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.

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1123581321 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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

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cjj_swe 7 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Puts a smile on my face!

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Henchman21 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Are we the baddies?