Head End Power (HEP) is the electrical power supplied from the locomotive to the passenger cars for lighting, heating, air conditioning and other amenities - essentially the "hotel load" that keeps your private car functioning while attached to the train.
Power generated on a train is probably significantly more expensive than power you can pull from the grid. Most of Amtrak's network does not have power so I assume they rely on generators on the train.
It’s also called “hotel” power and is provided by the locomotive, but separate from “needed to run” power. A train can run with just air and the physical connection, hotel comes with the big “other cable” connected.
Some private cars do NOT use it and instead have their own generator. In theory you could have one with no lights, etc at all.
I’ve been on an Amtrak where it lost hotel power; nothing but emergency lighting until they got to a station where they could swap the locomotive.
But the train kept running, and the conductor had to walk the entire train announcing stops verbally; with no PA system.
It's from the loco which in the US almost exclusively used electric propulsion, just for capex vs. opex balance sheet gaming reasons mostly (except in and around NYC (tunnels) and some very recent electrification efforts (I think bright line in FL was looking at electrifying some trains? Something recently did and improved performance that way.) sourced from medium speed diesel generators housed in the loco.
Way back in the day of steam heating was via open-cycle steam and electric lighting via generators on passenger car axles with a local battery to keep the lights on while stopped.
Eventually with the end of steam they switched to electric heating and can conveniently siphon off electric lights from that.
The people doing this at this point are mostly rich rail enthusiasts. No one is doing this to actually get around. The most popular routes are the more scenic ones, like through the mountains. They’re not hitching a car into the Acela to go from NYC to Boston.
And rail car enthusiast associations, which usually consist of passionate but not very rich people - they will pool money together to afford a trip like this every now and then, so usually they'll go "ok we got 20k in membership fees this quarter, where can we go with this money" - so yeah, it will absolutely matter to them.
Tangentially, someone I knew from school worked at the Franklin Mint for a while and he told me their collectibles customers were mostly moderately well-off empty-nesters who now had this money to spend but really weren't into second homes or fancy cars.
I'm not sure that is true — I mean the rich part is true, but not necessarily the rail enthusiast part. One of the times we took the California Zephyr there was a private car on the end that I understood to be some sports-team tycoon who was more or less afraid of flying.
You do see these cars up in South Station occasionally attached to the Regional. Ive always assumed more of a Boston -> DC routing for those. Entertain some guests, get business done etc.
I think the Cardinal is a popular route for a lot of those guys. It’s the scenic way to Chicago. Instead of going from NYC and sort of hugging the south shore of the Great Lakes, it goes south to Dc, then to Charlottesville and over the old C&O route over the Appalachians through Charleston, WV and on along the Ohio river to Cincinnati and then eventually Chicago.
Those prices seem in reach for a dream vacation that you save up for. You can rent railcars that are already approved. buying a custom rail car is possible but likely out of budget for normal people.
The nice ones are almost all old business cars. The business car was used by the railroads for senior executives to move around their systems, and hold meetings.. usually contain a couple of executive bedrooms, a staff bedroom (they typically carried a cook and a steward, although the roles were sometimes combined). The rear half or so of the car is an open plan lounge/meeting room.
The cars were usually built by a company like Pullman, usually from a time frame of roughly 1900 +/- 20 years.
Huge money pits, with tons of (often quite ornate) wood m, etc. then add the cost of restoration (again almost all of these cars are 100+ years old), retrofitting modern electrical systems, air conditioning. Could easily be a million dollar project.
Not really, you just need to get more people. The fanciest car holds 8, other cars hold 20 to 70 people. So if you divide the price the people it's not that bad.
The first time I realized this kind of thing was a tour of a baseball stadium. They showed us the suites. I forgot how much they cost but if you got a bunch of friends together to fill one then they were in the same range as medium good seats.
A decade ago a friend of mine rented a private rail car (for cost---he knows the owner) for a family trip/birthday present, and I got to ride on it for a few hours as it was being positioned (https://boston.conman.org/2015/08/05.4). I didn't get a price from him, but it was clear it was pretty much the cost of a new car. The car he was renting came with a lounge, three state rooms, bathroom, dining room, kitchen and two crew members (cook and porter, with their own sleeping quarters).
Their trip was from Miami to Chicago back to Jacksonville (where the car is stored---I rode on it from central Florida to Boca Raton as it was being positioned prior to the start of the family trip; because it was running late, I didn't get a chance to eat lunch on it, sigh) over the course of a week or so. If I could, this is how I would travel, but of course, this being the US, it's not really a viable means of transportation.
> but of course, this being the US, it's not really a viable means of transportation.
Surely if the problem with roads and cars is that private transportation takes up too much room, then widespread private train cars by everyone would be equally problematic pretty much anywhere in the world.
Long distance routes do not take up that much room - most people don't do it often enough. You wouldn't want this for getting to work every day - that wouldn't work. Though a train car can safely follow closer than a auto so it would still be better than private autos.
From what I remember they ran that car on banker/stockbroker hours - the average commuter would have never seen it.
Part of the draw, I'm sure, is that Metra allows alcohol on trains. So you've basically got 50+ friends drinking together on the way home, every day. Speaking of which, I thought I heard something about them bringing back the bar cars to increase revenue. (For those that don't ride the train in Chicago - it is BYOB. In the old days they actually had a public train car with a bar and bartender you could purchase from).
When I lived in suburbs and worked downtown in the ‘90s they used to sell bottles of beer out of big iced tubs right outside the rail siding down in Union Station. It was usually a fun ride back to Downer’s Grove.
China has more than 550 cities with high speed rail lines spanning over 40,000km. each with first class, toilets, and meal services.
Or...you can buy an entire rail car, hitch it to the haggard burro that is Amtrak and chug along at pony express speeds across the United States of nothingness until freight rail causes you to have to stop for 3 hours at a time as you do not have right of way.
Enjoy Batesland Nebraska at 20mph slower than the interstates posted speed limit.
who at Amtrak thought this was worth even mentioning?
This is churlish to the point of complete foolishness. Amtrak has a scenic view car for a reason. There is almost no stretch of the track outside of cities that fails to be a completely beautiful and picturesque portrait of our amazing country.
If you haven't tried it then you might not know. I feel bad that you haven't had this experience personally.
> causes you to have to stop for 3 hours at a time as you do not have right of way.
It's about 15 minutes and may happen once or twice a day. The longest delay I experienced was because the locomotive had a mechanical issue. That took one hour.
> who at Amtrak thought this was worth even mentioning?
What kind of person without the relevant experience would even endeavor to offer this comment?
It really almost is. Especially on the California Zephyr[0]. We didn't put train tracks down at random. We built them early and used techniques that saw them follow terrain features that were convenient to follow. I ride quite a bit and the mountain tunnels are the only part I can think of that don't fit my description.
In fairness, "amber waves of grain" can probably get old after a while. But absent time (and, to some degree, money restrictions), I'd probably get somewhat bored after a while given that I've seen a lot of that scenery from a car or hiking around.
But to the point some people here are making, I've done some fairly long distance train travel in Europe, including sleepers, and, while I tend to prefer it to planes especially budget ones which I basically never take, I'm not sure it's an especially efficient way to travel for the most part if you want to get from point A to point B as quickly and cost effectively as possible.
It really never wins against a plane or even car except where everything lines up perfectly and you can treat an overnight sleeper train as a rolling hotel, check in, eat, sleep, eat, walk out where you need to be.
It’s such a good experience that building the rest of the trip around it can be worthwhile, but it is still not terribly fast.
Yeah, if you get a sleeper and figure you're saving a night in London or Edinburgh and you don't need to deal with airports, something like the Caledonian Sleeper isn't a bad deal or really consume a lot of extra time. But if you're not in a hurry, it's still a good experience for a lot of people.
But then I've also done a trans-Atlantic crossing but I was semi-retired at the time. Which I would do again at some point but was certainly neither cost nor time efficient.
The worst part of any scenic train trips are the inner cities (which are interesting and different, at least, and you can learn new swears from the graffiti) and the cornfields in the plains.
Even the latter has things to see as rail lines go through so many small towns. But it’s admittedly not as cool as the mountain or shoreline trains.
Just don’t sit on the bottom floor or you’ll be staring at cornstalks for 30+ hours.
I took a train from nyc to chicago recently and felt like I was passing through the higher numbered districts of the hunger games. The parent is not wrong.
>I took a train from nyc to chicago recently and felt like I was passing through the higher numbered districts of the hunger games.
Oh man, oh man, the irony.
Formerly industrial areas of the US are poor and dilapidated because the people of places specifically including but not strictly limited to NYC and Chicago (with the help of some voters elsewhere) made big bucks sending all that productivity to poorer nations. The wealth is not there specifically because decisions were made to benefit wall street at those people's expense.
Hunger games was a more apt metaphor for the comparison than I think you thought it was.
Amtrak does have right-of-way by federal law for over 50 years now. However, the freight operators don't care and the federal government refuses to enforce it.
People with private train cars probably have a louder voice than most rail passengers so if this gets more popular perhaps that could change.
The freight operators say they obey law. I've talk to their drivers (on my last trip one was taking amtrak) who tell about hours waiting for a late amtrak.
i don't know who is right but I don't trust anyone to tell the full truth.
They do obey the law: they're required to pull onto a siding to allow Amtrak to stay on time. So the operators ensure the train is too long for any of the sidings, which fits them into an escape clause. Any cargo train stuck waiting for Amtrak simply isn't fully stacked yet.
Closing that loophole is what the government is dragging its feet about.
> United States – BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) regularly operate intermodal container trains exceeding 5,000 metres (16,500 ft) in length on main lines in the western United States. On the UP, these trains can stretch to over 6,100 metres (20,000 ft) with 5 locomotives and 280 well cars.
Those are incredible figures. It would almost be a shame to ban such amazing monuments to engineering. Not to mention that it's probably the most efficent and enviromentally friendly way to do things.
It's not due to the logistics of rail labor and a bunch of other things. I forget the math but smaller trains can run more often without sitting for hours and take advantage of fuel and labor better.
the podcast well there's your problem covered it in deep detail
Dual track isn’t really a two way road, with signaling it ends up being infinite sidings, and is used almost more for passing than for two-way traffic - if it exists outside cities.
Unfortunately much of the USA is single or effectively single tracked.
it's possible that freight trains are waiting for an Amtrak that was itself, earlier delayed by freight trains and became late. And given that equipment on a route will become the return journey this could cascade out of control.
Amtraks are never in charge of dispatching on routes they don't own, and there's a very clear correlation between on time performance and percentage of the route they do own.
At those prices, this would have to compete against options like a private chauffeur in a Rolls-Royce though, or a private luxury tour bus. Both of which would come in considerably cheaper.
I would rather fly commercial than be driven in any private vehicle long distance. I would, however, embrace the luxury of a slower trip by private railcar. Beyond the novelty, I could presumably stretch out and sleep and maybe enjoy a great meal.
I think the historical element has a strong appeal. Say, a restored luxury railcar with period appropriate antiques. That would be an experience that is hard to get elsewhere. Even old style hotels and such somehow feel less authentic and "alive" than riding in a luxury railcar from the 1800s.
It depends. I take the Amtrack from Albany to Chicago once a year or so because I hate flying. It's maybe an hour or two slower than driving and that's with a lot of time built in to the schedule for delays. The last time I took it We left Albany 45 minutes late and still made it on time to Chicago. Yes, delays happen, just like in traffic or at the air port, but I find the focus on delays when Amtrak comes up extremely over-stated. Perhaps it's just the routes I'm on.
Private rail car is nowhere near as comfortable as actually getting home quickly, especially you have the kind of home that people with all the money in the world do.
Many people with money travel so much home is a hotel. They 'have a large manson that the staff says is nice' isn't quite the truth but it isn't far off.
though they also don't have time to take a slow train.
Perhaps more of a European mega-rich habit, not especially applicable to the US, is the practice of just taking the mansion, helicopters, and cars with you on a super yacht.
I'd forbid those things in territorial waters. They bring no money to local communities and are glad to do things like ignore nature reserves or go with motor boats where people are swimming, which is of course illegal but they don't care.
For example, Portland to Seattle isn't that far but I-5 can easily back up and become an hours-long ordeal, and SEA and PDX aren't particularly close to a lot of places.
Seattle metro area: Some of the right-of-ways have been converted into rail trails, so the map probably isn't THAT bad. But yeah the current state of US rail is depressing compared to what could have been (or yet could be!)
The old Goodyear blimps were ridiculously loud. You needed to wear ear protection 100% of the time. The new ones are whisper quiet.
FYI, whenever they go someplace they almost always have time in the schedule dedicated to giving free rides. You just gotta be in the right place at the right time ;)
Do you really have a privately owned rail car in order to go fast? It sounds to me more like a self-driving campervan, you can sit back and watch the world roll by.
I think the railcar equivalent will eventually become reality (if it isn't already)
Lots of people tool around in giant class-a motorhomes. They are 40 or 45 feet long. They are basically small apartments with double-door fridges, dishwasher, washer/dryer, starlink, etc
if they add the self-driving stuff, it will make them extra popular.
It's definitely something a zillionaire does in a Peter F. Hamilton book, except instead of a rail car it's a zepplin. I mean, if I were a zillionaire I guess I'd live in a zepplin too.
