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Privately-Owned Rail Cars

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Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#171

Post by mrapathy2 »

CoastalCoder wrote: post #159
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…

Thanks for the really interesting writeup! > Personally I wonder why Amtrak doesn't offer a "Presidential" fare, where 6 or so people can book a private car and get truly top tier service. Could a 3rd-party company offer this? I.e., they own and operate the Presidential-like cars, and are a contractual middle-man between Amtrak and the riders?

There's a company that operates a route between Chicago and New Orleans with a restored Pullman, attached behind a standard Amtrak car. See:

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/travel/all-aboard-for-a-t... https://railsnw.com/tours/Pullman/Rail-only-information3.htm

The economics of it are likely difficult, but there's at least precedent.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#172

Post by philwelch »

ak217 wrote: post #122
kccqzy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need to worry. From https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/can-you-b... > One year ago, Amtrak issued a policy notice saying it would make drastic cuts in operating charter services run by private owners. “These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins, and sometimes delayed our paying customers on our scheduled trains,”…

Yeah, that's the "banned this practice" change that I was talking about. The documents in the link that the post is about are from 2021/2022 though. So they must have un-banned it. The "guidelines" document at https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p... lists 44 Amtrak stations throughout the US where this practice is allowed (and likely to continue to disrupt schedules for regular passengers). It…

When Richard Anderson was the CEO, Amtrak was on track to achieve profitability by 2020. Then the pandemic happened, and then the bipartisan infrastructure bill basically removed all the language from the law that authorizes Amtrak about minimizing the cost to the taxpayer, so that never came to fruition.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#173

Post by differentview97 »

ak217 wrote: post #122
kccqzy wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you need to worry. From https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-25/can-you-b... > One year ago, Amtrak issued a policy notice saying it would make drastic cuts in operating charter services run by private owners. “These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins, and sometimes delayed our paying customers on our scheduled trains,”…

Yeah, that's the "banned this practice" change that I was talking about. The documents in the link that the post is about are from 2021/2022 though. So they must have un-banned it. The "guidelines" document at https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p... lists 44 Amtrak stations throughout the US where this practice is allowed (and likely to continue to disrupt schedules for regular passengers). It…

I don't understand why Amtrak - the only operator on its own tracks - is unable to make it work, meanwhile in EU you have literally thousands of private operators operating their own trains as well as combined multi-owner trains riding on tracks belonging to dozens of owners... and it works fairly well, there certainly are no 6+ hours delays, at most an hour or so for the whole multi-state 1000km trip.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#174

Post by differentview97 »

dmos62 wrote: post #153
differentview97 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly could these costs be 0?

Use free software?

What free software offers the enterprise features of Windows? AFAIK not even Red Hat is anywhere close to the central management features of Windows domains. Samba on Linux/Mac is severely backwards and using it is pain.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#175

Post by jbeales »

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…

The American Association of Private Railcar Owners has a page on their website listing cars available for charter: https://www.aaprco.com/travel/cars-for-charter/

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#176

Post by CoastalCoder »

mrapathy2 wrote: post #171
CoastalCoder wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the really interesting writeup! > Personally I wonder why Amtrak doesn't offer a "Presidential" fare, where 6 or so people can book a private car and get truly top tier service. Could a 3rd-party company offer this? I.e., they own and operate the Presidential-like cars, and are a contractual middle-man between Amtrak and the riders?

There's a company that operates a route between Chicago and New Orleans with a restored Pullman, attached behind a standard Amtrak car. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/travel/all-aboard-for-a-t... https://railsnw.com/tours/Pullman/Rail-only-information3.htm The economics of it are likely difficult, but there's at least precedent.

They should call it the Precendtial!

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#177

Post by derda »

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…

There have also been occasions where Museums or clubs owning Steam Locos bid for contracts hauling freight and provide the service using their Steamers. Example here where they supply a railway construction site [1] or here [2] were some fertiliser is pulled.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GujoYkaQf8 [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qoDOXvFwH0

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#179

Post by IX-103 »

differentview97 wrote: post #174
dmos62 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use free software?

What free software offers the enterprise features of Windows? AFAIK not even Red Hat is anywhere close to the central management features of Windows domains. Samba on Linux/Mac is severely backwards and using it is pain.

I think you'll find your experience here is outdated. There are a few good tools for managing Linux systems - puppeteer is one. What sorry if features are you missing?

As for Samba, Gnome has good client built in to the file browser. But I'd have to ask why you're using Samba at all. There are much better network filesystems in the Linux world that don't come with all the legacy cruft and undocumented idiosyncrasies that are part of the SMB protocol. They're harder to set up on Windows, but that shouldn't be a problem if you standardize on Linux.

Re: Privately-Owned Rail Cars

#180

Post by btbuildem »

adriand wrote: post #161
fabioborellini wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I feel like for people with the means to have one of these, having the plebeians pass through your car is a feature, not a bug.

I don't follow, why would you want the rabble to pass through your private space?
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