Can you buy your own train?
citylab.com
citylab.com
Even at a pokey 50-55 mph he could get to downtown Detroit 30-45 minutes faster than driving because of traffic congestion. He demonstrated that the demand was there. But sadly the railroads wouldn't even take a meeting.
But he was passionate too about the Detroit streetcar and made certain I rode them as a wee lad the last week before they were removed.
Sadly in Michigan the politicians keep announcing transit plans - Howell to Ann Arbor and Ann Arbor to Detroit but nothing ever happens. Somehow I think it will take an entrepreneur if it ever happens.
There's also Braess' Paradox to be aware of, which means that reducing congestion can actually INCREASE congestion. https://brilliant.org/wiki/braess-paradox/
My comment left the possibility of Brasess' Paradox open in the specific Detroit case, but practically speaking commuter trains are used by most major cities worldwide as part of a comprehensive transportation system. For many cities rail is among the most efficient subsystems of their transportation system.
For the most part, this all works smoothly. But the idea that you can just throw more trains on the tracks without impacting even their own traffic isn't seeing the big picture.
You could drive onto one of the flatbeds (from a ramp) in your car, then ride the train from center-of-a-state to center-of-the-next-state. After a brief layover (for cars to get off and new ones to get on) the train would depart for the next state.
It just seems like a decent way to enable medium-speed, long-distance travel. And wherver you went, you'd have your car when you arrived.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurotunnel_Shuttle
Flatbeds would be a bit risky, you can see in both this case and Amtrak's case they are enclosed cars. Apparently the Shuttle is one of the most comfortable rides in the world - as there are three layers of suspension (train carriage, carriage-vehicle mounting, and vehicle suspension) between you and the rails beneath.
I think this is a great solution. If the travelling takes too long, just do it overnight. So travel times from 9pm to 9am are actually quite convenient.
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.
edit: There's more!
https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7490-the_great_train_cyber_robbe... (and this one has English)
The phrase is "trap points". A correctly designed junction, where possible, will have points ("switches" if you're American) that default to leading to a dead end, with buffers and then nothing important. If you enter that track section without a signaller choosing where you should end up, that's what will happen.
The reason isn't for the implausible scenario of train theft, it's to reduce the consequence of errors. A wrong side signal defect allows a train into the junction without points being set - what happens? With trap points the train is derailed, probably at low speed, not directed into traffic. Or a driver misses a danger signal, same outcome. Expensive but probably everyone walks away.
I was quoted 7500 per day minimum. Plus staff, food, etc.
My trip would be Den -> San Fran the problem is the most realistic response from a charter company I got was based in Chicago! So you have to think about days to get to your location, plus the return. Plus your trip.
I've also really wanted to do a Belmond long trip but they book sooo far in advance and I usually dont book trips until a month or two out. Maybe I'll treat myself for a 2021 ticket for my 30th birthday lol
Significantly higher speeds made them pretty much obsolete.
While, for example, it used to take 7+ hours to get from Zurich to Paris (and artificially longer, if it was a night train) the trip now takes 4 hours by TGV.
(1)https://www.viarail.ca/en/explore-our-destinations/trains/ro...
Sleeper cabin for two - $3,450
Prestige cabin for two - $11,670
Toronto - Vancouver flight. $650 - Business class ticket.
You ride the Canadian sleeper from Toronto to Vancouver to ride the Canadian sleeper.
Not super comparable, imho.
You can get an "upper berth" sleeping ticket with meals for $968.50. Considering that's a 4-day sightseeing trip compared to a 4-5hr flight I don't think a $300 premium is outrageous, do you?
In fact, the cheapest business class ticket one-way I can find is $871. That makes the difference less than $100!
(In fact I am amazed that the prices are in fact comparable between a 4-day train trip and a 5-hr flight. Definitely something I didn't expect.)
[0] https://www.viarail.ca/en/deals/toronto-vancouver#select-des...
So to actually use both berths in your sleeper cabin for 2 is $3,522.22 including tax, etc.
If you only book as one passenger the rate goes down but not by half. It's still $2,641.94. Rates are based on full occupancy.
The trip was for my dads 70th birthday, and a long promised gift (He took me to Italy, Croatia and Bosnia where we almost got killed and the deal was I’d take him on a trip) so it was worth spending a little extra for the comfort.
The train had had two extra private cars tucked on to the end of it in Portland. When we looked at this particular train's schedule, we found that it started to fall behind schedule when it stopped to hook up those private cars (conductors confirmed this to us). That schedule gap started at 2 hours and grew to 5.
I know I'll never ride that Amtrak route again, and this experience soured me on all of Amtrak in general (except maybe for the NW Corridor - I know it's run differently).
We took the trip before the March 2018 memo that the article quotes: "These operations caused significant operational distraction, failed to capture fully allocated profitable margins, and sometimes delayed our paying customers on our scheduled trains ... one-time trips and charters are immediately discontinued." To us, that's too little too late, Amtrak's brand is ruined.
Just not sure why their brand would be ruined considering the one issue you had with the service was proactively resolved.
Autonomous luxury RVs will fill a bit of this niche, and at a much lower cost.
It costs him more than the entire train of passengers? $3.67/mile is insane.
That has a very, very, different connotation in American English.
It sounds like the name the scrap yard gives to the regular who always shows up towing doubles with a minivan.