I agree with your point on delays caused by freight rail and Amtrak speeds in general. But I think the bit about Nebraska is too negative. People love road trips in their cars and train trips for the same reason - it’s fun looking out your window and seeing things. If you open yourself to it, there is so much to appreciate about the parts of countries that are less visited.
Having ridden every class of ticket in China's rail system, there is a special place in my heart for all of those experiences.
I am sure a private railcar hitched to the Haggard Amtrak Burro is a special experience, too, particularly when your party is the only party for the staff to wait on.
You should not consider Amtrak unless desperate. Even then, generally a bus would be better. Amtrak does not exist. It legally has to exist but it is worse than useless, because it pretends that it might actually be something you'd want to use.
Having take a bus and amtrack I'll take amtrak. My bus was just as late, and there was less opportunity to walk around. Amtrak has sleeper cars which are probably better than the coach seats I was in (the bedrooms areea good price for 4 people but had 5 and so couldn't make the numbers work)
I took Amtrak from Boston South Station to Montpelier. You have to go south to Connecticut before you can get the Vermonter. The Vermonter was canceled due to contention with a disabled Metro North (or something...) and my connecting train turned into a bus.
When I've gone to NYC, it's honestly been less hassle to just take the bus.
A trick that won’t always work - get the sleeper for four and have the fifth visit. You just gotta be nice to the conductor and the sleeper attendant.
But the other option is to just all get lower level coach seats next to each other - sometimes five or six is about all they have down there. Make a new friend!
Where it won't work is getting into the dining car - the cost of meals on a train is a large part of why sleepers are a "good" deal. (Amtrak meals are expensive for what you get)
I've taken a "luxury" bus from the Boston area to NY once. I'll stick to Amtrak although, given where I live, it's not very efficient. Boston area to DC really takes too long though I've done it.
I hate driving into NYC though I've done it with someone else (or because I was headed somewhere else afterwards). As you say, with multiple people, the numbers don't really pencil out--especially given it takes longer for me.
I do BOS-NYC occasionally. Have driven, taken the train, and have taken a bus. The train was fine, but the bus was also fine, was far cheaper and the bus terminal is just as central in Manhattan.
It makes me so mad that we have a rail system that has all the structural necessities to make HSR a reality, yet we're stuck with service that last looked modern 50 years ago. If there's one place in the USA that would have the ridership to support a HSR it would be the Boston-DC metro axis.
This is only true in the region served by Acela that is south of NYC. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is taking Amtrak from BOS to DC unless there's a really good extenuating circumstance.
That's what makes this interesting to me. Because I feel like, if you own an operatable train car that can be hooked up to AmTrak, then you not only don't have to ask for the pricing, but do you even have to google to see if you can hook it up?
An operable train car could be something you have as a coop deal. If you are good with tools you can probably trade labor for use of a car. (There are several rr clubs restoring old cars that would then qualify - check the club for terms - might even be a club event so the costs are shared with others)
There is nothing more saddening than the state of America’s train situation. It’s like we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding the value of shared infrastructure.
In the rare case that a state escapes the matrix and actually realizes the benefit, we can’t get the damn thing built.
I want a packed bullet train, not a fucking slow private train car.
Land was granted to the railroads with the agreement that they would run passenger rail services. When passenger rail became so unprofitable that it was bankrupting rail companies, they lobbied to make it the governments responsibility to move people around and leave them to make money shuffling freight.
Part of the way this worked was that USPS was actually paying for a lot of the rail services to deliver mail (which is also what the government wanted more so than passenger rail service.) The moment USPS pulled contracts in favor of long-distance airmail the whole model went belly-up.
Most rails were not land grant. Those were what you read about in history, but most had to buy their own land. Land grant mostly was for places where today almost nobody lives and even less back then.
Unlikely. Because they tend to be close-coupled units with distributed power and traction control. In case of anything Talgo-related with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_bogie 's even more so.
American trains are the best in the world - at freight. even overall I'd call us rail best in the world - the state of freight rail is that bad in most of the world.
of course people see passanger trains and don't think of freight. However that is missing the true picture.
That is a factor in India's favor, but there are a lot of other factors. Overall India just doesn't move that much freight when you examine everything so I still give the point the the US despite things not being perfect.
Of course how you weigh the various factors in subjective. The more important take away is there are lots of different things in the world and you should be working on where your weaknesses are not trying to claim you are great despite them. (I'm only claiming US good here in reaction to the passenger focus - I'm aware of plenty of problems with US rail that are not on topic so I'm not giving indication of being aware. I don't know you, hopefully you are honest about the shortcomings of whatever your system is and working on fixing them where it it appropriate)
The USA moves an incredibly insane amount of bulk goods by rail ridiculously long distances.
It’s so insane that it’s probably too cheap and we should do something else, but there are trains full of petroleum because a pipeline hasn’t been built.
And if coal is being brought to Newcastle it likely crossed the USA in a bulk train.
Strangely enough, Florida, of all places seems to be having really good success with their Brightline rail network. The initial system runs from Miami to Orlando, with a few stops in between. They're planning on expanding up north and east into the panhandle. Financially things are a bit dicey, but it got built, and it's reliable. Ridership is increasing, which takes cars of the road, and property values in the areas it stops are going up. Meanwhile California doesn't even have their tiny "initial operating segment" built, and is projecting to be up to 3-4x their original budget of 33 billion dollars.
This is an important example; Brightline feels qualitatively different from Amtrak and they get points for actually delivering new passenger rail service. They have a newer, cleaner, faster product. I rode once from Orlando to Boca and sat next to some British rail fans who went out of their way to try "the new train" on their way to a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale.
Unfortunately despite significant capital investment to run double track on the FEC corridor from West Palm to Miami (their initial route before expanding north), they and the FEC have been unable/unwilling to do much about the fundamental flaw of rail in densely populated South Florida: at-grade crossings, many in no-horn zones because nearby residents have lobbied for that. This has been a problem for decades even when the line was freight-only.
All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US. Good data visualization and sobering reporting in that article. The railroad wants to socialize the costs of upgrading the crossings but of course privatize the profits. That said, I feel communities that want the density/development benefits of "transit" should be prepared for the costs of achieving that safely.
> All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US.
Gosh, why won't those awful railroad do something to stop their trains from suddenly and completely unpredictably swerving into automobiles?!?
There ought to be a law requiring them to put up signs to notify motorists about the hazard these big dangerous trains that can just suddenly appear out of nowhere. We should also demand bright flashing lights on the fronts of trains as well, so the public can see them at night.
Additionally, I know this might be controversial, I think they should install some kind of automatic motorized "gate" with flashing red lights anywhere that a train might flitter near a roadway. The gate would block the road any time a train is nearby to prevent anyone from getting close to the train. In my imagining, railroads would be required to post signs at these "crossing gates" with the phone number of a 24/7 staffed call center that can stop trains if a car is stuck near the gates or the gates are working.
Boy, I sure wish someone would have thought to install basic precautions like these before allowing these trains to just dart all over the place, willy-nilly.
Brightline missed ("deferred") a bond payment last month:
> Brightline, the private rail line linking Orlando to Miami, refinanced $985M of junior debt at a record-high 14.89% yield, reflecting deep investor concern after delaying a July interest payment on $1.2B in munis. The company, already downgraded deeper into junk by S&P and Fitch, faces falling ridership (53% below projections) and revenue (67% below estimates), plus a potential cash shortfall this quarter without an equity infusion.
The only halfway competent rail in the US is that northeast corridor in New England. Everything else is crap. And even that northeast corridor is only halfway competent. That people are raving about any of the rail in the US only betrays a lack of use of many foreign rail services. Particularly those in Asia.
It’s sad, because I believe we have the ability to outdo everyone, but we can’t get it done.
Auto Train is a great train within the constraints of the existing system (turns a passenger train into a car hauling freight and that’s so valuable people take the trade-offs).
Well there was that whole genocide of Native Americans thing. And that Civil War thing where half the country was killing the other half. Black people were slaves, women couldn't vote (or own property, or a bank account, etc), being gay was illegal, the Irish were the immigrant whipping boys. Then there was the Jim Crow era, WWI, the Depression, Prohibition, WW2, McCarthyism, the Korean War, Vietnam (when the last Jim Crow laws were repealed).
But, sure, right now is the most depressing time in US history.
To be clear women gained the right to have bank accounts in 1974.
American Indian parents didn't gain the right to decide on their children's schooling until 1978.
The recency of these atrocities never ceases to surprise me. It's incredible how long we keep up barbaric practices and then how quickly they finally come to an end.
Marriage equality in the United States is only 10 years old. Anyone remember the debates as recently as the early 2010s? How many of us have high school diplomas older than any gay marriage certificate in the United States of America? It's absolutely ridiculous to look at arguments made barely over a decade ago about a thing that is now completely normalized and benign.
The legal right to open a bank account in her own name was codified at the federal level in 1974, but that's all it was - codification. Women had already gained that right on a state-by-state basis prior to 1900.
It's technically true, but it hides the actual reality.
> The legal right to open a bank account in her own name was codified at the federal level in 1974, but that's all it was - codification. Women had already gained that right on a state-by-state basis prior to 1900.
What's your source on this? What I seem to be able to find that seems consistent is:
* California was the first state to guarantee women the right to independently open bank accounts in 1862.
* Some individual banks not subject to a state mandate to do so chose to allow women (often with restrictions, conditions, e.g. relating to marital status, that did not apply to men) to open accounts independently.
* I can't find any source that indicates that being able to open independent depository accounts on the same basis as men was nationally acheived state by state as a legal right at all, much less prior to the 1900s.
* There's a common, consistently unsourced claim that the right to open an account (but not to be free of discrimination in terms, or to access credit on equal terms to men, etc.) was generally guaranteed by the states "in the 1960s"; but at least several sources expresses skepticism of this consistently unsourced claim and suggests it may be a myth originating in the fact taht Canada protected women's right to open bank accounts in 1964.
* Technically, women didn't get federal protection of a right to open bank depository accounts in their own name without discrimination in 1974, either, they got a right to equal treatment by institutions issuing credit. This had a side effect of guaranteeing equal access to those depository accounts that came with credit features, because those constituted issuing credit.
So, when did women federally get guaranteed equal treatment in bank depository accounts indepedently of those that also count as issuing credit? The same time that was guaratneed on the basis of race -- never. (There have occasionally been efforts to address this, and other permitted-disccrimination effects of the fact that banks are not included as public accommodations under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but none have passed that explicitly did so; the CFPB's power under the CFPA to address "unfair practices" was used to target race, gender, and other discrimination in financial services not subject to the ECOA or CRA, but that that was within the scope of "unfair practices" was a matter of agency rules and interpretation, not explicit in statute.)
“Actual reality” is women actually being able to open their own independent accounts. The laws you cited are technicalities. The history of civil liberties in this country is full of examples of institutions simply refusing to do the right thing until forced.
Ask your nearest boomer woman when she actually opened her own bank account without the approval of a man. I bet the results will surprise you.
My mom couldn’t deposit her babysitting money in rural Idaho without a signature from my grandfather. She couldn’t independently buy a car with that babysitting money. Her younger brother of course could. She rightly remembers this injustice.
Regardless of the laws or when they were passed the idea of financial discrimination against women is completely outside the Overton window today but it was the norm in living memory.
I bet the result won't surprise me. It might surprise you, though. My mother toured the US with a friend in 1960 and never had any trouble with banking. Not with getting an account, nor writing checks, nor withdrawing cash.
I'm not surprised your mother couldn't get a bank account without an adult cosigner if she was a minor. I had the same problem.
The interstate system was originally built so that the army could move quickly from one place to another in the event of a war. I love how things happen in America.
There’s an episode of Archer where Cheryl Tunt, the company secretary, does exactly this on a trip from New York to somewhere in Canada. Their agency was extraditing a Nova Scotian separatist.
I learned a great new word from that episode. Archer is one of the best shows for strange and funny use of language, they just nail my favourite type of humour.
My wife loves the train (hates driving) and so this would be quite interesting to us. But I've heard too many Amtrak horror stories, like the one about how the train broke down about ten miles away from her destination, and they wouldn't let her get off, so she had to sit there for ten hours until they were able to fix it.
This is definitely the weirdest part, their refusal to treat passengers with any respect. For the most part the crew often doesn't know if it will get fixed in one hour or ten hours, but they don't communicate this and there's never an option to bail and have someone pick you up.
Last time I took Amtrak out of LA Union Station, it broke down but luckily was able to pull into the next station so people could get off and find another route. I stayed on and after about 4 hours we were towed back to union station.
We once rode the Amtrak from Sacramento to Reno, through the snow, with the kids. Figured it would be a fun adventure. On the ride up, we were about an hour behind schedule - no problem. On the way back, we started our day at 8am and didn't arrive home til 8pm. Train had to keep stopping for "unexpected delays". Regulars on the train were saying it happens all the time. Not fun.
Why anyone would pay 100x the price to have the same experience is beyond me.
That is not how Amtrak cars are laid out. That's just categorically not a thing on Amtrak. Not in coach, not in the roomette, and not in the private rooms.
One of the places people with these cars visit is Yellowstone, and I've talked to a few of them at the local burger stand (closest food to the railroad siding where they "park"). Interesting people, and less pretentious than I expected for private train owners. I suppose a train is cheaper than a private plane.
