The original production of Starlight Express featured competitors from France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan and Great Britain. Most productions have used some or all of these engines.
A few productions, however, have added or changed some of these engines, either to fill a big stage or localise the material for their audience.
See Here for Fan theories about these rarely seen characters.
Starlight Express on Ice[]
The 1997 "On Ice" production, which toured the US, featured engines from France, Italy, Japan and Great Britain.
However, it replaced the German and Russian engines with:
- Canuck, the Canadian Engine
- Cesar, the Mexican Engine
The costume designs, by Frank Krenz, used a strong primary colour for each national engine: Bobo in blue, Espresso in purple, Canuck in green, Cesar in yellow, Nintendo in orange and Prince of Wales in red.
Mexico City[]
Conan from Europe, El Príncipe de Gales (Prince of Wales), El Pibe from Argentina, Boris (Turnov), Nintendo, Carioca from Brazil
The Mexican production, mounted in a legal grey area, featured engines from Britain, Japan, and Russia, alongside these localised engines:
- Carioca, the Brazilian engine
- El Pibe, the Argentinian engine
- Conan, the Orient Express
"Carioca" refers to a citizen of Rio de Janeiro. He has a yellow-on-green design, with a box piece on his chest with the Brazilian flag. The production's programme said that "Carioca supports Rusty in his quest to win the race."
"El Pibe" is slang for "the kid". His costumes has a blue-and-white colour scheme, reflecting the flag of Argentina. According to the programme, El Pibe runs the Argentine Express "hates Conan and has a crush on Ashley."
"Conan" has a costume that appears to have multiple possible inspirations leading to his design. His colours seem to reflect a Swiss Ae 6/6 engine, a puller of the Orient Express. The logo shares possible similarities of a crest and wings design of the Ae 6/6 however doesn't explain the bird iconography attached to it.
Japan/Australia tours[]
Given the arena-sized scale of the 1987 tour, the ensemble were doubled up to fill the stage. The doubles wore identical costumes to the original nationals, but had different names. Some of these names were changed for the second tour, in 1990.
| First engine | Second engine | |
|---|---|---|
| 1987 | 1990 | |
| Bobo | Coco | |
| Espresso | Pendelino | |
| Weltschaft | Flying Hamburger | |
| Turnov I | Turnov II | Vladimir |
| Hashimoto | Nakamura | Yamamoto |