>Manila's 'trolley boys'
> One way to travel in the Philippine capital, Manila, is by trolley. Passengers choose this unofficial transport service because it's quicker and cheaper than other options. For the homeless community that runs the illegal service, it puts food on the table. But it's also incredibly dangerous.
[1] My friend rented the private car at cost from a friend of his for a family trip from Miami to Chicago and back. It was not cheap, but it was a rolling hotel (porter and chef, four bedrooms (one for crew), bathrooms, lounge, dining room and kitchen).
https://www.amtrak.com/express-shipping
There's a 500-lb limit on each shipment, between more than 100 cities. An option for those not in a hurry, or who want to avoid driving the stuff.
The main restrictive thing, to me, is the list of prohibited items. Everything from stamps to watches to poles, perishables, office equipment (calculators, computers, printers, telephones...), medicine, liquids, furniture, mattresses, appliances, electronic equipment of any kind (explicitly mentioning TVs, radios, stereos...) engines, motorized vehicles, fragile articles... the list goes on.
I literally can't think of anything that would fit those requirements that would be large or heavy enough to need to be moved by Amtrak.
The European way is much less disruptive (the private train will fit in around whatever is already scheduled), though having to rent or own a locomotive and driver in addition to the carriage must be significantly more expensive.
I don't know about elsewhere, but in Britain there are fairly regular trips by private steam trains, or other old trains. A relative used to take these trips every few months.
People who aren't interested in the train itself can just rent an ordinary, modern train. Again in Britain, this happens for cases like a large group of football supporters (probably in the official fan club) who need to travel a long way for a match. Presumably, this isn't much different to hiring a bus with a driver.
They are all owned by different railroads vs the UK were they're all owned by one (formerly government) organization.
Here in the US, even if you could rent a locomotive and crew, you'd have to get permission from each individual railroad whose tracks you wanted to cross.
Reading the article and how dependent the whole thing is on Amtrak though makes me wonder if we're talking to the wrong railroad. The freight folks have a better system for building custom consists and sending them around the country.
More troublesome, though, are freight rail yards. They don’t have potable water hookups, wastewater disposal, or other passenger amenities. And they are notoriously dangerous at night. Drifters, break ins, no lighting... it’s no place for your family to sleep. Plus they are located on the outskirts of town, making disembarking difficult. Passenger rail yards accommodate for all of these issues.
The aspect of it that I found most interesting is how they solved engineering and manufacturing problems. These issues were commonplace in the heyday of steam, but few-to-no companies have the capacity or skills to complete them in the modern day.
It fun imagining what the equivalent will be for our generation. An iPhone which no-one knows how, or has the capacity, to recreate in less than 100 years!?
Edit: spelling
Googling the story does not turn up many results. Does anyone know if this is in fact true?
In an earlier episode Wittgenstein and Eccles, his friend from Machester, were planning to catch a train from Manchester to Liverpool. However, having missed the train, Wittgenstein suggested hiring an entire train to bring them to their destination. The plan was eventually dropped, but he still opted for a costly solution, namely hiring a taxi.
https://books.google.ru/books?id=yfeJH-1KcD8C&pg=PA44&lpg=PA...
Bing returned this HN thread and a link to the relevant part of Wikipedia article where this is also stated and "Portraits of Wittgenstein, Extracts from the Diary of David Pinsent 1912–1914" are referenced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#Sexual_ori...
Well there's your problem. Raise the price! You'd think a senior fellow at the Cato Institute of all places would have thought of that.
Can my railroad company, acquire all the land necessary to build a station on both sides and track between them and then start to fan out from there?
Besides the property owners who can stop me?
Lack of profitability.
Realistically, you need eminent domain, a frontier environment, or a super motivated population.
https://www.njherald.com/20171221/train-station-restored-rai...
That seems too cheap. For many routes and cars, if you even half-fill the car, you're paying less per person than you would for an ordinary ticket on that route.
It's probably doable though, there are some very short Class 3s with only a few employees that use small portions of Class I tracks and yards.
As you say, there may be short sections where this sort of thing could work but that's probably not what people looking to do long cross-country trips are looking for.
Amtrak used to carry US mail up until the late 70s and still ferries cars on some routes.
It could work if you are willing to travel slowly. Freight trains don't travel very fast (25/mpg ish), while Amtrak tries to go in 50/mph ish range.
This causes them a lot of scheduling trouble.
But if you are willing to travel at the same speed as freight it would be a lot easier to accommodate.
You can probably find statistics that give you a number that low (or even lower), but I think they include dwell time in yards, not just road time.
25 MPH is what I remember, with short bursts of faster speed.
It was much faster before we got stuck behind the freight.
PS. The statistics I found actually said current average is 20!!
- There are a lot of rail lines owned by different companies, Amtrak already has agreements with all of them. Depending where you're going, you might need to negotiate with multiple just to schedule your private trip.
- Given the risk of collisions between trains, rail lines are very unlikely to permit random schmucks to drive trains down their tracks. Who's going to give a private engine owner permission to do that? And who's going to insure it?
- The article talked a lot about the expense to get a plain old rail car certified for use on an Amtrak. I'd imagine in addition to the much costlier nature of the engine itself, certifying it might also be an issue. For long haul trips, are there any environmental regulations in play?
https://www.wsj.com/articles/dream-vacations-the-new-age-of-...?