I was reverse commuting at the time and wondered what the hell the car was as it looked different than all the other modern cars. I imagine in its heyday it was probably a decent party back up to the North Shore.
I recently took a trip from Chicago to LA and saw some folks doing just this! They had a restored Pullman sleeping car and a kitchen/bar car behind it with crystal chandeliers. Maybe the single most luxurious way to travel. Every stop people would get out and gawk at their cars.
I'm not sure why, other than for the nostalgia, I'd do this other than a trans-Atlantic ocean liner. I have take fairly comfortable sleepers in Europe but nothing like a luxurious ship.
Rail is my favorite way to travel. Going to sleep at night with the country going by is one of the finest feelings imaginable in life, little towns with lights on in empty public squares, just one of my absolute favorite things. And you wake up in endless fields or breathtaking views of canyons and mountains. The people are friendly and you meet new ones at every meal. The sleeper accommodations aren't exactly the Ritz, but they're cozy and comfortable and good for reading or writing or just sitting and looking out the window for hours. Coffee is plentiful and decent, meals are probably microwaved but served on white tablecloths. Cruises give me a feeling of disconnectedness. You're on endless waves, endless sea, in the middle of nowhere. On the train, even going through a desert you feel like you're in the moving center of the world and every stop you could get off and be in a town you'd never heard of that means something to someone. You feel like you're a part of the grand and forgotten history that built the country.
It definitely depends on what you're looking for. I'm very happy with extremely low-key, cozy, and quiet. There are trains that have lectures and good meals (the trans Canadian railway!) but not Amtrak as far as I'm aware.
How about airship tours? Not massively different to a train car in terms of pace, but with much more space and good line of sight for sightseeing and internet connectivity.
Actually it wasn't about the hydrogen that much. More like the hull painted with flammable stuff. With todays materials it couldn't have burned like that. So any airship design of today NOT using hydrogen is wasting buoyancy, and a rare (on earth) element, which could be put to use for more important things.
FWIW it was about hydrogen - the Hindenburg was designed around Helium (and thus didn't have various safeties around hydrogen) but due to embargoes against Nazi Germany they couldn't get the necessarily helium, so they filled it up with hydrogen against the original spec.
Yes. But still the paint burned first. And the hydrogen didn't explode, there was no "Knallgas". Even in all that chaos, the opportunity to mix in the right ratio with air to enable that, didn't arise. It just flared off.
One could even argue that all that flaring off generated some lift by updraft, making it crash softer, more slowly.
Hydrogen is not picky about fuel air mixture; it will explode at any concentration between 4% and 74% (in air). I rewatched the footage and it sure looks like an explosion to me.
The thermite paint hypothesis is interesting but a bunch of hydrogen airships exploded. The Hindenburg was partly made from metal recovered from the R101. The R101 exploded on her maiden voyage.
We might expect it to look differently, but it would appear that that's exactly what a hydrogen explosion looks like. By what means do you believe the camera, at least a hundred meters away, shakes?
Did it shake by a blast? Or was it just hastily turned around, to catch the flames?
I've watched many videos about that in the past, even ones where there were overlays with 3d-point-clouds.
Not in the mood to analyze this one further. Have doubts about it being really 'real time', conversion errors, whatver.
Maybe our understanding of 'explosion' is different. By explosion I mean something coming apart fast in an instant, with a bang, things flying away, shockwave.
For sure, in my mind a deflagration is a type of explosion, but I certainly don't mean to quibble about terms or to litigate this video more than is interesting to you.
I guess for me, I don't know whether it was hydrogen leaking around the rear or thermite in the paint which caused the ignition, and I don't know whether a helium airship would've also caught fire and how disastrous such a fire would've been. But I do know that what happened next was that the hydrogen ignited and the ship blew up.
That being said I think airships are a criminally under explored mode of transit, and that the Hindenburg shouldn't be a reason to abandon it altogether. At a minimum we're much more experienced in handling hydrogen now, and modern hydrogen blimps don't seem to blow up all that often.
In my experience, these cars are old and decrepit, and force you to breathe locomotive engine exhaust all the time, and especially when the train is idling. It’s a fast track to cancer. Don’t spend any more time than you need to in one. They do not offer the air quality of a modern passenger rail car. Heck, I wouldn’t even sleep in a modern rail car at night, in a rail yard, when all systems are off.
You'd really want a siding with (RR-specific) electrical connections, no noisy/smelly industry next to you, decent views, an elevated platform, and some parking spaces.
They're darn rare, but do exist. If I was Old Money, I'd probably build more in a few in beautiful spots - and freely loan 'em to my peers, as a social networking thing.
You actually can. You need access to the siding (even ones next to a cement plant or abandoned building are often railroad controlled or owned) - the trickiest part is car or walking access.
If a truck can get next to it then you have sewage and fuel deliver solved.
Now you just need $100k-$2000k for the private car!
Crazy idea based on this: a mobile home that can be put either on rail car or electric car platform. Those platforms are pooled and can be rented at designated stations. Or maybe a platform where you can simply park and connect your RV. You basically outsource driving for the significant part of your travel and just enjoy the road. Also better for the environment.
No, it is not it. The idea is that the living module or RV is still occupied during the travel unlike the motorail, where passengers are traveling in separate passenger cars. Car shuttle trains where passengers stay inside the vehicle also do not offer connection of utilities to RV. And my idea goes further where living module is disconnected from engine/wheels platform when loaded on the train (if the design is standardized similarly to containers, you can get new one at the destination, so the train carries less weight).
Weight is not really an issue for trains, RVs / cars weigh absolutely nothing in comparison to even just a rail car.
For safety reasons you can't really have people sit in their cars on the train. The Eurostar etc. has extensive fire systems et. al. to make it possible.
>so how do you get a privately owned train car and get it to the tracks or etc?
I think you wait in a remote bit of Nevada for a train to pass, and trigger a rock fall which causes the driver to slam on the brakes and bring the train to a stop just short of the rockfall.
Then, you and your posse jump out from behind some rocks and fire your revolvers in the air, and the driver sticks his hands up. There's much celebration, and back slapping as you discover the train also happens to have a massive amount of gold bullion on board.
The rest is a bit blurry, can't remember seeing what you then do, but it probably involves filing down the serial numbers on the frame or something like that?
> Having worked at a railroad, I will say it’s comically easy to steal a train, for instance. They all have the same key, which is basically just a plastic rod.
> The argument of the railroads is... okay, you have our train. Now what? You either go forward or you go backward, and we know where both those directions go.
Well if you're Tintin you'll use it to catch up with the train in front and when that doesn't work, accidentally blow it up... Tintin in america is a great parody of 1930's Midwestern united states and the gangster culture of Chicago.
They actually do get lost quite often. There’s quite a bit of law around ownership of rail, cars, requirements, and maintenance and who’s in control and who’s in charge. All those numbers you see on the side of it are part of the tracking to figure out where things are.
The bad guys are driving their train when a cop train shows up in the mirrors behind their train.
Cop walks up to the window and asks for their license and registration please. Another shootout occurs followed by a multi-track multi-train police chase, but everyone needs to stay on their respective train tracks.
There was some discussion on the process here a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19505897 written shortly after Amtrak complained "These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins". It's not an easy process.
A disused car is $100-200k depending on condition, and it’d probably cost about as much to refurbish into use. An off the shelf fully outfitted luxury car can cost a million or more.
Operating, maintenance, and storage costs dwarf the capital costs within a few years so unless it’s rusting in a backyard, the expensive part is using it rather than buying one. Storage alone costs $30k-50k a year.
You can get rail cars for free every once in a while the problem is you have to then pay to transport it to someplace you can store it. But usually there’s a rail club somewhere nearby that would love to have an addition to the collection if you’re paying to make it nice and usable.
Quite a while back I drove a friend of mine from SF to a railcar museum because he wanted to get a tour of railcars from a movie. The secretary of the club that ran the museum told us that they wouldn't have been able to transport the car from the location where it was originally located to the museum today.
There are a lot of RR cars around the country that are not movable for various reasons. Many of them because while the car could be moved, the tracks don't exist. Others because the running gear is worn out.
There is still hope for those cars. If you want to pay for it a ridding company can transport anything from anywhere to anywhere - they will get the correct permits and then load it on a trailer - this is easiest and most common, but not cheap. In some cases you can get an override from the RR to tow it - they can put new wheels under it quick enough, and then put it at the end of the train on a slow month (which is to say they will avoid their busy routes were something breaking would cause problems), again not cheap, but possible and sometimes the RR will subsides the cost if the car has historic value. If there are tracks you can restore it where it is and then the RRs will take it again.
You keep it on tracks, either your own private siding, or rent from a railroad. When you want to go you arrang with the railroad to pick it up. Railroads do this all the time - they might or might not own the cars freight is going on either way they drop it off at your siding and pick it up latter. you need to plan a head though to fit their other scheduldes. There are big costs if you are not ready when the train arrives. (that is no asking them to wait while you store groceries)
The companies that make train cars have a way to do this, so you probably just pay them to do it as part of the price you pay them to make you train car.
When I was a kid, I thought growing up meant taking trains across states. But now even reliable daily commutes feel out of reach. So when I see something like Brightline, it’s quietly moving. Just the image of someone riding an old railcar across America makes the world feel a little more romantic.
They do this in Japan occasionally. I've been on (officially organized by the railroad company) beer trains, wine and cheese trains, local food-tasting trains, etc. Last time, it was like 5,000 yen. All-you-can drink local beer, 2 hour round-trip with stops along the way where local mayors would hope on the train for a quick "hello" speech. Trivia quizzes, bathroom stops at stations (with perplexed-looking late-night commuters), souvenirs for sale... Good times!
This better than every wealthy person owning an RV. Though there is still the last mile problem. Does my personal train car have a vehicle on board (probably I’m rich in this scenario)?
Groups of wealthy people could split a train car. Private Train-car time shares?
If you're actually wealthy, you don't have to split a train car.
Last mile problem? Have your personal assistant drive whatever vehicle you want and have it waiting when the train arrives. They can take an Uber back to wherever they need to be next.
People want this kind of service, but they generally don't like the 19th century experience that is rail travel. Which leads me to a hot take: Within a decade, Autonomous RVs will be the preferred method of travel (above rail and flight) for most trips with a one-way drive time under ~10 hours.
Imagine a private rail car which could pick you up at your doorstep and drop you off in front of your hotel. Is your destination more than a few hours away? Book an evening pick up time and utilize the sleeper configuration. For a 16 hour round trip, such a service could reduce the perceived door-to-door travel time from a full day to near zero.
If you want to hitch your steam train to the back of an Amtrak train and have it towed then you can follow the same rules as a private car.
If you want to actually drive your steam train then you'd need to negotiate with the track owner, which may be hard, particularly if they run on PTC (there's literally one ERTMS-compliant steam train in the world, for example). There's no public right of way on railway tracks for randoms, only for Amtrak (and even they have limits).
That particular train seems to have an arrangement with Amtrak where they run Amtrak services sometimes. But it will certainly be the result of a bespoke negotiation.
ask UP - I'm sure they will agree to run big boy for you for a price. I'd guess $100k/day but I'm not going to ask. Of course if you have something historic and are going where they want to show off big boy anyway it could be much less.
Well, the fuel - typically coal - heats a big container of water to the boiling point. The vapor is collected, and used as a force (because steam expands) to move the pistons, just like the ones moved by gas explosions in your car.
Then the conductor pulls the chain, and the train makes that whistle sound and spouts a lot of white smoke, which means you are nearing an old-timey town.
Other than the cost of the car (which is going to hold its value for decades) & its fees, how is this anywhere near decadent if someone with some money likes to travel this way?
Wherein lies the harm?
People spend more on higher end RVs, burning more fuel, wheels & wear.
This is nowhere near the league of anything that travels through the air with a hint of luxury.
First, train cars are not a precious limited resource. Someone having a car creates no impediments to anyone else.
Second, nothing is being taken from a public sphere - these are one off historically interesting cars being maintained by private individuals at no cost to the public, instead of being scrapped by private companies.
So in fact, something that would be wasted is continuing to get use.
Third, many of these cars are being made available for use to anyone, not just their owners, to help cover their costs. More options for everyone is in fact, a real public good.
The world is full of injustice but it’s worth not confusing someone having something others don’t with someone using wealth to suppress or harm others.
There is nothing here to “fix”. No imbalance or obvious benefit here to justify repressing others. Overreactions to injustice are, unfortunately, a common source of injustices themselves.
I share your concerns for others, and also feel deep frustration with the status quo of increasingly unaccountable wealth-driven compounding of economic, political, social, health, educational and legal inequality.
The fish is blind to the ocean. All of your arguments are soaked in the ideology of economic primacy. From where I stand, it seems like you’re the one that refuses to understand the argument that doesn’t agree with your ideology.
And to be clear, I couldn’t care less if you own a rail car, but you shouldn’t get to use public infrastructure to operate it.
> The fish is blind to the ocean. All of your arguments are soaked in the ideology of economic primacy.
Ok. I guess if you had any actual points you would have made them instead of poor sport poetry and blatant projection.
I don't believe in economic primacy.
Nor do I have ideology. I don't think any one way of looking at things can ever be complete. As I already stated.
It was you, who explicitly outed yourself as ideological, and are making ideological arguments instead of practical ones based on actual harm or benefit.
