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Privately-Owned Rail Cars

amtrak.com

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Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#131

Post by prawn »

jesuscript wrote: post #38
nordsieck wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is my "if I won the lottery" dream. Could you explain a bit more about why you would want this? This seems strictly inferior to buying a box truck and converting it for "van life".

There’s inherent safety built into this dream. Van life in the woods sounds dangerous. Your train is traveling at a certain speed at all times on a route that’s operated by professionals. You are also not utterly alone and there is a company that can provide some customer support. You’ll never have to make a stop at a shady motel or gas station. Van life is a first class ticket to becoming a tidbit in serial killers…

I've travelled on a few luxury multi-day train trips* and also lived for months out of a bus, camping in forests, etc. Both have felt very safe to me. People are unnecessarily paranoid about camping in forests! The best aspect of the train trips are catered food/drink, not having to drive and otherwise sitting in your cabin with a book. Obviously you don't have the flexibility of stopping, backtracking or deviating as you wish. The luxury train trips I linked below have excursions via bus to the scenic highlights.

Reading a book in your train cabin or the bar/lounge is nice enough, but so is parking somewhere with a view and the windows open, and lazing around on the bed/couch in your bus/van. e.g., we recently free-camped on the rim of a canyon: https://www.instagram.com/p/CkSY_0IODqd/

The best option IMO is a mid-scale (100pax) expedition cruise like this: https://coralexpeditions.com/au/destinations/the-kimberley/k... You get a larger room, amazing changing scenery often from a private balcony, superior expeditions, catered meals, science lectures, etc. It is superb, if you can justify paying the $1k/night - similar pricepoint to the rail trips.

* https://www.journeybeyondrail.com.au/

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#132

Post by spc476 »

hn_user2 wrote: post #120
sbierwagen wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unless you used the car routinely, a hackier solution would be just to buy out a block of rooms in the sleeper car. Amtrak.com suggests rooms from Seattle to LA are ~$700 each. https://www.craigmashburn.com/amtrakcardiagrams.html says a Superliner sleeper car has 20 rooms. So you could rent out an entire car for about $14,000. Complementary meals included!

Or just rent a Pullman car. I have not actually reserved one, but I always find myself searching around for charter companies when I see these types of articles. These guys claim $2500 a day for a charter. Not sure if it is legit or if there are other fees. (I assume you then also pay all the Amtrak fees). But I do have this on my back burner to try sometime. Since they offer some 4 bedroom coaches. Would be fun to g…

I got to ride a private car for a few hours [1] thanks to a friend who rented one for a family vacation/birthday gift. The car went from Jacksonville, FL (where the private car resides), to Miami, then to Chicago via Washington, D.C. (or New York, I don't recall) then back to Jacksonville, FL. Even though he got a good price (he knows the owner), and he never mentioned the price, it wouldn't surprise me if the week vacation cost over the price of a new car (the price did cover the two "employees" that came with the car, a chef and a porter).

[1] http://boston.conman.org/2015/08/05.4

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#134

Post by state_less »

bluGill wrote: post #81
Kon-Peki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to know what you’re talking about, so… I’ve heard that occasionally (rarely) they need to put some “public” cars behind the private ones. And if that happens, you are not allowed to prevent the public passengers from walking through your private car to get between the public sections. Is that the case?

Depending on personality you might enjoy a conversation with random strangers walking through. See I knew there was a plus.

I’ve been riding the Indian rail system the last few weeks and generally don’t mind the other folks in the car. The thing that does get my goat is folks blasting audio out of their devices. Most folks are fine, but it it only takes a few to spoil the fun.

