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.

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runamuck 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

Any idea how much it costs to buy your own private train car?

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throwup238 7 days ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	bombcar 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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nemomarx 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Very interesting! I guess it would be unpopular for them to stop?