People or businesses pay to use public parks for events, public buildings, school buses, the list is endless. People like this. It is viewed as pro-sharing, pro-community. These options makes public asset more valuable to the public, help defray costs, and increase the good they generate for society. With any harm or mistreatment to anyone.
You claiming that you “don’t have ideology” is exactly what I’m referring to. Yes you do. Everyone does, and every argument has an ideology behind it. If you can’t see it, that just means you’re so used to it you’re blind to it, like a fish in the ocean. That’s a dangerous state of mind to be in, it’s very easy to manipulate the person that believes they’re objectively right.
You should look up dialectics, it sounds like there would be a lot of new material there for you.
And as for your park example, sure, I’ll explain why it’s not the same thing.
If it costs 10$ to rent a BBQ spot in the park for an hour, do you think that that’s how much it costs to provide that service? It most likely isn’t. Payment is used as a way to limit demand and to ensure commitment for utilization of a limited shared resource. That’s why these resources are usually priced accessibly to the vast majority of the population. The goal is not to make money, the goal is to ensure the shared resource is utilized efficiently.
Do you think that that’s what’s going on here with letting rich people buy access to public infrastructure? It’s not, this is a for profit operation. This service is inaccessible to the vast majority of the population, regardless of whether it’s for sale to the public or not. This is not about sharing a resource, it’s about letting rich people monopolize resources as long as they have the money to pay for it.
> You claiming that you “don’t have ideology” is exactly what I’m referring to. Yes you do. Everyone does, and every argument has an ideology behind it.
Ideology refers to groups of related ideas that people feel some kind of loyalty too, or priority for. For instance strong libertarians (who have trouble seeing the many limitations of their otherwise good ideas), strident capitalists, communists, etc.
I don't have any loyalty to any ideas beyond how much they make sense, and how relevant they are. Wherever you make sense I will readily adopt ideas from you.
> That’s why these resources are usually priced accessibly to the vast majority of the population. The goal is not to make money, the goal is to ensure the shared resource is utilized efficiently.
Here you do make sense. And it is true.
Public assets are often made available to the public, for private use, at their marginal costs. Which are much lower costs than a business or other large organization would be charged. Those organizations are expected to cover their share of both marginal and primary costs - which are much greater. But fees for the public generally only cover the marginal costs. I.e. if for potential clean up, avoid over booking (as you noted), or whatever.
Marginal costs provide a massive discount for individuals, but are not a subsidy either.
Perhaps that is the missing piece here.
The flexibility of the rail system to work with individuals is admirable. It provides enthusiasts the ability to renovate historically interesting artifacts and continue to give them life. Living connections to the past have a public cultural benefit. With harm done to none.
How can you be so sure that you’re evaluating ideas fairly? How can you be so sure you’re not biased? What if you have an intrinsic bias that you’re unaware of shaping every single decision you make? What if that bias was instilled into you purposefully by people who wanted their ideology to seem like the “rational” way of being?
I don't have any "beliefs", just best understandings at any give time, which I am constantly and actively improving.
Of course I don't know everything about anything. It floors me that people ever think they do. And that many are not motivated learners or listeners, even/often in the areas they most care about.
I can't make sense of your negative assessment of a few private cars paying their way on public tracks, already used by large organizations.
But the way you described public access in general was a good viewpoint, and that helped me clarify my own reasoning.
You didn't explicitly use the words marginal cost, but your description was very close to that, and it really struck me as the heart of the matter. A consistent way to think about moral economic policies for public things being made available to private parties, at serious discounts, but without public tax dollars subsidizing those private parties. (Unless subsidizing for everyone is the point, like libraries.)
All things being equal, it is morally wrong when taxes subsidize something only wealthy people can afford. That seems like a point of agreement.
Subtle distinctions can matter a lot, as it did here, so thank you.
Characteristic of the time. Anything that benefits some fraction of the population that isn't wealthy is woke and is thus doubleplusungood. Thusly, organizations are forced to derive their revenue from catering to the small fraction of wealthy folks who derive more and more from everyone else.
Yeah, its a bank on top of many natural resources. It happens to be populated exclusively by people that failed wherever they came from, and a few bankers.
Only in the US could the most collectivistic and efficient mode of transport be perverted into yet another incredibly inefficient and individualistic toy for the wealthy. I can't seem to find anything like that anywhere else.
It anppears to be Amtrak’s greater flexibility and uniformity of gauges in North America that allows this. Europe has more of the historical private wealth that would still own and want to operate a private train or carriage.
I don't think the gauges were much of an issue for passenger trains, after all there were many running across Europe (Orient Express etc).
It's probably more that distances were shorter, the crazy rich could afford an entire train, and the less-rich would use private luxury carriages owned by the railway companies.
Since the 1950s or so, the flexibility has been gradually lost as trains become mostly fixed formations for speed, safety etc, so that certainly explains why it doesn't exist now in Europe.
If you're wondering the most obvious thing:
- Cost per mile: $4.72
- Minimum charge: $2296
There are also a huge number of other fees that I can't tell if you'd need to pay in practice, e.g.:
- Additional Locomotive Fee (per loco mile): $7.54
- Amtrak Locomotive Daily Charge: $2513
- Head End Power Daily Charge: $3433
- Annual Administrative Fee: $574
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
Head End Power (HEP) is the electrical power supplied from the locomotive to the passenger cars for lighting, heating, air conditioning and other amenities - essentially the "hotel load" that keeps your private car functioning while attached to the train.
Why is it so much? I can't imagine a few lighting and heating fixtures using several thousands worth of electricity.
Power generated on a train is probably significantly more expensive than power you can pull from the grid. Most of Amtrak's network does not have power so I assume they rely on generators on the train.
It’s also called “hotel” power and is provided by the locomotive, but separate from “needed to run” power. A train can run with just air and the physical connection, hotel comes with the big “other cable” connected.
Some private cars do NOT use it and instead have their own generator. In theory you could have one with no lights, etc at all.
I’ve been on an Amtrak where it lost hotel power; nothing but emergency lighting until they got to a station where they could swap the locomotive.
But the train kept running, and the conductor had to walk the entire train announcing stops verbally; with no PA system.
> with no PA system
Wow. That is crazy and surprising. I can see losing air conditioning, but the PA should be considered mission critical.
The toilets also rely on electricity to flush, which is where the real nightmares begin on any sufficiently sold train of 2+ hours.
Why can't the locomotive pull it from the wires? It's not like it maintains a constant draw with all the speed changes and such.
Most of the US doesn't have wires.
It's from the loco which in the US almost exclusively used electric propulsion, just for capex vs. opex balance sheet gaming reasons mostly (except in and around NYC (tunnels) and some very recent electrification efforts (I think bright line in FL was looking at electrifying some trains? Something recently did and improved performance that way.) sourced from medium speed diesel generators housed in the loco.
Way back in the day of steam heating was via open-cycle steam and electric lighting via generators on passenger car axles with a local battery to keep the lights on while stopped.
Eventually with the end of steam they switched to electric heating and can conveniently siphon off electric lights from that.
OTOH if you want a bunch refrigerator cars it might take a bit more power.
If you have to ask you can't afford it.
In my experience the people who can afford everything are often the ones looking to pay the least at all times.
The people doing this at this point are mostly rich rail enthusiasts. No one is doing this to actually get around. The most popular routes are the more scenic ones, like through the mountains. They’re not hitching a car into the Acela to go from NYC to Boston.
And rail car enthusiast associations, which usually consist of passionate but not very rich people - they will pool money together to afford a trip like this every now and then, so usually they'll go "ok we got 20k in membership fees this quarter, where can we go with this money" - so yeah, it will absolutely matter to them.
Tangentially, someone I knew from school worked at the Franklin Mint for a while and he told me their collectibles customers were mostly moderately well-off empty-nesters who now had this money to spend but really weren't into second homes or fancy cars.
I'm not sure that is true — I mean the rich part is true, but not necessarily the rail enthusiast part. One of the times we took the California Zephyr there was a private car on the end that I understood to be some sports-team tycoon who was more or less afraid of flying.
There are definitely well-off people who are afraid of flying. My understanding is that Isaac Asimov was also one though I can't provide a reference.
Depending on how long ago it was, it could've been John Madden. Not a tycoon, but the first guy that pops into my head re: sports who refused to fly.
Didn't he famously have a very fancy bus?
He did, the "Madden Cruiser": https://www.profootballhof.com/news/2018/07/original-madden-...
He was known for taking trains as well, e.g. he was a frequent Amtrak rider: https://vault.si.com/vault/1980/11/17/clear-the-tracks-for-b...
You do see these cars up in South Station occasionally attached to the Regional. Ive always assumed more of a Boston -> DC routing for those. Entertain some guests, get business done etc.
I think the Cardinal is a popular route for a lot of those guys. It’s the scenic way to Chicago. Instead of going from NYC and sort of hugging the south shore of the Great Lakes, it goes south to Dc, then to Charlottesville and over the old C&O route over the Appalachians through Charleston, WV and on along the Ohio river to Cincinnati and then eventually Chicago.
Wow, that actually sounds pretty great
many of them got rich by not spending anything and investing what they had. Those habits don't die when you have money.
most of them got rich by being born rich
There are still a large minority who didn't.
This is gonna end soon, if it hasn't already.
You don’t get rich by writing checks. Except pg.
Those prices seem in reach for a dream vacation that you save up for. You can rent railcars that are already approved. buying a custom rail car is possible but likely out of budget for normal people.
The nice ones are almost all old business cars. The business car was used by the railroads for senior executives to move around their systems, and hold meetings.. usually contain a couple of executive bedrooms, a staff bedroom (they typically carried a cook and a steward, although the roles were sometimes combined). The rear half or so of the car is an open plan lounge/meeting room.
The cars were usually built by a company like Pullman, usually from a time frame of roughly 1900 +/- 20 years.
Huge money pits, with tons of (often quite ornate) wood m, etc. then add the cost of restoration (again almost all of these cars are 100+ years old), retrofitting modern electrical systems, air conditioning. Could easily be a million dollar project.
so basically all the problems of buying a castle or old chateau, but on wheels.
Kind of. You don't have to worry about foundations, or sewer lines or frost heaves or masonry. So there are advantages.
But I mean, just look what a nice one is like inside.
Something like this one (Which I've actually been in)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ9TscDfHMQ
More like an old Winnebago that wasn't built to a price point (which is both good and bad)
Not really, you just need to get more people. The fanciest car holds 8, other cars hold 20 to 70 people. So if you divide the price the people it's not that bad.
The first time I realized this kind of thing was a tour of a baseball stadium. They showed us the suites. I forgot how much they cost but if you got a bunch of friends together to fill one then they were in the same range as medium good seats.
Example: https://www.mlb.com/padres/tickets/premium/suites Various prices, one is $4260 for 20 people. That's $213 each. Is that rich person's thing?
It wasn't clear what the private car costs but, just guessing the Train Jam did this. https://trainjam.com/faq You can see the prices for 52hr ride.
Every rail car is a private rail car, if "shared with 20 to 70 people" is your definition of private :)
If the 20 people are close family then …. Yeah?
This is a cliche. Those rich enough that don't have to ask oftentimes pay less than those who are not rich enough.
Parking at a terminal really gets you too
Pretty sure if you own your own $2 million+ private train car this is not a big deal.
A decade ago a friend of mine rented a private rail car (for cost---he knows the owner) for a family trip/birthday present, and I got to ride on it for a few hours as it was being positioned (https://boston.conman.org/2015/08/05.4). I didn't get a price from him, but it was clear it was pretty much the cost of a new car. The car he was renting came with a lounge, three state rooms, bathroom, dining room, kitchen and two crew members (cook and porter, with their own sleeping quarters).
Their trip was from Miami to Chicago back to Jacksonville (where the car is stored---I rode on it from central Florida to Boca Raton as it was being positioned prior to the start of the family trip; because it was running late, I didn't get a chance to eat lunch on it, sigh) over the course of a week or so. If I could, this is how I would travel, but of course, this being the US, it's not really a viable means of transportation.
I feel like the private rail car costing as much as a new car is the main reason you can’t live like this; not because you live in the US
> but of course, this being the US, it's not really a viable means of transportation.
Surely if the problem with roads and cars is that private transportation takes up too much room, then widespread private train cars by everyone would be equally problematic pretty much anywhere in the world.
Long distance routes do not take up that much room - most people don't do it often enough. You wouldn't want this for getting to work every day - that wouldn't work. Though a train car can safely follow closer than a auto so it would still be better than private autos.
It’s not unprecedented.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_553
From what I remember they ran that car on banker/stockbroker hours - the average commuter would have never seen it.
Part of the draw, I'm sure, is that Metra allows alcohol on trains. So you've basically got 50+ friends drinking together on the way home, every day. Speaking of which, I thought I heard something about them bringing back the bar cars to increase revenue. (For those that don't ride the train in Chicago - it is BYOB. In the old days they actually had a public train car with a bar and bartender you could purchase from).
When I lived in suburbs and worked downtown in the ‘90s they used to sell bottles of beer out of big iced tubs right outside the rail siding down in Union Station. It was usually a fun ride back to Downer’s Grove.
End of bar car was sad. They did have bars in the station that would sell in Togo mode, which was mostly good enough.
Nice! Florida had the Henry Plant line of rail 100 years ago. Back then it was the main serious mode of transportation.
https://www.floridamemory.com/fpc/memory/onlineclassroom/rai...
