Encyclopedia / Alt-modes / Vessel
Space Shuttle and Steam Locomotive
A NASA orbiter and a steam engine sharing one body, the first Decepticon triple changer and the Decepticons' only transport.
The machine
What it actually is
The Space Shuttle orbiter flew from 1981 and was, by 1985, the most photographed spacecraft in the world: a 37 metre delta-winged vehicle that launched vertically on a stack and landed as a glider. The steam locomotive is the opposite reference point, a nineteenth-century technology that by 1985 survived mostly in heritage operation. Putting both in one toy is not a design compromise, it is the entire idea. Astrotrain is the Decepticon logistics arm, and he needs to move mass both to orbit and along the ground.
The fiction uses him as a bus. Almost every episode where the Decepticons go somewhere involves Astrotrain carrying them, and his internal volume is elastic to a comic degree. His character is written as loud and bullying, a heavy-hauler with an attitude, and he pairs with Blitzwing as the other 1985 triple changer.
The toy converts between orbiter, locomotive and robot without part-swapping, which in 1985 was genuinely novel. The white shuttle body has a purple cargo bay and the locomotive mode uses the same shell reversed with wheels folded down. Astrotrain is unusual in the G1 line because he almost certainly did not come from a released Diaclone toy: he appears to be an asset from the cancelled 1985 Diaclone range that went straight into Transformers, which means his design was never a Diaclone hero and never carried a driver.
Real-world
Specification
| Make | NASA / Rockwell International (orbiter); generic steam locomotive |
| Model | Space Shuttle orbiter; 4-6-2 style steam locomotive |
| Years | Shuttle flew 1981 to 2011; steam locomotives in mainline service to the 1960s |
| Notes | Orbiter roughly 37 m long with a 24 m wingspan and a 29,000 kg payload to low Earth orbit; five orbiters were built and 135 missions flown. |
Before Transformers
The Diaclone original
No released Diaclone or Microchange antecedent. Astrotrain is generally understood to be a Takara design carried over from the cancelled 1985 Diaclone range straight into the Transformers line, which is why he has no driver seat and no Diaclone catalogue number.
The part nobody covers properly
Licensing
No licence required and none obtained. NASA's designs are US government works and are conventionally free to model, and toy-industry guidance specifically lists NASA spacecraft alongside military hardware as categories that do not need a licence. A generic steam locomotive is likewise unprotected. Astrotrain has consequently been reissued and recoloured freely, including e-Hobby exclusives, and modern versions (Titans Return, Studio Series 86) keep both modes without any rights question. This is worth noting on the page as the second clean counter-example after the Seekers: the alt modes that caused HasTak the most trouble were always the ones with a commercial brand attached, never the ones that were technically most complex.
Detail
Trivia
- Astrotrain and Blitzwing were the first triple changers, introduced in 1985.
- He is the Decepticons' de facto troop transport in the cartoon, with a cargo capacity that changes to suit the script.
- The Japanese release came in a grey-and-purple deco that many collectors prefer to the US white.
- Unlike the 1984 Autobot cars, he has no Diaclone driver cavity, supporting the theory that he was designed after the rebrand decision.
- The locomotive mode has no real-world prototype and is a generic steam engine rather than a specific class.
Handle with care
Contested
Fan lore about these vehicles is unusually unreliable. Where a popular claim does not survive checking, it is recorded here rather than repeated.
- Whether Astrotrain was developed for Diaclone's cancelled 1985 range or created directly for Transformers. Both are asserted by collectors; Takara has not published the development history.