the negative as any actual truth to it Looking at the dates on those photos, Tyco made their cars before the actual prototypes, correct?
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Posted - December 05 2011 : 08:07:08 AM
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It DOES Exsist!
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Posted - December 05 2011 : 12:16:53 PM
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LOL! Eric I wish that's all it would take to make me sleep better these days, but maybe it does help my twisted subconscious along...
The robots were built starting in 1974... I think you're still correct that Tyco's blue cars came first, IIRC by a year or two.
But that "negative" idea is pretty intriguing, so I ran my pics through a Photoshop filter. And would you believe it....!
And it works going the other way, too...
Pretty interesting stuff, if still inexplicable. Though it does seem to reveal why they picked such an odd, unique shade of blue(!)(?) Still... it was the 70's after all... I blame the drugs.
Edited by - spiderj76 on December 05 2011 12:29:47 PM
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Posted - December 05 2011 : 3:44:33 PM
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What are those cars?
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Posted - December 05 2011 : 3:46:26 PM
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I need an exlapation of what they do. Look like Southern RC Boxcars. (Brian, Back me up here. ie, pictures please)
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Posted - December 05 2011 : 7:04:21 PM
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I would find it very hard to believe that those negative colours are purely coincidence. There could only be one other explanation:
Edited by - DaCheez on December 05 2011 7:04:59 PM
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