> If I could, this is how I would travel
Why?
I'm not into trains at all, but the American Association of Private Railroad Car Owners has some pretty nice looking cars you can charter:
https://www.aaprco.com/charter-a-private-car
I guess it starts at $30,000? Though that might be for an entire train, not just the cars above.
https://www.amtrak.com/charter-your-private-train
That seems to be chartering the cars from Amtrak, though, not from the private car owners.
I clicked a random one and it was owned by a local club not amtrak
Almost all of them are owned by clubs; even if you were Buffet and wanted to own one it’s cheaper to do so via a non-profit club.
China has more than 550 cities with high speed rail lines spanning over 40,000km. each with first class, toilets, and meal services.
Or...you can buy an entire rail car, hitch it to the haggard burro that is Amtrak and chug along at pony express speeds across the United States of nothingness until freight rail causes you to have to stop for 3 hours at a time as you do not have right of way.
Enjoy Batesland Nebraska at 20mph slower than the interstates posted speed limit.
who at Amtrak thought this was worth even mentioning?
> across the United States of nothingness
This is churlish to the point of complete foolishness. Amtrak has a scenic view car for a reason. There is almost no stretch of the track outside of cities that fails to be a completely beautiful and picturesque portrait of our amazing country.
If you haven't tried it then you might not know. I feel bad that you haven't had this experience personally.
> causes you to have to stop for 3 hours at a time as you do not have right of way.
It's about 15 minutes and may happen once or twice a day. The longest delay I experienced was because the locomotive had a mechanical issue. That took one hour.
> who at Amtrak thought this was worth even mentioning?
What kind of person without the relevant experience would even endeavor to offer this comment?
> There is almost no stretch of the track outside of cities that fails to be a completely beautiful and picturesque portrait of our amazing country
America has some absolutely incredible scenery, but the idea that it's almost _all_ "beautiful and picturesque" is ridiculous.
It really almost is. Especially on the California Zephyr[0]. We didn't put train tracks down at random. We built them early and used techniques that saw them follow terrain features that were convenient to follow. I ride quite a bit and the mountain tunnels are the only part I can think of that don't fit my description.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zccf1KpdTOs
In fairness, "amber waves of grain" can probably get old after a while. But absent time (and, to some degree, money restrictions), I'd probably get somewhat bored after a while given that I've seen a lot of that scenery from a car or hiking around.
But to the point some people here are making, I've done some fairly long distance train travel in Europe, including sleepers, and, while I tend to prefer it to planes especially budget ones which I basically never take, I'm not sure it's an especially efficient way to travel for the most part if you want to get from point A to point B as quickly and cost effectively as possible.
It really never wins against a plane or even car except where everything lines up perfectly and you can treat an overnight sleeper train as a rolling hotel, check in, eat, sleep, eat, walk out where you need to be.
It’s such a good experience that building the rest of the trip around it can be worthwhile, but it is still not terribly fast.
Yeah, if you get a sleeper and figure you're saving a night in London or Edinburgh and you don't need to deal with airports, something like the Caledonian Sleeper isn't a bad deal or really consume a lot of extra time. But if you're not in a hurry, it's still a good experience for a lot of people.
But then I've also done a trans-Atlantic crossing but I was semi-retired at the time. Which I would do again at some point but was certainly neither cost nor time efficient.
The worst part of any scenic train trips are the inner cities (which are interesting and different, at least, and you can learn new swears from the graffiti) and the cornfields in the plains.
Even the latter has things to see as rail lines go through so many small towns. But it’s admittedly not as cool as the mountain or shoreline trains.
Just don’t sit on the bottom floor or you’ll be staring at cornstalks for 30+ hours.
I took a train from nyc to chicago recently and felt like I was passing through the higher numbered districts of the hunger games. The parent is not wrong.
>I took a train from nyc to chicago recently and felt like I was passing through the higher numbered districts of the hunger games.
Oh man, oh man, the irony.
Formerly industrial areas of the US are poor and dilapidated because the people of places specifically including but not strictly limited to NYC and Chicago (with the help of some voters elsewhere) made big bucks sending all that productivity to poorer nations. The wealth is not there specifically because decisions were made to benefit wall street at those people's expense.
Hunger games was a more apt metaphor for the comparison than I think you thought it was.
Yes I'm aware of the history.
Amtrak does have right-of-way by federal law for over 50 years now. However, the freight operators don't care and the federal government refuses to enforce it.
People with private train cars probably have a louder voice than most rail passengers so if this gets more popular perhaps that could change.
The freight operators say they obey law. I've talk to their drivers (on my last trip one was taking amtrak) who tell about hours waiting for a late amtrak.
i don't know who is right but I don't trust anyone to tell the full truth.
They do obey the law: they're required to pull onto a siding to allow Amtrak to stay on time. So the operators ensure the train is too long for any of the sidings, which fits them into an escape clause. Any cargo train stuck waiting for Amtrak simply isn't fully stacked yet.
Closing that loophole is what the government is dragging its feet about.
From wikipedia
> United States – BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) regularly operate intermodal container trains exceeding 5,000 metres (16,500 ft) in length on main lines in the western United States. On the UP, these trains can stretch to over 6,100 metres (20,000 ft) with 5 locomotives and 280 well cars.
Those are incredible figures. It would almost be a shame to ban such amazing monuments to engineering. Not to mention that it's probably the most efficent and enviromentally friendly way to do things.
It's not due to the logistics of rail labor and a bunch of other things. I forget the math but smaller trains can run more often without sitting for hours and take advantage of fuel and labor better.
the podcast well there's your problem covered it in deep detail
IMO the freight companies should be able to pay to build longer sidings if they need them, but they should have to pay for it.
They're not going to build a 4 mile siding, which is the length that many freight operate at. At that point it's like building a second set of tracks.
Then don't build 4 mile trains. It needs to be possible for trains to pass each other.
a lot of rail is 2 track so no sidings are needed.
Because trains never go the other direction anyway.
Dual track isn’t really a two way road, with signaling it ends up being infinite sidings, and is used almost more for passing than for two-way traffic - if it exists outside cities.
Unfortunately much of the USA is single or effectively single tracked.
it's possible that freight trains are waiting for an Amtrak that was itself, earlier delayed by freight trains and became late. And given that equipment on a route will become the return journey this could cascade out of control.
Amtraks are never in charge of dispatching on routes they don't own, and there's a very clear correlation between on time performance and percentage of the route they do own.
Possible, but all I ever see is finger pointing and I don't trust either side to be telling the full truth.
Irks me to no end. Because both sides have the data but just don't share it.
If I was extremely wealthy I would ride around in my private rail car over flying 100% of the time.
At those prices, this would have to compete against options like a private chauffeur in a Rolls-Royce though, or a private luxury tour bus. Both of which would come in considerably cheaper.
I would rather fly commercial than be driven in any private vehicle long distance. I would, however, embrace the luxury of a slower trip by private railcar. Beyond the novelty, I could presumably stretch out and sleep and maybe enjoy a great meal.
I think the historical element has a strong appeal. Say, a restored luxury railcar with period appropriate antiques. That would be an experience that is hard to get elsewhere. Even old style hotels and such somehow feel less authentic and "alive" than riding in a luxury railcar from the 1800s.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C2NNujJKJL4
Pinnacle! I’d even have some begrudging respect for Trump if he made them bust this thing out of storage heh.
"The reason why the car is only 258,000 lbs..."
/cue bald eagle
For me the whole point of flying is fast travel. Private even more so, because it operates on your schedule.
A Amtrak train is slower than driving.
It depends. I take the Amtrack from Albany to Chicago once a year or so because I hate flying. It's maybe an hour or two slower than driving and that's with a lot of time built in to the schedule for delays. The last time I took it We left Albany 45 minutes late and still made it on time to Chicago. Yes, delays happen, just like in traffic or at the air port, but I find the focus on delays when Amtrak comes up extremely over-stated. Perhaps it's just the routes I'm on.
Wow you take the train once a year, certainly there's nobody more qualified than you to speak about them!
If you have all the money in the world, why would you need to go fast? Just enjoy the ride in comfort and style.
Private rail car is nowhere near as comfortable as actually getting home quickly, especially you have the kind of home that people with all the money in the world do.
Many people with money travel so much home is a hotel. They 'have a large manson that the staff says is nice' isn't quite the truth but it isn't far off.
though they also don't have time to take a slow train.
Perhaps more of a European mega-rich habit, not especially applicable to the US, is the practice of just taking the mansion, helicopters, and cars with you on a super yacht.
* https://theitalianseagroup.com/
* https://benettiyachts.com/
* https://www.sanlorenzoyacht.com/
I'd forbid those things in territorial waters. They bring no money to local communities and are glad to do things like ignore nature reserves or go with motor boats where people are swimming, which is of course illegal but they don't care.
Even if you travel a lot and just have one home, spending a lot of time on luxury travel can still get old.
For the people that own these cars, it’s about the journey, not the destination.
FWIW I am away from home ~300 days a year for work and I have the choice of any mode of transport.
I prefer train any time.
And for some, the journey is the destination.
It depends on the route and the distance.
For example, Portland to Seattle isn't that far but I-5 can easily back up and become an hours-long ordeal, and SEA and PDX aren't particularly close to a lot of places.
Traffic jams have become so much easier to handle with lane following and down-to-zero adaptive cruise control.
A backlog of hundreds of hours of podcasts doesn’t hurt.
Still would prefer the train.
Must be one of the poors. My railcar will have wings!
> across the United States of nothingness
Check out this map if you want to be really sad: https://www.google.com/maps/d/embed?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4Z...
Seattle metro area: Some of the right-of-ways have been converted into rail trails, so the map probably isn't THAT bad. But yeah the current state of US rail is depressing compared to what could have been (or yet could be!)
Theoretically rail trails can become rail lines once again but I am only really aware of one example where this kind of happened (the DC Purple Line)
Part of this is the rail trails only happen where there’s basically not even a ghost of a need for the tracks.
But trails alongside very inactive tracks is also becoming more common.
A private airship would definitely be cooler.
You’ll know I have my first billion when you see Hindenburg II with bigger and better hydrogen gasbags.
What’s the point of billions if you don’t have an airship?!?
The old Goodyear blimps were ridiculously loud. You needed to wear ear protection 100% of the time. The new ones are whisper quiet.
FYI, whenever they go someplace they almost always have time in the schedule dedicated to giving free rides. You just gotta be in the right place at the right time ;)
Blimps are children’s toys.
Zeppelins are the real rigid deal.
Yep, and that's what Goodyear uses now. The last blimp left the fleet less than 10 years ago.
Especially ones that go boom!
Do you really have a privately owned rail car in order to go fast? It sounds to me more like a self-driving campervan, you can sit back and watch the world roll by.
I think the railcar equivalent will eventually become reality (if it isn't already)
Lots of people tool around in giant class-a motorhomes. They are 40 or 45 feet long. They are basically small apartments with double-door fridges, dishwasher, washer/dryer, starlink, etc
if they add the self-driving stuff, it will make them extra popular.
I think mobileye might have something.
I wonder if there’s a market for “flatbed car with an RV strapped on top” like some type of auto train.
https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train
I wish they offered this on more routes.
Sounds like the kind of thing a billionaire would do in a Neal Stephenson book.
(actually I think it is something a billionaire does in a NS book)
It's definitely something a zillionaire does in a Peter F. Hamilton book, except instead of a rail car it's a zepplin. I mean, if I were a zillionaire I guess I'd live in a zepplin too.
I think everyone pretty much has to admit that “robber baron with zeppelin” is the peak billionaire style.
They travel by train in Termination Shock, a book by NS :)
I agree with your point on delays caused by freight rail and Amtrak speeds in general. But I think the bit about Nebraska is too negative. People love road trips in their cars and train trips for the same reason - it’s fun looking out your window and seeing things. If you open yourself to it, there is so much to appreciate about the parts of countries that are less visited.
Having ridden every class of ticket in China's rail system, there is a special place in my heart for all of those experiences.
I am sure a private railcar hitched to the Haggard Amtrak Burro is a special experience, too, particularly when your party is the only party for the staff to wait on.
Amtrak almost always has right of way but loses it practically, with freight trains that ignore or are too long for the sidings
needing to be anywhere at a particular urgent time is very nouveau riche. making people wait on you is more elegant, right?
/s
It’s always been like that.
I am traveling by Amtrak in a few days.
You should not consider Amtrak unless desperate. Even then, generally a bus would be better. Amtrak does not exist. It legally has to exist but it is worse than useless, because it pretends that it might actually be something you'd want to use.
Having take a bus and amtrack I'll take amtrak. My bus was just as late, and there was less opportunity to walk around. Amtrak has sleeper cars which are probably better than the coach seats I was in (the bedrooms areea good price for 4 people but had 5 and so couldn't make the numbers work)
I took Amtrak from Boston South Station to Montpelier. You have to go south to Connecticut before you can get the Vermonter. The Vermonter was canceled due to contention with a disabled Metro North (or something...) and my connecting train turned into a bus.
When I've gone to NYC, it's honestly been less hassle to just take the bus.
A trick that won’t always work - get the sleeper for four and have the fifth visit. You just gotta be nice to the conductor and the sleeper attendant.
But the other option is to just all get lower level coach seats next to each other - sometimes five or six is about all they have down there. Make a new friend!
