✨Star Raptor☄️💫

Pearl, being the love interest of the story, is representative of media portrayal of "good dreams", daydreaming, and aspiration, or in the connection used earlier, old Dreamcore. She represents this much more obviously than Electra does with the whole thing with her looking for her "Dream Train" and Rusty trying to win her love. So, right away, her whole deal is wanting (love, to be specific). Being an observation or first-class car is also important for this. I don't know a huge amount about observation cars, but I know that of course first-class cars are for the wealthiest of passengers, and wealth is a common thing to dream of having. In terms of (old) costume, the bright and/or soft pink palette and tiara give her a princess vibe, which is fitting for this because it connects back to wealth (Princesses are royalty, and royalty have power and are thus usually very wealthy as well), and princesses, especially the style of princess Pearl matches, can be associated with good dreams through other things they are associated with (Princesses are usually grouped in with things like unicorns, fairies, and rainbows. Media, at least a few times, portrays good dreams with these things in them (take the Minecraft mod Good Night's Sleep for example))

Now on to Electra. Electra is a bit more vague with their connection to dreams than Pearl since they have no direct mentioning of them (they, in fact, have very little direct mentioning of anything, which is important for this theory). However, with some pondering, they could be representative of dreams from a psychological/scientific/realistic standpoint, or in other words, the actual experience of dreaming in sleep (In the Dreamcore comparison again, Electra is the StEx equivalent of new/current Dreamcore). Electra is, like actual dreams, a mashup of seemingly unrelated topics (railway electrification, computers, supervillains, popstars, and complex sexuality and gender), combined into one entity that appears and acts strangely and intimidatingly.

The way they enter and continuously appear in the story is especially real dream-like. They seem to not be very relevant to the actual plot, but rather interrupt it with their presence (as in you could remove them and the story would be basically the same, probably even more coherent than it is). Despite being unnecessary to the story, they are necessary for the setting, as actual dreams tend to be oddly paced, cut, or in Electra's case, will randomly add or switch to a different scenario. Another key part of this is the fact that despite Electra being as mysterious and weird as they are, no one seems to question who they are or where they came from, similar to how in dreams strange places and happenings will be processed as normal (I've had many experiences where a weird liminal place will just be seen as my school, as if my school just always looks like that).

It should also be pointed out that Electra talks a lot in metaphors and implications rather than clearly stating information, kind of like how dreams may hold symbolism about your life.

Electra's (old) costume doesn't add as much to this theory as Pearl's costume, though it does reinforce everything already stated with how many things are going on in the costume while staying uniform, and how much it makes them stand out.

electric trains and steam engines just never had serious historical rivalry. Electric motors mopped the floor with them by the ragtime era, especially in commuter service and heavy freight because they are VERY good at starting/stopping vs steam engines, amazing uphill (steam engines are atrocious at this to the point it’s a repeated Thomas plot) and don’t have to drag their own fuel around. The latter two were very appealing to rich coal hauling railroads and mines, not dealing with hauling coal around to refuel dozens of steam engines vs one central power plant saves a lot of hassle (and maintenance makes it even more extreme)

Steam engines in the US are actually very offended by being seen as minorities, because they are demons who hated being alive and oppressors, not victims! Black culture is universally pro-train because rail was an opportunity for freedom since the mid-1800s, because of this they gloss over negative traits of steam engines because they’re all friendly trains to them. In the latter half of the 20th century, electric trains developed VERY similar economic and social politics to Black people because of their presence in cities left to rot or destroyed by “urban renewal” and car culture. They’re widely but covertly Black-coded in the news because of this (exaggerated claims of subway crimes, “welfare queen” adjacent rhetoric about transit funding). You could also draw comparisons to other minorities in the US, but in terms of real life, electric trains are way more Black coded than most think. Just look at Amtrak ads! Also note that transit advocates and enthusiasts are way more diverse than people into steam engines… it’s actually a huge issue that it’s almost entirely old white men and they’re struggling to expand their volunteer pool because they’re viewed as less accepting than they are!

British steam engines are kind of different spiritually and do see themselves with more of that victim mentality due to the engrained culture there. This is a VERY white and specifically British thing with few ties to Black American culture (other than some music). They’re more tied to industrial decline there, and hate Thatcher! There’s similar core issues of refusing to adapt post-WWII but some very deeply engrained cultural stuff with unions there that’s way out of my depth.

Electra works VERY well as a Michael Jackson figure who’s a celebrity who can’t often speak directly and is constantly threatened and slandered by media! Electric trains have VERY similar issues with media to a lot of Black celebrities in general, especially in the 70s-80s! It’s a shame the show and fandom rarely pick up on this, because it’s such a powerful and nuanced concept and a way to write Electra in a train-accurate way without slogging through all that history… you can largely write them as MJ with the serial numbers filed off and say a LOT! Electric trains WERE violently suppressed and destroyed en masse in the US and have suffered slow decay in… a lot of countries the last few decades and it’s very hard for them to reach audiences outside their historic regions, so a celebrity figure would be very powerful for them and irl electric trains LOVE getting photos taken and art made of them! Almost all public-facing trains do, but unloved ones get very desperate (SEPTA loves photos and will show you heritage units if you take pics of random stations and trains and speak positively about them)