Elderly characters in rickety train see sombre actor (9)
I believe the answer is:
tragedian
'sombre actor' is the definition.
'tragedian' can be an answer for 'actor' (tragedian is a kind of actor). I am not certain of the 'sombre' bit.
'elderly characters in rickety train' is the wordplay.
'elderly characters' becomes 'aged' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'in' is an insertion indicator.
'rickety' is an anagram indicator.
'train' with letters rearranged gives 'trian'.
'aged' placed inside 'trian' is 'TRAGEDIAN'.
'see' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for tragedian that I've seen before include "Dramatist" , "Egad, I rant about actor in sad drama" , "actor in Macbeth?" , "A great din (anag) - actor" , "Egad, I rant about dramatic actor" .)