Where it won't work is getting into the dining car - the cost of meals on a train is a large part of why sleepers are a "good" deal. (Amtrak meals are expensive for what you get)
I've taken a "luxury" bus from the Boston area to NY once. I'll stick to Amtrak although, given where I live, it's not very efficient. Boston area to DC really takes too long though I've done it.
I hate driving into NYC though I've done it with someone else (or because I was headed somewhere else afterwards). As you say, with multiple people, the numbers don't really pencil out--especially given it takes longer for me.
I do BOS-NYC occasionally. Have driven, taken the train, and have taken a bus. The train was fine, but the bus was also fine, was far cheaper and the bus terminal is just as central in Manhattan.
I'm using the RTE station as opposed to BOS proper. Driving would still be faster/cheaper in general. But then I'd have to drive into Manhattan.
It makes me so mad that we have a rail system that has all the structural necessities to make HSR a reality, yet we're stuck with service that last looked modern 50 years ago. If there's one place in the USA that would have the ridership to support a HSR it would be the Boston-DC metro axis.
It is the fastest way to D.C. for much of the eastern seaboard.
This is only true in the region served by Acela that is south of NYC. Nobody, and I mean nobody, is taking Amtrak from BOS to DC unless there's a really good extenuating circumstance.
I've found nowhere that any price is mentioned, so I have to assume that it's one of those "if you have to ask..." sort of things.
Edit: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
Slightly less than $5 a mile with a minimum of $2296. The rate to park your car is around $4000 a month. Fun thing to do if you have the money.
If a private jet is just too "new money" for you, you can travel in style like a 19th-century robber baron.
My mustache is tingling.
You can upgrade - travel by robber baron rail, and then have it loaded into a transport aircraft to fly across the pond.
The rate document has costs
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
That's what makes this interesting to me. Because I feel like, if you own an operatable train car that can be hooked up to AmTrak, then you not only don't have to ask for the pricing, but do you even have to google to see if you can hook it up?
Well, you personally don't, but someone who works for you will have to find those details and work this out.
An operable train car could be something you have as a coop deal. If you are good with tools you can probably trade labor for use of a car. (There are several rr clubs restoring old cars that would then qualify - check the club for terms - might even be a club event so the costs are shared with others)
This. There’s an old saying - “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it”
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Like a tiny home on the correct train car rated construction rolling platform
I would 100% spend the whole time cosplaying the crew of Archer, and refer to it as Tunt Rail.
Does Amtrak allow ocelots if it is someone else's car?
“We do allow ocelots but not an awful lot. The ocelot will have to stay in its cot.”
It's linked as "Rate Addendum Number 7".
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
There is nothing more saddening than the state of America’s train situation. It’s like we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding the value of shared infrastructure.
In the rare case that a state escapes the matrix and actually realizes the benefit, we can’t get the damn thing built.
I want a packed bullet train, not a fucking slow private train car.
It’s never been shared, FWIW. The rails are mostly privately owned and were built that way too.
That said - bullet trains are great but I fully support the ability of individuals to pay to access freight or passenger rail to subsidize the infra.
Land was granted to the railroads with the agreement that they would run passenger rail services. When passenger rail became so unprofitable that it was bankrupting rail companies, they lobbied to make it the governments responsibility to move people around and leave them to make money shuffling freight.
It was kind of a mixed bag.
Part of the way this worked was that USPS was actually paying for a lot of the rail services to deliver mail (which is also what the government wanted more so than passenger rail service.) The moment USPS pulled contracts in favor of long-distance airmail the whole model went belly-up.
And long distance airmail subsidized a lot of early flight as well.
Most rails were not land grant. Those were what you read about in history, but most had to buy their own land. Land grant mostly was for places where today almost nobody lives and even less back then.
The rails across the (very roughly) Southwest are some of the most famous, but the real activity was all on the East.
> bullet trains are great but I fully support the ability of individuals to pay to access freight or passenger rail to subsidize the infra.
It’d be even nicer if you could hook your private car to a bullet train.
Unlikely. Because they tend to be close-coupled units with distributed power and traction control. In case of anything Talgo-related with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobs_bogie 's even more so.
It’d need to be a new stander for rail cars, but that seems totally reasonable.
American trains are the best in the world - at freight. even overall I'd call us rail best in the world - the state of freight rail is that bad in most of the world.
of course people see passanger trains and don't think of freight. However that is missing the true picture.
naa, in india we got double stacked container trains fully electrified across 95% of 40000 mile route. you guys are still running on diesel
That is a factor in India's favor, but there are a lot of other factors. Overall India just doesn't move that much freight when you examine everything so I still give the point the the US despite things not being perfect.
Of course how you weigh the various factors in subjective. The more important take away is there are lots of different things in the world and you should be working on where your weaknesses are not trying to claim you are great despite them. (I'm only claiming US good here in reaction to the passenger focus - I'm aware of plenty of problems with US rail that are not on topic so I'm not giving indication of being aware. I don't know you, hopefully you are honest about the shortcomings of whatever your system is and working on fixing them where it it appropriate)
I'd really like to know where you're taking this claim from.
> best in the world
Except for the electricity.
> I'd call us rail best in the world
ever heard of Japan or Switzerland or China or ...?
The USA moves an incredibly insane amount of bulk goods by rail ridiculously long distances.
It’s so insane that it’s probably too cheap and we should do something else, but there are trains full of petroleum because a pipeline hasn’t been built.
And if coal is being brought to Newcastle it likely crossed the USA in a bulk train.
Strangely enough, Florida, of all places seems to be having really good success with their Brightline rail network. The initial system runs from Miami to Orlando, with a few stops in between. They're planning on expanding up north and east into the panhandle. Financially things are a bit dicey, but it got built, and it's reliable. Ridership is increasing, which takes cars of the road, and property values in the areas it stops are going up. Meanwhile California doesn't even have their tiny "initial operating segment" built, and is projecting to be up to 3-4x their original budget of 33 billion dollars.
This is an important example; Brightline feels qualitatively different from Amtrak and they get points for actually delivering new passenger rail service. They have a newer, cleaner, faster product. I rode once from Orlando to Boca and sat next to some British rail fans who went out of their way to try "the new train" on their way to a cruise out of Ft. Lauderdale.
Unfortunately despite significant capital investment to run double track on the FEC corridor from West Palm to Miami (their initial route before expanding north), they and the FEC have been unable/unwilling to do much about the fundamental flaw of rail in densely populated South Florida: at-grade crossings, many in no-horn zones because nearby residents have lobbied for that. This has been a problem for decades even when the line was freight-only.
All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US. Good data visualization and sobering reporting in that article. The railroad wants to socialize the costs of upgrading the crossings but of course privatize the profits. That said, I feel communities that want the density/development benefits of "transit" should be prepared for the costs of achieving that safely.
[1]: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article308679915.html
> All too predictably, a recent investigation [1] found Brightline is the deadliest passenger railroad in the US.
Gosh, why won't those awful railroad do something to stop their trains from suddenly and completely unpredictably swerving into automobiles?!?
There ought to be a law requiring them to put up signs to notify motorists about the hazard these big dangerous trains that can just suddenly appear out of nowhere. We should also demand bright flashing lights on the fronts of trains as well, so the public can see them at night.
Additionally, I know this might be controversial, I think they should install some kind of automatic motorized "gate" with flashing red lights anywhere that a train might flitter near a roadway. The gate would block the road any time a train is nearby to prevent anyone from getting close to the train. In my imagining, railroads would be required to post signs at these "crossing gates" with the phone number of a 24/7 staffed call center that can stop trains if a car is stuck near the gates or the gates are working.
Boy, I sure wish someone would have thought to install basic precautions like these before allowing these trains to just dart all over the place, willy-nilly.
> Financially things are a bit dicey
Brightline missed ("deferred") a bond payment last month:
> Brightline, the private rail line linking Orlando to Miami, refinanced $985M of junior debt at a record-high 14.89% yield, reflecting deep investor concern after delaying a July interest payment on $1.2B in munis. The company, already downgraded deeper into junk by S&P and Fitch, faces falling ridership (53% below projections) and revenue (67% below estimates), plus a potential cash shortfall this quarter without an equity infusion.
https://florida.municipalbonds.com/news/2025/08/15/brightlin...
The only halfway competent rail in the US is that northeast corridor in New England. Everything else is crap. And even that northeast corridor is only halfway competent. That people are raving about any of the rail in the US only betrays a lack of use of many foreign rail services. Particularly those in Asia.
It’s sad, because I believe we have the ability to outdo everyone, but we can’t get it done.
How about the Auto Train? That one seems halfway competent too
Auto Train is a great train within the constraints of the existing system (turns a passenger train into a car hauling freight and that’s so valuable people take the trade-offs).
It could be so much better if we had better rail.
Kind of a bummer comment. At least we're trying. Not quite the same but light rail in Seattle has been enormously successful.
> It’s like we’re fundamentally incapable of understanding the value of shared infrastructure.
I think most people understand the value of parks, roads, and airports.
> There is nothing more saddening than the state of America’s train situation
I can come up with a dozen things much more depressing than that and only in federal level politics.
This seems to be the most depressing time in US history.
It is because there’s NO REASON for us to be suffering, besides the fact that morons have political power
Well there was that whole genocide of Native Americans thing. And that Civil War thing where half the country was killing the other half. Black people were slaves, women couldn't vote (or own property, or a bank account, etc), being gay was illegal, the Irish were the immigrant whipping boys. Then there was the Jim Crow era, WWI, the Depression, Prohibition, WW2, McCarthyism, the Korean War, Vietnam (when the last Jim Crow laws were repealed).
But, sure, right now is the most depressing time in US history.
To be clear women gained the right to have bank accounts in 1974.
American Indian parents didn't gain the right to decide on their children's schooling until 1978.
The recency of these atrocities never ceases to surprise me. It's incredible how long we keep up barbaric practices and then how quickly they finally come to an end.
Marriage equality in the United States is only 10 years old. Anyone remember the debates as recently as the early 2010s? How many of us have high school diplomas older than any gay marriage certificate in the United States of America? It's absolutely ridiculous to look at arguments made barely over a decade ago about a thing that is now completely normalized and benign.
The legal right to open a bank account in her own name was codified at the federal level in 1974, but that's all it was - codification. Women had already gained that right on a state-by-state basis prior to 1900.
It's technically true, but it hides the actual reality.
> The legal right to open a bank account in her own name was codified at the federal level in 1974, but that's all it was - codification. Women had already gained that right on a state-by-state basis prior to 1900.
What's your source on this? What I seem to be able to find that seems consistent is:
* California was the first state to guarantee women the right to independently open bank accounts in 1862.
* Some individual banks not subject to a state mandate to do so chose to allow women (often with restrictions, conditions, e.g. relating to marital status, that did not apply to men) to open accounts independently.
* I can't find any source that indicates that being able to open independent depository accounts on the same basis as men was nationally acheived state by state as a legal right at all, much less prior to the 1900s.
* There's a common, consistently unsourced claim that the right to open an account (but not to be free of discrimination in terms, or to access credit on equal terms to men, etc.) was generally guaranteed by the states "in the 1960s"; but at least several sources expresses skepticism of this consistently unsourced claim and suggests it may be a myth originating in the fact taht Canada protected women's right to open bank accounts in 1964.
* Technically, women didn't get federal protection of a right to open bank depository accounts in their own name without discrimination in 1974, either, they got a right to equal treatment by institutions issuing credit. This had a side effect of guaranteeing equal access to those depository accounts that came with credit features, because those constituted issuing credit.
So, when did women federally get guaranteed equal treatment in bank depository accounts indepedently of those that also count as issuing credit? The same time that was guaratneed on the basis of race -- never. (There have occasionally been efforts to address this, and other permitted-disccrimination effects of the fact that banks are not included as public accommodations under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but none have passed that explicitly did so; the CFPB's power under the CFPA to address "unfair practices" was used to target race, gender, and other discrimination in financial services not subject to the ECOA or CRA, but that that was within the scope of "unfair practices" was a matter of agency rules and interpretation, not explicit in statute.)
“Actual reality” is women actually being able to open their own independent accounts. The laws you cited are technicalities. The history of civil liberties in this country is full of examples of institutions simply refusing to do the right thing until forced.
Ask your nearest boomer woman when she actually opened her own bank account without the approval of a man. I bet the results will surprise you.
My mom couldn’t deposit her babysitting money in rural Idaho without a signature from my grandfather. She couldn’t independently buy a car with that babysitting money. Her younger brother of course could. She rightly remembers this injustice.
Regardless of the laws or when they were passed the idea of financial discrimination against women is completely outside the Overton window today but it was the norm in living memory.
This is the “actual reality”.
I bet the result won't surprise me. It might surprise you, though. My mother toured the US with a friend in 1960 and never had any trouble with banking. Not with getting an account, nor writing checks, nor withdrawing cash.
I'm not surprised your mother couldn't get a bank account without an adult cosigner if she was a minor. I had the same problem.
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The interstate system was originally built so that the army could move quickly from one place to another in the event of a war. I love how things happen in America.
Convince Americans that public transit will be needed to mobilize for World War III and we’ll have the best public transit system of ten years flat.
exactly where my train of thoughts were leading.
There’s an episode of Archer where Cheryl Tunt, the company secretary, does exactly this on a trip from New York to somewhere in Canada. Their agency was extraditing a Nova Scotian separatist.
