| ▲ | mplanchard 8 hours ago |
| You can pay Amtrak to haul your train car around[0], so you’ve just got to figure out a way to get the car from Switzerland to the US, and then you can really get around in style. [0]: https://www.amtrak.com/privately-owned-rail-cars |
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| ▲ | voidUpdate 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| Make sure you get one that matches American gauge and isn't one of the the meter gauge mountain trains |
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| ▲ | bluGill 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | gauge is likely easy to change. Not cheap, but Amtrak demands expensive inspections and refurbishment to run, so the cost of changing the gauge is likely fairly small compared to the other costs. | | |
| ▲ | elil17 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Off topic, but some trains can even change gauge while in motion: https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/kq6eds/this_is_how_... | | |
| ▲ | m4rtink 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This is actually quite a significant technical achievement - for example, a similar project in Japan failed. Japanese Railways wanted to build a train that can run at full speed (~300 km/h) on the standard gauge (1435 mm) regular Shinkansen lines but also use the narrow gauge (1067 mm) existing lines at slower speed. Those older lines would not have to be rebuilt for the Shinkansen standard & there would still be significant time savings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauge_Change_Train This failed to produce a viable train, resulting in falling back to track rebuilds or using relay trains that connect directly from Shinkansen to the local rail line on the same platform. | |
| ▲ | jeffrallen 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Swiss trains can, but while stopped. There's a station on the main line that loads full sized cars with tanks on them onto little bougies that take them up into the mountains for training. | | |
| ▲ | mahkeiro 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Swiss train can do it in motion, the post above is about the MOB train that can go from Montreux (meter gauge) to Interlaken (standard gauge). |
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| ▲ | user_7832 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not sure if it directly helps here, but multi gaage railway cars are a thing. Iirc on some European lines, the trains switch their gauge. | | |
| ▲ | dheera 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah some overnight trains can adjust their gauge on the France/Spain border. On the China/Mongolia border on the other hand they disassemble the train, lift the train cars up one by one (with passengers inside), switch out the boogies and then reassemble. 3 hour process, you can fully sleep through it and not notice. | | |
| ▲ | gpvos an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | For day trains as well, more often within Spain than on the border with France. | |
| ▲ | lostlogin 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If it’s taking 3 hours on a passenger train, a 5-10 minute transfer seems vastly more efficient. | | |
| ▲ | taschmex an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, but most people can't sleep through a train transfer | |
| ▲ | gpvos an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | On a night train such as the Transsib that takes several days to get from A to B anyway, being able to sleep through it and not needing to lug your stuff around is usually considered more important. (Although in some cases you are woken up for border formalities.) |
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| ▲ | retired 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s possible in The Netherlands to charter a private train. I have seen large companies do this for a company retreat. It’s not even that expensive. I remember it being €5000/hour which isn’t a bad way to move 300 employees to the other side of the country. |
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| ▲ | crote 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | All European railway operators are legally required to offer this, by the way: it's an open market, so (provided there is physical space) they have to allow anyone to run their own train. Normally this means freight trains, but it also means companies like FlixTrain can attempt to compete with the large national train operators - and of course it allows for one-off charters. The only downside is that preference is given to regularly scheduled services, and the remaining space is first-come-first-serve, so on the busier routes there's a decent chance you'll have to take a large detour instead, or sit in a siding waiting for a while. | | |
| ▲ | gpvos an hour ago | parent [-] | | The infrastructure operators have to allow anyone with a train operating license on their tracks, and such license is very nontrivial to acquire. Usually you would hire a train from a train operating company, and those companies are not required to rent out their trains - although several have been set up explicitly with that goal, of course. |
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| ▲ | kortilla 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Is there someone that does this frequently with a breakdown in costs and their experience? This sounds lit as a goal for an eccentric millionaire. |
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| ▲ | dabluecaboose 7 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There are clubs[1][2] of owners, and they'll generally rent them out to people. We looked into doing it for my bachelor party. Unfortunately, the cost is akin to renting a yacht for the same amount of time (On the order of thousands per day, minimum), so we quickly shelved that plan for an AirBnB. [1] https://www.aaprco.com/ [2] https://www.rpca.com/ | |
| ▲ | fineIllregister 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't have personal experience, but I've heard it's not viable. The biggest issue is that Amtrak offers the service on a "best effort" basis, which means that if the train you want to hook up to is running late (which this frequently are due to conflicts with cargo traffic), they won't hook your car up, and you have to wait for the next train, which also might not be able to hook you up. | |
| ▲ | bluGill 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There are a few clubs that have cars that do this for a club outing. Members pay a small amount of dues, but the largest cost is labor - you are expected to help rebuild their cars. Most of the club money seems to come from renting the cars out. The above is what I gather from reading their websites. However there is no club close enough to me for joining to be reasonable and so I didn't verify the above. | |
| ▲ | skinfaxi 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is a fee schedule available: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p... | |
| ▲ | mplanchard 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | If I ever get to be a millionaire, it’s certainly on my list! | | |
| ▲ | sailfast 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Buy a house first - then make another 20 million, then maybe consider this haha | | |
| ▲ | kirubakaran 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | "Mark, do you have live quite so relentlessly in the real world?" -- Jeremy, Peep Show |
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| ▲ | doe88 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Someone should definitely forward this to Kim Jong Un, maybe they also make a custom armored version. |
