Rachel

Rachel (レイチェル) is a freelancer for the Daily Days information center. As the daughter of a train engineer, who was driven to ruin after being unjustly blamed for a horrific train accident, Rachel loves trains but is bitter towards the train industry. As such, she frequently travels by train, but never pays her fare.

Appearance
Rachel appears in green fatigues which act as a disguise and promote dexterity. She has dark blonde hair and hazel eyes.

Biography
In 1931, Rachel boards the Flying Pussyfoot as a stow away in order to get to the Daily News Headquarter in New York. She is seated in the Dining Room car when the Lumeres men, Vicky, and Nick simultaneously attempt to take over the car. In midst of the confusion, Rachel sneaks through a window and seeks refuge under the cars. Initially, Rachel is an observer while events unfold aboard the Flying Pussyfoot. She gets a first-hand view of the Rail Tracer as he kills some of the terrorists, and Czeslaw Meyer. On one occasion she is spotted by the Rail Tracer as she clings to the train's undercarriage. He scurries towards Rachel and whispers in her ear, prompting her to scream and retreat from him. Eventually, Rachel takes on a more active role as she helps Nice Holystone, Nick, Natalie and Mary Berriam escape from the Lumeres.

After the events aboard the Flying Pussyfoot, Rachel checks into the Daily News office where she reports everything she witnessed on the train to the Chief and Nicholas. After she does this, the chief comments on how uncharacteristic it was of her to help the passengers. Rachel explains her actions by stating she did not want to see anymore bloodshed. When Rachel explains to the chief that she believes the Rail Tracer to be a conductor, she has a flashback to the words he had uttered to her ear, which indicated that he knew she had been a stowaway. In-turn, the Chief reveals to both her and Nicholas that the Rail Tracer is in fact Claire Stanfield (aka. Vino),an assassin for the Gandor family who kills with his own sense of justice. Rachel becomes bewildered at these words as she saw him kill the young boy, Czeslaw Meyer. In order for her to find the answer to the Rail Tracer's actions, the Chief sends her out into the city where she runs into Czeslaw and Ennis. Czeslaw then tells Rachel all about the Immortals. She then chooses to find out how to become an information broker instead of a field agent, stating how she has learned of the impact that information can have on the lives of others (Although it is never stated whether or not she succeeded).

The Anime omits an important scene that gave birth to Claire and Rachel’s odd friendship, in the closing events of the Flying Pussyfoot massacre, after Claire proposes to Chane but before he catches the rope with Isaac, Miria and Czeslaw hanging at the end of it, there’s a scene in which one of the normal passengers holds Rachel at gun point, an old man who lost his cool and managed to grab a rifle for himself from the fallen hijackers, he mistakes Rachel for one of the criminals and tries to threaten her life; the old man is a retired engineer, he is the one truly responsible for the mistake that got Rachel’s father blamed in the past, she had noticed his presence in the train before the hijacking happened but choose to keep her cool due reasoning that lashing against him now would bring nothing to herself and it would have blown her cover.

Rachel then reveals she knows of the old man’s past mistake that he covered it up and let another person take the blame, the old man becomes even more  agitated and screams he is going to kill her, Rachel keeps her cool because she had noticed the Rail Tracer was behind them and seemly was about to kill them both.

Claire however had listened to Rachel and the old man’s rambling, he deduced the man was a pig and that Rachel didn’t deserve to die, he opts to incapacitate the old man and ponders about throwing him out of the Cabin, Rachel screams and grabs the fallen rifle, telling Claire to not kill the old man; Claire stops and speaks to Rachel what she means, trying to save a man who was about to kill and point a gun at her savior, she starts to cry reasoning that she doesn’t want to see more deaths happening, she doesn’t want to see the Trains and Rails that she and her father loved so much being soiled.

Claire is impressed by her words, to the point his blood lust subsides and gives up on killing the old man, he gives her a bloodstained ticket to make Rachel an official passenger to avoid trouble when she gets questioned by the authorities after leaving the train, Rachel starts seeing the Rail Tracer as more of a person than the absolute monster she saw him as through the whole episode; Claire remarks that if he hadn’t proposed to Chane and fell in love with her shortly before then he would have proposed to Rachel instead.

This gives more context as to why Claire seeks love advice from Rachel later on in regards to Chane, now considering Rachel to be a close acquaintance.

Relationships
Felix Walken - Rachel first met him as the Rail Tracer, immediately becoming terrified of him after he first asked for her ticket, knowing she was a stowaway, thereon doubting he was even human and classifying him as the ultimate monster in that hijacking situation. The anime however omitted an important scene at the end of the Flying Pussyfoot that served to give birth to Claire and Rachel’s bonding, from that she starts seeing Claire as more of a person and gives her peace of mind to agree to have launch with him later on when he asks for love advice in regards to Chane. It is later included on in the special episodes.

Abilities
Rachel is shown to be an athletic individual, climbing around the undersides of the Pussyfoot's carts with relative ease. Being an field agent for the Daily Days, she also has good instincts and a sense for danger, as well as a strong will that allows her to only experience fear in the most extreme situations.

Trivia
Is a red herring that people are meant to suspect is Claire Stanfield. Made very explicit in the novels with Goose specifically accusing her of being Vino at gun point. The english adaptation of anime however spoils it by using masculine pro-nouns when discussing Claire, though less attentive viewers may miss the slip or simply forget about by the time it becomes relevant.