>Cheryl Tunt, the company secretary,
The independently wealthy company secretary, whose family owned the railroad, as I recall.
Not just owners, they built the railroads, in that universe. She seems to recall her grandmother thinking “slavery was pretty great”
"What are you doing here?"
"Uh, trying to perform my ablutions?"
I learned a great new word from that episode. Archer is one of the best shows for strange and funny use of language, they just nail my favourite type of humour.
Previously:
Privately-Owned Rail Cars - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33460052 - Nov 2022 (244 comments)
Ride in your privately-owned rail car to see North America - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10324823 - Oct 2015 (2 comments)
My wife loves the train (hates driving) and so this would be quite interesting to us. But I've heard too many Amtrak horror stories, like the one about how the train broke down about ten miles away from her destination, and they wouldn't let her get off, so she had to sit there for ten hours until they were able to fix it.
This is definitely the weirdest part, their refusal to treat passengers with any respect. For the most part the crew often doesn't know if it will get fixed in one hour or ten hours, but they don't communicate this and there's never an option to bail and have someone pick you up.
Last time I took Amtrak out of LA Union Station, it broke down but luckily was able to pull into the next station so people could get off and find another route. I stayed on and after about 4 hours we were towed back to union station.
They cannot legally allow you to bail. They’re government employees or the next closest thing.
So you need to work within their framework. Take the smoke breaks with other passengers. Note how the door works. See where the nearby road is.
And then do a runner.
We once rode the Amtrak from Sacramento to Reno, through the snow, with the kids. Figured it would be a fun adventure. On the ride up, we were about an hour behind schedule - no problem. On the way back, we started our day at 8am and didn't arrive home til 8pm. Train had to keep stopping for "unexpected delays". Regulars on the train were saying it happens all the time. Not fun.
Why anyone would pay 100x the price to have the same experience is beyond me.
Because if you can remove the need to be somewhere, it can be relaxing and fun.
But that decoupling from the need to be somewhere at a time is quite hard.
The car horror stories are much worse
Having a toilet in your sleeping compartment, in 40cm from your pillow is a horror story by itself.
That is not how Amtrak cars are laid out. That's just categorically not a thing on Amtrak. Not in coach, not in the roomette, and not in the private rooms.
My bedroom shares a wall with my bathroom in my penthouse apartment. My toilet is less than a meter from my head. What does it matter, mate?
There’s a wall…
Maybe small spaces just aren't your thing?
One of the places people with these cars visit is Yellowstone, and I've talked to a few of them at the local burger stand (closest food to the railroad siding where they "park"). Interesting people, and less pretentious than I expected for private train owners. I suppose a train is cheaper than a private plane.
I saw this car on Chicago Metra's UPN line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_553
I was reverse commuting at the time and wondered what the hell the car was as it looked different than all the other modern cars. I imagine in its heyday it was probably a decent party back up to the North Shore.
I recently took a trip from Chicago to LA and saw some folks doing just this! They had a restored Pullman sleeping car and a kitchen/bar car behind it with crystal chandeliers. Maybe the single most luxurious way to travel. Every stop people would get out and gawk at their cars.
I'm not sure why, other than for the nostalgia, I'd do this other than a trans-Atlantic ocean liner. I have take fairly comfortable sleepers in Europe but nothing like a luxurious ship.
Rail is my favorite way to travel. Going to sleep at night with the country going by is one of the finest feelings imaginable in life, little towns with lights on in empty public squares, just one of my absolute favorite things. And you wake up in endless fields or breathtaking views of canyons and mountains. The people are friendly and you meet new ones at every meal. The sleeper accommodations aren't exactly the Ritz, but they're cozy and comfortable and good for reading or writing or just sitting and looking out the window for hours. Coffee is plentiful and decent, meals are probably microwaved but served on white tablecloths. Cruises give me a feeling of disconnectedness. You're on endless waves, endless sea, in the middle of nowhere. On the train, even going through a desert you feel like you're in the moving center of the world and every stop you could get off and be in a town you'd never heard of that means something to someone. You feel like you're a part of the grand and forgotten history that built the country.
Very poetic but on the ocean liner you have plenty of space to move around with lectures, nice meals, and other activities.
It definitely depends on what you're looking for. I'm very happy with extremely low-key, cozy, and quiet. There are trains that have lectures and good meals (the trans Canadian railway!) but not Amtrak as far as I'm aware.
How about airship tours? Not massively different to a train car in terms of pace, but with much more space and good line of sight for sightseeing and internet connectivity.
Zeppelin is operating daily sightseeing flights in several areas of Germany https://zeppelinflug.de/en/zeppelin-flights
Hindenburg.
I know it's silly, but it was an instant mental blurt, and I can't be the only one.
Airship design has advanced since the Hindenburg. Notably, they don't use hydrogen anymore.
Actually it wasn't about the hydrogen that much. More like the hull painted with flammable stuff. With todays materials it couldn't have burned like that. So any airship design of today NOT using hydrogen is wasting buoyancy, and a rare (on earth) element, which could be put to use for more important things.
Out of irrational fear...
Also, remember that half the people on the Hindenburg walked away from the incident. Jetliner passengers do not usually fare so well in crashes.
I actually didn't know that. TIL.
FWIW it was about hydrogen - the Hindenburg was designed around Helium (and thus didn't have various safeties around hydrogen) but due to embargoes against Nazi Germany they couldn't get the necessarily helium, so they filled it up with hydrogen against the original spec.
Yes. But still the paint burned first. And the hydrogen didn't explode, there was no "Knallgas". Even in all that chaos, the opportunity to mix in the right ratio with air to enable that, didn't arise. It just flared off.
One could even argue that all that flaring off generated some lift by updraft, making it crash softer, more slowly.
Hydrogen is not picky about fuel air mixture; it will explode at any concentration between 4% and 74% (in air). I rewatched the footage and it sure looks like an explosion to me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OetzoO3Csj4
The thermite paint hypothesis is interesting but a bunch of hydrogen airships exploded. The Hindenburg was partly made from metal recovered from the R101. The R101 exploded on her maiden voyage.
At 24 seconds in, that looks indeed fast. But still not what one would expect of "Knallgas" going boom.
We might expect it to look differently, but it would appear that that's exactly what a hydrogen explosion looks like. By what means do you believe the camera, at least a hundred meters away, shakes?
Did it shake by a blast? Or was it just hastily turned around, to catch the flames?
I've watched many videos about that in the past, even ones where there were overlays with 3d-point-clouds.
Not in the mood to analyze this one further. Have doubts about it being really 'real time', conversion errors, whatver.
Maybe our understanding of 'explosion' is different. By explosion I mean something coming apart fast in an instant, with a bang, things flying away, shockwave.
That wasn't that, more like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deflagration
Caused by whatever. Very likely propagated by the flammable paint on the hull. Like a flash fire.
Which was my initial point.
For sure, in my mind a deflagration is a type of explosion, but I certainly don't mean to quibble about terms or to litigate this video more than is interesting to you.
I guess for me, I don't know whether it was hydrogen leaking around the rear or thermite in the paint which caused the ignition, and I don't know whether a helium airship would've also caught fire and how disastrous such a fire would've been. But I do know that what happened next was that the hydrogen ignited and the ship blew up.
That being said I think airships are a criminally under explored mode of transit, and that the Hindenburg shouldn't be a reason to abandon it altogether. At a minimum we're much more experienced in handling hydrogen now, and modern hydrogen blimps don't seem to blow up all that often.
My zeppelin will be hydrogen and will be named Hindenburg II.
You can all laugh at me if the inevitable occurs.
Just include some rocket escape pods.
Riding in the family rail car like it’s 1895 (and you’re a robber baron)
In my experience, these cars are old and decrepit, and force you to breathe locomotive engine exhaust all the time, and especially when the train is idling. It’s a fast track to cancer. Don’t spend any more time than you need to in one. They do not offer the air quality of a modern passenger rail car. Heck, I wouldn’t even sleep in a modern rail car at night, in a rail yard, when all systems are off.
The comparison is perhaps with a private yacht. And can I live aboard permanently on a siding somewhere? The local cement works has a siding... Hmm
You'd really want a siding with (RR-specific) electrical connections, no noisy/smelly industry next to you, decent views, an elevated platform, and some parking spaces.
They're darn rare, but do exist. If I was Old Money, I'd probably build more in a few in beautiful spots - and freely loan 'em to my peers, as a social networking thing.
There are houseboats as well.
While generally more flexible and mobile - boats do suffer far more maintenance, navigation, safety, and weather issues than rail cars.
Maybe try an RV?
Houseboats don't generally move.
No idea what the cost and maintenance costs are like. Have no interest in an RV/camper.
You actually can. You need access to the siding (even ones next to a cement plant or abandoned building are often railroad controlled or owned) - the trickiest part is car or walking access.
If a truck can get next to it then you have sewage and fuel deliver solved.
Now you just need $100k-$2000k for the private car!
Crazy idea based on this: a mobile home that can be put either on rail car or electric car platform. Those platforms are pooled and can be rented at designated stations. Or maybe a platform where you can simply park and connect your RV. You basically outsource driving for the significant part of your travel and just enjoy the road. Also better for the environment.
You just invented the car train / motorail. Amtrack even operate one!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorail
Theres also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_shuttle_train but they generally are shorter distance
No, it is not it. The idea is that the living module or RV is still occupied during the travel unlike the motorail, where passengers are traveling in separate passenger cars. Car shuttle trains where passengers stay inside the vehicle also do not offer connection of utilities to RV. And my idea goes further where living module is disconnected from engine/wheels platform when loaded on the train (if the design is standardized similarly to containers, you can get new one at the destination, so the train carries less weight).
Weight is not really an issue for trains, RVs / cars weigh absolutely nothing in comparison to even just a rail car.
For safety reasons you can't really have people sit in their cars on the train. The Eurostar etc. has extensive fire systems et. al. to make it possible.
Again, the idea is about new design that can make it possible. It has nothing to do with existing regulations for cars.
so how do you get a privately owned train car and get it to the tracks or etc?
from this page it sounds like you own it but Amtrak keeps it parked at their switching stations or something
>so how do you get a privately owned train car and get it to the tracks or etc?
I think you wait in a remote bit of Nevada for a train to pass, and trigger a rock fall which causes the driver to slam on the brakes and bring the train to a stop just short of the rockfall.
Then, you and your posse jump out from behind some rocks and fire your revolvers in the air, and the driver sticks his hands up. There's much celebration, and back slapping as you discover the train also happens to have a massive amount of gold bullion on board.
The rest is a bit blurry, can't remember seeing what you then do, but it probably involves filing down the serial numbers on the frame or something like that?
> Having worked at a railroad, I will say it’s comically easy to steal a train, for instance. They all have the same key, which is basically just a plastic rod.
> The argument of the railroads is... okay, you have our train. Now what? You either go forward or you go backward, and we know where both those directions go.
[credit: thanatos_dem]
Well if you're Tintin you'll use it to catch up with the train in front and when that doesn't work, accidentally blow it up... Tintin in america is a great parody of 1930's Midwestern united states and the gangster culture of Chicago.
I work for rail.
That's pretty much it.
The serial numbers are on the axle bearing covers, BTW.
Do train cars ever go missing? What’s the procedure for missing rail equipment?
They actually do get lost quite often. There’s quite a bit of law around ownership of rail, cars, requirements, and maintenance and who’s in control and who’s in charge. All those numbers you see on the side of it are part of the tracking to figure out where things are.
The bad guys are driving their train when a cop train shows up in the mirrors behind their train.
Cop walks up to the window and asks for their license and registration please. Another shootout occurs followed by a multi-track multi-train police chase, but everyone needs to stay on their respective train tracks.
Then things go south. I mean really south, heading to the Mexican border.
On a little platform on wheels, with a see-saw type manual propulsion. And the police are waving their billy clubs and gaining on you!
>a cop train
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/55/f9/e655f9c6ae124664ad5c...
That looked very British. Apparently it was made for an advert for a 1980s high speed train.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_37
Check in with the association of private railcar owners: https://www.aaprco.com/
There was some discussion on the process here a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19505897 written shortly after Amtrak complained "These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins". It's not an easy process.
Any idea how much it costs to buy your own private train car?
A disused car is $100-200k depending on condition, and it’d probably cost about as much to refurbish into use. An off the shelf fully outfitted luxury car can cost a million or more.
Operating, maintenance, and storage costs dwarf the capital costs within a few years so unless it’s rusting in a backyard, the expensive part is using it rather than buying one. Storage alone costs $30k-50k a year.
You can get rail cars for free every once in a while the problem is you have to then pay to transport it to someplace you can store it. But usually there’s a rail club somewhere nearby that would love to have an addition to the collection if you’re paying to make it nice and usable.
Very interesting! I guess it would be unpopular for them to stop?
Private collectors offer them for charter.
https://www.aaprco.com/
They do. But I didn't see anything on there about cost. Does anyone know, even rough numbers?
See the other posts but realistically it’s in the tens of thousands.
Which considering how many can travel in one might not be terribly expensive.
Football supporters in England sometimes charter whole trains to see particular matches.
I've only seen one of these trains once, and it was an ordinary train. I've no idea what the cost would be.
It's really whatever you want to pay. i.e. You can get anything from rusted scrap metal up to extravagant luxury.