Rail is nice here in that it’s often electric, you don’t need to focus on the road and there is more room to move around than on a plane or a car.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#135

Post by h0l0cube »

chiph wrote: post #17

This is my "if I won the lottery" dream. Which it would have to be, since everything about it isn't cheap. Purchasing a Pullman car then upgrading it to Amtrak standards will cost at least $300k. Any interior upgrades are on top of that (renovating the galley with modern appliances, adding central air since some cars used block ice for cooling). Amtrak requires you add 480v head-end power (but you will likely want a…

> Getting the car from there to the nearest Amtrak station will require you to hire a locomotive with crew

I know long haul battery-electric trains don't make sense [0], but if it's a short distance, would it be feasible to have inbuilt battery + engine just to get the car to the Amtrak and maybe as backup power?

> (some tracks require a second car coupled to the locomotive so crossings & signals work correctly)

Obviously it wouldn't obviate this technicality.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0qcxyyllQ4

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#136

Post by moooo99 »

pooper wrote: post #128
bombcar wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s $5k per kid or $500/day per kid. Not bad at all considering.

I always get the feeling that I am not good with big numbers. Like a public library spending USD 50k+ per month(?) to Oracle seems outrageous to me but I guess it isn't so outrageous given the annual budget is over USD 100M?

I always feel like Software licenses are a different beast. For example, 300k in Windows license costs might not be mulch out of a 50M budget, but it is much when you think about the fact that these costs could also be zero.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#137

Post by yellow_lead »

This isn't as comfortable as you might think. Most of the passenger rail in the US is old and not very smooth. Riding on Amtrak for long distances is not as nice as say, riding on high-speed rail or a local metro like Chicago. The rail cars frequently sway left and right. I say this as a proponent of trains and high speed rail.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#138

Post by fabioborellini »

chiph wrote: post #35
Kon-Peki wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to know what you’re talking about, so… I’ve heard that occasionally (rarely) they need to put some “public” cars behind the private ones. And if that happens, you are not allowed to prevent the public passengers from walking through your private car to get between the public sections. Is that the case?

Yes that's true. They try to put private cars at the front or rear of a train, but sometimes they aren't able to. So you may have the public walking through as you eat dinner. Comes with the territory {shrug}. Train crew (conductors) always have the right to walk through the car. If your train goes into Tampa Florida for example, the train has to reverse out of the station to a wye so it can turn around. If you are t…

Railroad companies having cab cars in Europe do sometimes run them in the middle of trains. It is not impossible, it just voids the benefits of having a cab car for the particular train and schedule. Sometimes it is acceptable in the greater scheme of scheduling and planning.

One example that comes to my mind is prisoner transports. I have seen a prisoner car (which cannot be passed through by passengers or crew, it has no doors at the ends) in front of cab car. In that sense, the cab car is being used as a normal passenger car, of course in the rear end of the train.

So, if Amtrak values private cars and privacy in such cars enough I think they can find a solution without people passing through. If the schedules require faster turnarounds, one low-tech solution is not selling tickets to the cab car.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#139

Post by Doxin »

blueflow wrote: post #19

In germany, the privatisation and segmentation of the railway company has created many "interface points" where private entities can rent vehicles or use the tracks. This resulted in a vast amount of companies specializing in engine renting or vehicle transport, like Captrain/ITL or MRCE. The diversity in companies results in a big variety of color schemes. Train museums use these possibilities to run extraordinary t…

Over here in the Netherlands you'll sometimes see museum trains used to tow stranded passenger trains.[0] Quite an odd sight!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZIEo0NXQY

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#140

Post by t0mas88 »

Doxin wrote: post #139
blueflow wrote: post #19

In germany, the privatisation and segmentation of the railway company has created many "interface points" where private entities can rent vehicles or use the tracks. This resulted in a vast amount of companies specializing in engine renting or vehicle transport, like Captrain/ITL or MRCE. The diversity in companies results in a big variety of color schemes. Train museums use these possibilities to run extraordinary t…

Over here in the Netherlands you'll sometimes see museum trains used to tow stranded passenger trains.[0] Quite an odd sight! [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZZIEo0NXQY

That's a special one-off kind of thing.

But the railway museum runs a historic train hourly from Utrecht Centraal (I think the largest station in the country) to their museum. That's also a strange sight to see passing by at crossings.

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