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Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

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Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#51

Post by m4rtink »

elil17 wrote: post #46
bluGill wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gauge is likely easy to change. Not cheap, but Amtrak demands expensive inspections and refurbishment to run, so the cost of changing the gauge is likely fairly small compared to the other costs.

Off topic, but some trains can even change gauge while in motion: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/kq6eds/this_is_how_...

This is actually quite a significant technical achievement - for example, a similar project in Japan failed.

Japanese Railways wanted to build a train that can run at full speed (~300 km/h) on the standard gauge (1435 mm) regular Shinkansen lines but also use the narrow gauge (1067 mm) existing lines at slower speed. Those older lines would not have to be rebuilt for the Shinkansen standard & there would still be significant time savings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_Change_Train

This failed to produce a viable train, resulting in falling back to track rebuilds or using relay trains that connect directly from Shinkansen to the local rail line on the same platform.

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#52

Post by jeffrallen »

elil17 wrote: post #46
bluGill wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gauge is likely easy to change. Not cheap, but Amtrak demands expensive inspections and refurbishment to run, so the cost of changing the gauge is likely fairly small compared to the other costs.

Off topic, but some trains can even change gauge while in motion: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/kq6eds/this_is_how_...

Swiss trains can, but while stopped.

There's a station on the main line that loads full sized cars with tanks on them onto little bougies that take them up into the mountains for training.

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#54

Post by dheera »

user_7832 wrote: post #35
voidUpdate wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make sure you get one that matches American gauge and isn't one of the the meter gauge mountain trains

Not sure if it directly helps here, but multi gaage railway cars are a thing. Iirc on some European lines, the trains switch their gauge.

Yeah some overnight trains can adjust their gauge on the France/Spain border.

On the China/Mongolia border on the other hand they disassemble the train, lift the train cars up one by one (with passengers inside), switch out the boogies and then reassemble. 3 hour process, you can fully sleep through it and not notice.

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#55

Post by kirubakaran »

sailfast wrote: post #47
mplanchard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I ever get to be a millionaire, it’s certainly on my list!

Buy a house first - then make another 20 million, then maybe consider this haha

"Mark, do you have live quite so relentlessly in the real world?"

-- Jeremy, Peep Show

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#56

Post by lqet »

mwexler wrote: post #17

I just want the clocks. Mondaine tries, but they aren't the same. That 58.5 second rotation then pause is quite clever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_railway_clock

Here is an original from a German station (in the design of the 1950ies):

https://www.kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/bahnhofsuhr/343129269...

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#58

Post by crote »

retired wrote: post #16
mplanchard wrote: post #3

You can pay Amtrak to haul your train car around[0], so you’ve just got to figure out a way to get the car from Switzerland to the US, and then you can really get around in style. [0]: https://www.amtrak.com/privately-owned-rail-cars

It’s possible in The Netherlands to charter a private train. I have seen large companies do this for a company retreat. It’s not even that expensive. I remember it being €5000/hour which isn’t a bad way to move 300 employees to the other side of the country.

All European railway operators are legally required to offer this, by the way: it's an open market, so (provided there is physical space) they have to allow anyone to run their own train. Normally this means freight trains, but it also means companies like FlixTrain can attempt to compete with the large national train operators - and of course it allows for one-off charters.

The only downside is that preference is given to regularly scheduled services, and the remaining space is first-come-first-serve, so on the busier routes there's a decent chance you'll have to take a large detour instead, or sit in a siding waiting for a while.

Re: Buy a train, bridge or tracks from the Swiss Railway

#59

Post by Zopieux »

panick21_ wrote: post #42
999900000999 wrote: post #36

If I was rich I’d go to a small town in a developing country and create a monorail. I’d buy up a 4km by 4km plot of land and create a car free city ( aside from emergency vehicles). Free public transport, bikes and shoes for everyone

Monorails suck and are properity garabage. Is a recepy for bad transit at increase cost.

This. The general concept of "terrible public transport tech disguising as a good & novel idea" has a name: gadgetbahn.
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