How much is a bare minimum safety rusted piece of crap? Something tells me you can't win over Amtrak pricing, sadly
They might be given away or for scrap value. Of course it won't meet the minimun standards next year so expect $200k to restore again)
Quite a while back I drove a friend of mine from SF to a railcar museum because he wanted to get a tour of railcars from a movie. The secretary of the club that ran the museum told us that they wouldn't have been able to transport the car from the location where it was originally located to the museum today.
There are a lot of RR cars around the country that are not movable for various reasons. Many of them because while the car could be moved, the tracks don't exist. Others because the running gear is worn out.
There is still hope for those cars. If you want to pay for it a ridding company can transport anything from anywhere to anywhere - they will get the correct permits and then load it on a trailer - this is easiest and most common, but not cheap. In some cases you can get an override from the RR to tow it - they can put new wheels under it quick enough, and then put it at the end of the train on a slow month (which is to say they will avoid their busy routes were something breaking would cause problems), again not cheap, but possible and sometimes the RR will subsides the cost if the car has historic value. If there are tracks you can restore it where it is and then the RRs will take it again.
You keep it on tracks, either your own private siding, or rent from a railroad. When you want to go you arrang with the railroad to pick it up. Railroads do this all the time - they might or might not own the cars freight is going on either way they drop it off at your siding and pick it up latter. you need to plan a head though to fit their other scheduldes. There are big costs if you are not ready when the train arrives. (that is no asking them to wait while you store groceries)
The companies that make train cars have a way to do this, so you probably just pay them to do it as part of the price you pay them to make you train car.
When I was a kid, I thought growing up meant taking trains across states. But now even reliable daily commutes feel out of reach. So when I see something like Brightline, it’s quietly moving. Just the image of someone riding an old railcar across America makes the world feel a little more romantic.
This railfan web site occasionally includes sighting reports, sometimes with photos, of trains that include private railcars.
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/list.php?4
It feels like there’s some kind of Party Train opportunity here, similar to a party bus.
They do this in Japan occasionally. I've been on (officially organized by the railroad company) beer trains, wine and cheese trains, local food-tasting trains, etc. Last time, it was like 5,000 yen. All-you-can drink local beer, 2 hour round-trip with stops along the way where local mayors would hope on the train for a quick "hello" speech. Trivia quizzes, bathroom stops at stations (with perplexed-looking late-night commuters), souvenirs for sale... Good times!
This better than every wealthy person owning an RV. Though there is still the last mile problem. Does my personal train car have a vehicle on board (probably I’m rich in this scenario)?
Groups of wealthy people could split a train car. Private Train-car time shares?
If you're actually wealthy, you don't have to split a train car.
Last mile problem? Have your personal assistant drive whatever vehicle you want and have it waiting when the train arrives. They can take an Uber back to wherever they need to be next.
And during downtime you could sell space on your train car. Maybe even have an app for it, like uber for trains. Or as commonly know, regular trains.
> Does my personal train car have a vehicle on board (probably I’m rich in this scenario)?
The back lowers and either a black Trans Am or a trio of red white & blue Minis drive out, depending on personal taste.
I was thinking you could just park one of those small 'air taxis' to the top of the train car (allowing clearance for tunnels and bridges).
Hmm. Clearance unnecessary: scissor lift.
Unless you’re transporting something like the president‘s personal limo, the beast you just rent what you need at your destination.
When you get to the “pay someone to drive the car to where you need to be so that you can use it” amounts of money things become much easier.
If you can afford one, you can surely afford a second one to put your car/bike/gear/stuff in
The limo, driver, cook, and other toys follow in the second car.
People want this kind of service, but they generally don't like the 19th century experience that is rail travel. Which leads me to a hot take: Within a decade, Autonomous RVs will be the preferred method of travel (above rail and flight) for most trips with a one-way drive time under ~10 hours.
Imagine a private rail car which could pick you up at your doorstep and drop you off in front of your hotel. Is your destination more than a few hours away? Book an evening pick up time and utilize the sleeper configuration. For a 16 hour round trip, such a service could reduce the perceived door-to-door travel time from a full day to near zero.
We won't have level 5 in a decade.
Screw buying expensive road cars when you win the lottery, ill be buying train cars.
“attached to our trains between specified locations”
What are they?
How does it work if you want a steam train?
If you want to hitch your steam train to the back of an Amtrak train and have it towed then you can follow the same rules as a private car.
If you want to actually drive your steam train then you'd need to negotiate with the track owner, which may be hard, particularly if they run on PTC (there's literally one ERTMS-compliant steam train in the world, for example). There's no public right of way on railway tracks for randoms, only for Amtrak (and even they have limits).
https://youtu.be/xp-b4Ce4Mf4
YouTube exists for this video.
That particular train seems to have an arrangement with Amtrak where they run Amtrak services sometimes. But it will certainly be the result of a bespoke negotiation.
ask UP - I'm sure they will agree to run big boy for you for a price. I'd guess $100k/day but I'm not going to ask. Of course if you have something historic and are going where they want to show off big boy anyway it could be much less.
Well, the fuel - typically coal - heats a big container of water to the boiling point. The vapor is collected, and used as a force (because steam expands) to move the pistons, just like the ones moved by gas explosions in your car.
Then the conductor pulls the chain, and the train makes that whistle sound and spouts a lot of white smoke, which means you are nearing an old-timey town.
Reminds me of seeing Stalin's personal train car[1] at a museum in his birthplace in Gori, Georgia, a couple of years ago.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin_Museum,_Gori#/me...
How about the personal train car of (Mad / Fairy Tale) King Ludwig II of Bavaria: https://www.kulturstiftung.de/ein-versailles-auf-raedern/
I'd prefer something more modern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tito's_Blue_Train
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2021/02/this-was-gaddafis-pers...
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Lots of countries have rich dudes with private coaches.
That’s why it’s called an empire, it needs vassal states
Other than the cost of the car (which is going to hold its value for decades) & its fees, how is this anywhere near decadent if someone with some money likes to travel this way?
Wherein lies the harm?
People spend more on higher end RVs, burning more fuel, wheels & wear.
This is nowhere near the league of anything that travels through the air with a hint of luxury.
The privatization of the public good is the problem, regardless of how ecological or economical you rig your economy to make it look.
You are confusing several things.
First, train cars are not a precious limited resource. Someone having a car creates no impediments to anyone else.
Second, nothing is being taken from a public sphere - these are one off historically interesting cars being maintained by private individuals at no cost to the public, instead of being scrapped by private companies.
So in fact, something that would be wasted is continuing to get use.
Third, many of these cars are being made available for use to anyone, not just their owners, to help cover their costs. More options for everyone is in fact, a real public good.
The world is full of injustice but it’s worth not confusing someone having something others don’t with someone using wealth to suppress or harm others.
There is nothing here to “fix”. No imbalance or obvious benefit here to justify repressing others. Overreactions to injustice are, unfortunately, a common source of injustices themselves.
I share your concerns for others, and also feel deep frustration with the status quo of increasingly unaccountable wealth-driven compounding of economic, political, social, health, educational and legal inequality.
I’m not confusing anything, I just disagree with you.
It’s not an economic argument, it’s an ideological one. Public goods should serve the public. No amount of money can change that.
> It’s not an economic argument, it’s an ideological one.
I see. Other's shouldn't make economic choices based on economically created benefit or harm, but to submit to your ideology.
Yet, these were never public goods. And they are more available to the public now.
Reality doesn't conform to ideology. The latter only helps when it contributes to understanding, instead of limiting it.
The fish is blind to the ocean. All of your arguments are soaked in the ideology of economic primacy. From where I stand, it seems like you’re the one that refuses to understand the argument that doesn’t agree with your ideology.
And to be clear, I couldn’t care less if you own a rail car, but you shouldn’t get to use public infrastructure to operate it.
> The fish is blind to the ocean. All of your arguments are soaked in the ideology of economic primacy.
Ok. I guess if you had any actual points you would have made them instead of poor sport poetry and blatant projection.
I don't believe in economic primacy.
Nor do I have ideology. I don't think any one way of looking at things can ever be complete. As I already stated.
It was you, who explicitly outed yourself as ideological, and are making ideological arguments instead of practical ones based on actual harm or benefit.
People or businesses pay to use public parks for events, public buildings, school buses, the list is endless. People like this. It is viewed as pro-sharing, pro-community. These options makes public asset more valuable to the public, help defray costs, and increase the good they generate for society. With any harm or mistreatment to anyone.
You claiming that you “don’t have ideology” is exactly what I’m referring to. Yes you do. Everyone does, and every argument has an ideology behind it. If you can’t see it, that just means you’re so used to it you’re blind to it, like a fish in the ocean. That’s a dangerous state of mind to be in, it’s very easy to manipulate the person that believes they’re objectively right.
You should look up dialectics, it sounds like there would be a lot of new material there for you.
And as for your park example, sure, I’ll explain why it’s not the same thing.
If it costs 10$ to rent a BBQ spot in the park for an hour, do you think that that’s how much it costs to provide that service? It most likely isn’t. Payment is used as a way to limit demand and to ensure commitment for utilization of a limited shared resource. That’s why these resources are usually priced accessibly to the vast majority of the population. The goal is not to make money, the goal is to ensure the shared resource is utilized efficiently.
Do you think that that’s what’s going on here with letting rich people buy access to public infrastructure? It’s not, this is a for profit operation. This service is inaccessible to the vast majority of the population, regardless of whether it’s for sale to the public or not. This is not about sharing a resource, it’s about letting rich people monopolize resources as long as they have the money to pay for it.
> You claiming that you “don’t have ideology” is exactly what I’m referring to. Yes you do. Everyone does, and every argument has an ideology behind it.
Ideology refers to groups of related ideas that people feel some kind of loyalty too, or priority for. For instance strong libertarians (who have trouble seeing the many limitations of their otherwise good ideas), strident capitalists, communists, etc.
I don't have any loyalty to any ideas beyond how much they make sense, and how relevant they are. Wherever you make sense I will readily adopt ideas from you.
> That’s why these resources are usually priced accessibly to the vast majority of the population. The goal is not to make money, the goal is to ensure the shared resource is utilized efficiently.
Here you do make sense. And it is true.
Public assets are often made available to the public, for private use, at their marginal costs. Which are much lower costs than a business or other large organization would be charged. Those organizations are expected to cover their share of both marginal and primary costs - which are much greater. But fees for the public generally only cover the marginal costs. I.e. if for potential clean up, avoid over booking (as you noted), or whatever.
Marginal costs provide a massive discount for individuals, but are not a subsidy either.
Perhaps that is the missing piece here.
The flexibility of the rail system to work with individuals is admirable. It provides enthusiasts the ability to renovate historically interesting artifacts and continue to give them life. Living connections to the past have a public cultural benefit. With harm done to none.
How can you be so sure that you’re evaluating ideas fairly? How can you be so sure you’re not biased? What if you have an intrinsic bias that you’re unaware of shaping every single decision you make? What if that bias was instilled into you purposefully by people who wanted their ideology to seem like the “rational” way of being?
You should be more skeptic of yourself.
I don't have any "beliefs", just best understandings at any give time, which I am constantly and actively improving.
Of course I don't know everything about anything. It floors me that people ever think they do. And that many are not motivated learners or listeners, even/often in the areas they most care about.
I can't make sense of your negative assessment of a few private cars paying their way on public tracks, already used by large organizations.
But the way you described public access in general was a good viewpoint, and that helped me clarify my own reasoning.
You didn't explicitly use the words marginal cost, but your description was very close to that, and it really struck me as the heart of the matter. A consistent way to think about moral economic policies for public things being made available to private parties, at serious discounts, but without public tax dollars subsidizing those private parties. (Unless subsidizing for everyone is the point, like libraries.)
All things being equal, it is morally wrong when taxes subsidize something only wealthy people can afford. That seems like a point of agreement.
Subtle distinctions can matter a lot, as it did here, so thank you.
Cheers!
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Characteristic of the time. Anything that benefits some fraction of the population that isn't wealthy is woke and is thus doubleplusungood. Thusly, organizations are forced to derive their revenue from catering to the small fraction of wealthy folks who derive more and more from everyone else.
The US feels more and more like a playground for rich peope. Insert ‘always has been’ meme
Affordable public transport for the peasants though? lmao no
Yeah, its a bank on top of many natural resources. It happens to be populated exclusively by people that failed wherever they came from, and a few bankers.
You're thinking of Australia. Top 6 companies in the US are FAANG+Microsoft.
Only in the US could the most collectivistic and efficient mode of transport be perverted into yet another incredibly inefficient and individualistic toy for the wealthy. I can't seem to find anything like that anywhere else.
This was an interesting thread with some history of private train cars/carriages in Europe with links to a few that still exist. https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?17,2602590,n...
It anppears to be Amtrak’s greater flexibility and uniformity of gauges in North America that allows this. Europe has more of the historical private wealth that would still own and want to operate a private train or carriage.
I don't think the gauges were much of an issue for passenger trains, after all there were many running across Europe (Orient Express etc).
It's probably more that distances were shorter, the crazy rich could afford an entire train, and the less-rich would use private luxury carriages owned by the railway companies.
Since the 1950s or so, the flexibility has been gradually lost as trains become mostly fixed formations for speed, safety etc, so that certainly explains why it doesn't exist now in Europe.
Puts a smile on my face!
Are we the baddies?