Does anyone know of a company that produces an HO-scale Royal Canadian Mounted Police constable wearing the ceremonial scarlet tunic and wide-brimmed hat? Painting a cowboy figure just won’t do! I’ve looked in catalogs and checked the figure selection of the German companies – no luck. Yes, I realize the Mounties do not wear this uniform for daily duty. Btw, my CPR layout is set in Alberta.
may need to look to the military modelers circles for drill instructors or cavalry figures and paint them up for RCMP.
As most Canadians will tell you, Ontarians and Quebecers may not know as they have their own provincial police forces but the RCMP officers do NOT wear their Red Serge every day. It is a dress or ceremonial uniform and only worn on special occasions. This is the dress or ceremonial uniform: -
http://colinkenny.ca/en/resources/media/depotinspection.JPG
Their every day working uniform is this one: -
http://www.canada-photos.com/images/500/rcmp-academy-marching-cadets_5186-5084.jpg
A bit more boring than the Red Serge uniform used in movies and American made TV shows.
They look like most other police forces in North America so don’t go having some RCMP office issuing a speeding ticket in his/her Red Serge 'cause it just don’t happen.
What era are looking for? I think the uniform has changed over the years. Not that I know of any that are available. All I can find is a couple of RCMP vehicles in the current white scheme, need some in the old blue and white.
The RCMP Musical Ride would be pretty cool to model too.
CPR,- - - you may find an equivalent type uniform in Britain, as the RCMP uniform is patterned after a certain type of older British army uniform.
As there are many thousands of military miniature collectors, you may find a copy of a closely related British miniature soldier that you can modify to a “moundie” as they are called here. You may have trouble finding it in1:87 scale, let us know.
Thank you for the pictures and information. As I wrote in my post, “I realize the Mounties do not wear this uniform for daily duty.” I currently have an HO-scale cop standing beside a blue and white RCMP Chevy truck. Don’t worry, I have no plans to display a Red Serge uniformed constable giving traffic tickets. By the way, I’ve read Canadian history since my days in 5th grade. That was in the early '60s!
My layout is set in the late 1960s to early 1970s. I have a blue and white Chevy truck that was factory painted for the RCMP.
In Canadian Railway Modeller issue Train 9 Track 6, author Donald H. Foster describes quickly how he changed some unpainted police and firefighter figures into officials and RCMP officers. These models were used to populate a viewing stand next to the VIA Rail baggage car used as the John Diefenbaker funeral car. The firefighters had their pants filed to look like riding pants and also had their hats modified to resemble the RCMP stetsons.
T.G. there’s another CPR modeller in the South! I don’t feel so lonely anymore, surrounded by Katy and AT&SF modellers.
I’d look at some of the military figures out there, paint the red serge, blue riding pants with yellow stripes, Brown boots and Sam Browne belt,and a John B. Stetson hat, and you got it made, instant Gravel Road Cop. (GRC)
Be sure to put a taser in his off hand…LOL
[quote user=“CPR in Okla.”]
Thank you for the pictures and information. As I wrote in my post, “I realize the Mounties do not wear this uniform for daily duty.” I currently have an HO-scale cop standing beside a blue and white RCMP Chevy truck. Don’t worry, I have no plans to display a Red Serge uniformed constable giving traffic tickets. By the way, I’ve read Canadian history since my days in 5th grade. That was in the early '60s!
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I read your line about not wearing the Red Serge daily but posted it again to reinforce the point as it seems most Americans think that’s the RCMP’s daily working uniform. 
RCMP vehicles were black with white front doors during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although I was just at kid at the time, I remember the RCMP patrol cars from that era quite well. They were usually Ford Galaxies, Dodge Polaras, or Plymouth Furies. They had a single red Federal Beacon Ray model 17 beacon on the roof and a red stop light and a Federal SA24 speaker on the passenger’s side fender. The siren was an early Federal PA15A electronic siren which had deeper and lower pitched wail and yelp tones than the sirens we hear nowadays.
As for the uniform, I can remember the Mounties wearing brown jackets with Sam Browne belts back then. They wore black policeman’s caps with a yellow band and black pants with a yellow stripe like they wear now, and their shirts were a light tan colour.
I think the RCMP car paint scheme switched to blue around 1974, and the brown jackets and Sam Browne belts were abandoned some time during the 1970s (I’m not sure what year).
I like the goofy fur hats they wear in the winter. I wear one too.
Aloco,
Thanks for the heads up on RCMP vehicles. A person with the RCMP Historical Collections Unit in Regina told me that from 1965-74, the force’s vehicles were painted black with white doors. So, I’ll have to get the black paint and masking tape and paint out the blue of my Trident Miniatures older style Chevy Blazer. I also need to paint a khaki shirt on the basic cop figure and use a thin yellow decal around the cap band. (That will be fun! The eyes and hands are getting too old to neatly paint on that detail.) Blue trousers will also need yellow stripes.
Try a yellow gel pen rather than trying to get a decal of that size to work. It may take a couple of coats, but these things cover pretty well.
You guys have police up there? LOL, I thought because it was so safe, that people don’t eve lock their doors. [;)]
Actually, the Mounties cars were deep BLUE overall with white front doors before they became all white.
Most of them through to the change to white cars used twin bubblegum machines on the roof as well. Both lights were red until they changed to one red, one blue in the late 80s.
I don’t know about the 60s, but through the 70s and 80s they were definitely dep blue/white front door
Welcome to the forums.
Might try finding some WWI figures. The doughboys wore similar hats and you could paint up their uniforms. Try a military modeling site and see what they have.
Good luck,
Richard
They were still black with a white front door in 1973. I don’t remember seeing the deep blue colour until around 1974 or 1975.
When the cars were blue, they either had a roof rack with two beacons and a loudspeaker or they had a light bar. Where I live, the lights were red on both sides up until 1987.
The white paint scheme was introduced in the early 1990s, and all cars had light bars by then. The light bars were of a compact streamlined design with clear covers and red and blue lenses overtop of the rotating reflectors. Today’s RCMP cars use flashing LED light bars.
We know they don’t wear that everyday, it makes it too difficult to get in and out of the igloo…eh?..[swg]
Don’t laugh.
The number of times you see American cars crossing the border in June, July and August with skis on their ski racks as they head up to Canada for sking would make you cringe. [:)]
However, as a group, I’d say most model railroaders are somewhat better informed about Canada than the unwashed masses.
Haaa, so true! As a kid I worked at a marina on the east coast of Vancouver Island, at the 49th parallel. I remember one day helping a 35-40’ boat registered in Seattle to dock, and the “captain” asking where the local ski hill was. In August. He showed me the skies they brought with them On the 49th, which for a large part of Canada is the border with the US. He was rather upset, so he fulled up and went further north. Don’t know if he made it to Alaska or not [4:-)] [(-D]